All very well and good but, considering Ukrainian developments where is the space and power for the kinetic weapons? By the time the first river class is commissioned lasers should be coming into their own for close in defense.
Canadian River Class Destroyer Megathread
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Pipe dream. The energy requirements for lasers is significant. In order to achieve a quick and reliable kill, you need multiple lasers hitting the target from different angle to avoid "blooming" (the laser beam heats the air changing the air's density and causing the laser beam to difuse). So you'd need two lasers per target and a ship with an extremely high power generation capability. For a single laser, a slow moving and unhardened drone, sure, but a supersonic missile that is designed to be semi Armour piercing? Good luck.
Troopasaurus
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Lasers are being developed for the Type 26, If the Royal Navy can get them working then I imagine adding them to River Class would not be insurmountable. DragonFire directed energy weapon to be fitted to four Royal Navy warships by 2027 - Navy Lookout
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Sure we could figure it out and use it... For drones. Also, rain?
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If you identify the target as a Shahed type drone are you waiting/letting the 5" take care of it?
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Unfortunately I can't answer this question on this forum.
Seen here in this nice description and graphic:
The Royal Navy isn't the only player in town when it comes to DEW development for warships.
When the time comes, there are several vendors worth looking at.
Whatever system has the quickest kill-time when taking down drones or the like would be ideal.
But I also wouldn't be surprized to see a navalized version of a Leonitis-type directed microwave weapon system - intended to just fry swarms of drones all at once.
It's rapidly become a system I can see becoming pretty standard in the near future.
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The Greeks did. There's a hilarious article on it regarding their actions against the Houthi's where its obvious that they were just rollilng with big guns and EW shooting down drones. Basically makes fun of everyone else for using expensive missiles.
Its all very Greek though, they the are known cowboys of the Med.
Rainbow1910
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The Greeks really also didn't have many options available to them, considering how their frontline frigates currently/at the time only has the same 16 ESSM armament as the Halifax class.
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True, they didn't have many other options.
As we both know, (but others might not), you attack targets based on the circumstance.
So imagine you have a single drone coming in.
-Do you pull a Falklands ("tell the Harrier to back off, we will take the target with guns*" and then miss and get bombed when the Harrier would have guaranteed a kill)?
-Do you go no risk and unload with the appropriate number of SM2/ESSM to destroy the target?
With a multibillion dollar warship assuming its only a drone attack I'm doing option two. Take the threat out guaranteed.**
If there were multiple other threats, we had a lower magazine of missiles, and other factors then you start thinking about husbanding resources or saving those good AAW missiles for the scary ASW missiles/aircraft.
*to be read in a high class English accent
**that's my decision matrix, I don't know what the RCN decision matrix looks like
Rainbow1910
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Lasers and other DEW's are becoming more and more common aboard warships going forward however, I think they will only be a specialist supplemental capability and will not replace other hard/soft kill systems for quite sometime. Others users have went through the issues that lasers face, with their low line of sight range, issues with inclement weather, power consumption concerns, etc. You are looking at a specialist system that can potentially dazzle/destroy seekers aboard missiles and shred drones in a vacuum, although its entirely possible that missiles and drones will adapt to these systems with heat resistant features and coatings to make them less relevant. Another tool in the toolbox, but unlikely to be revolutionary.
Folks do not realize how far out that larger calibre guns can actually engage to as well, even without specialist ammunition or charges to boost said ranges. The US and many others have had pretty decent track records breaking drone attacks with proximity fused 5" ammunition originally designed to tackle craft like Iranian FAC in the Gulf. If you can confirm that a target is alone/not coming to directly attack you or is likely low capability, sure it makes sense to hold your longer ranged systems in reserve and engage at closer ranges with munitions. Circumstance is the problem, as its becoming trendy to throw a hi-low mix of systems at warships, where you could realistically see low capability Shahed style drones launched alongside anti-ship missiles and ballistic missiles in a coordinated strike meant to overwhelm or confuse the defenders.
It becomes a lot more stressful to identify and prioritize systems in these environments, especially when circumstances can confuse the capabilities of these weapons fired against you. Is that a Shahed with a radar seeking warhead, or is it just a dumb fired model? Is that ballistic missile just blindly fired in your general direction, or is it a model fitted with an anti-ship seeker? Do you let something go because it looks like it will miss, only to have it snap on a seeker and move to attack? Obviously there are limitations to some of these things happening, but it's a real threat to consider.
This is all ignoring soft kill capability though, as EW/decoy use can redirect/confuse threats before they get a chance to adequately attack your platform.
I do think something relevant other navies have been looking at doing is utilizing their shipboard helicopters as a mobile, forward line of defence for the ship against certain targets. USV's and lower end drone threats can be efficiently countered at much less risk to the ship and at lower financial costs utilizing cheaper, short ranged missiles like Martlet, JAGM/Hellfire and APKWS alongside various autocannon/machine gun based systems. The US and UK have already proven the viability of this model and while it does interfere with ASW duties of the helicopter, it helps shore up the ships defensive envelope significantly.
Lockheed Martin also developed the Advanced Off-Board Electronic Warfare system or AOEW, also known as the AN/ALQ-248 as a Seahawk mounted EW system to protect surrounding warships. It loops in with the SEWIP Block 2 AN/SLQ-32(V)6 aboard vessels like the RCD or works independently to provide an offboard, mobile EW capability to the taskforce. The system was ultimately not bought by the US, but it was completed and could be procured by somebody like Canada going forward.
Swampbuggy
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I’m still wondering if the 57 on a Halifax with its higher rate of fire is more or less effective than a 127 against these types of attacks. I mentioned before that once a RCD leads a TG, it’ll be party composed of a CPF or two. How will these two systems complement each other in these scenarios?
Rainbow1910
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The 127mm gun has substantially more range even with unguided ammunition, and said ammunition has a much larger payload capability to actually destroy the targets. 57mm guns have a far higher rate of fire and magazine capability however, it's more focused on closer range engagements and putting up massed fire.
