Sunday, April 08, 2012

LCS jacked up. Visby too small. How about Absalon?



The Absalon as an LCS replacement.  via Wikipedia.

General characteristics
Class and type: Absalon class flexible support ship
Displacement: 6,300 tonnes
Length: 137.6 m (451 ft 5 in)
Beam: 19.5 m (64 ft 0 in)
Draft: 6.3 m (20 ft 8 in)
Propulsion: 2 × MTU 8000 M70 diesel engines;
two shafts
22,300 bhp (16.4 MW)
Speed: 24 knots (44 km/h)
Range: 9,000 nmi (17,000 km) at 15 kn (28 km/h)
Boats and landing
craft carried:
2 × SB90E LCP
2 × RHIBs
Complement: 169
Sensors and
processing systems:
Thales SMART-S Mk2 3D volume search radar
Terma Scanter 2100 surface search radar
Atlas ASO 94 sonar
4 Saab CEROS 200 fire control radars
ES-3701 Tactical Radar Electronic Support Measures (ESM)
Electronic warfare
and decoys:
4 × 12-barrelled Terma DL-12T 130 mm decoy launchers
2 × 6-barrelled Terma DL-6T 130 mm decoy launchers
Seagnat Mark 36 SRBOC
Armament: 1 × 5 inch (127 mm)/54 Mark 45 mod 4 gun
7 × 12.7 mm Heavy machine gun
3 × VLS with up to 36 RIM-162 ESSM/RIM-7 Sea Sparrow (Mk 56/Mk 48 VLS)
8-16 × Harpoon Block II SSM
2 × Oerlikon Millennium 35 mm Naval Revolver Gun Systems CIWS
MU90 Impact ASW torpedoes
4 × Stinger Point-defence SAM
Aircraft carried: 2 × EH-101[1] or 2 × Westland Lynx
Aviation facilities: Aft helicopter deck and hangars

This ship my friends is damn near perfect for what I see as the future of Naval Warfare.

Imagine taking your fleet of these ships and instead of making them all multi-mission, have a certain number specialize in a particular form of warfare.

You would theoretically have one squadron designated as pure frigates to operate with the fleet...another squadron to assist in Special Ops missions...another for Riverines...Amphibious Ops...etc...

Instead of buying a whole slew of mission modules you'd buy X number for each squadron to fit their specialization.

And don't hit me with the not built here.  Lockheed Martin, Northop and others can build it in their ship yards!