Alternatives? The Russians have their 130 mm gun on the Sov class DDGs.The IN /MOD now have no alternative but to just import the number required to complete the first batch of warships,with enough spares,etc. to last at least 5 years.Either 127mm guns from the western manufacturers or the Russian 130mm gun.But surely this issue should've been concluded at least 5 years ago? Designing a warship and getting it built takes at least 10 years.Does one have to award the tender for something as vital as thre main gun at the 11th hour?!
When the B-8s are also to arrive is a moot point.The delays in the follow on destroyers and frigates is symptomatic of the disease afflicting the MOD/DPSUs in general,poor planning and mismanagment.The services bemoan that fact that the lack of technical minds within the MOD who can understand defence issues and their technicalities,hampers quick decision making
The mainmast of the K class DDG looks frighteningly disproportionate to the rest of the warship.One wonders about the stability factor (which must've been tested for most stringently),and whether the mast is a lightweight structure featuring composites.
aturday, July 20, 2013
A new golden era for naval guns?
Modern, miniaturized guidance technology is making possible to turn cannon shells into high-accuracy effectors, with a great range and a cost much inferior to that of missiles. Missiles have never entirely replaced the naval gun because of their cost, and because they have significant difficulties in effectively engage targets at very short range. In addition, you can’t really fire warning shots with missiles. On the other hand, naval gunfire support was seen as a dying specialty until not so long ago. It was indeed the experience in Libya, with several thousand rounds expended against targets ashore, that really revived interest for naval guns.
It is fair to say that we are very possibly entering a new golden age for naval gunnery, thanks to the long-range, precision guided ammunition which is about to attain full technical maturity and enter service in the first few navies. It is a revolution in which Italy, though Oto Melara, has a big say. And it is a revolution that involves the Royal Navy, which plans to buy a new medium caliber gun system (including guided, long range ammunition), rolling it in service as part of the Type 26 Global Combat Ship package.
The Oto Melara 127/64 “Lightweight” gun and the BAE Systems / United Defense MK45 Mod 4 127/62 are the two contenders for the contract, which would likely expand, later on, to include a retrofit to the Type 45 destroyers as well, to enable the RN to keep its medium caliber gun logistics focused on one single type, as the old MK8 bows out of service.
Oto Melara is a key player in the new naval gunfire revolution as it produces those that, as of now, are the most innovative and advanced products in the sector: the 127/64 gun, the lighter 76/62 Strales, and the related guided ammunition, VULCANO and DART.
BAE systems replies with the ambitious 155mm Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP), developed specifically for the Advanced Gun System (AGS) mounted on the sole three ships of the DDG1000 Zumwalt class of the US Navy. More significantly, BAE systems has been recently working to validate a more exportable product which, like Italy’s VULCANO, is compatible with normal 127mm naval guns and 155mm land howitzers: this new ammunition is the Standard Guided Projectile (SGP) and it meant to fill the capability left by the cancellation of the ERGM (Extended Range Guided Munition) program.
The Oto Melara line
The 127/64 Lightweight and VULCANO ammunition
The 127/64 Lightweight is the most modern medium caliber gun in the world. It is being installed on the Italian FREMM General Purpose frigates and it has also been ordered by Germany for installation on the new F125 frigates.
The Lightweight is also being jointly offered by Oto Melara and Babcock for installation on the british Type 26 frigate.
The Lightweight gun system is in production since 2010 and has been first installed on the Italian FREMM-class frigate Carlo Bergamini. More than a simple medium caliber gun, the LW is a system which comprises the gun tower itself, the Automated Ammunition Handling System (AAHS), the VULCANO ammunition family and the Naval Fire Control System.
The 127/64 is the latest evolution of the older 127/54 COMPATTO gun which Oto Melara sold to several countries all around the world (Italy, Japan, South Korea, Argentina, Peru, Niger, Venezuela). The extent of the evolution is such, however, that it is fair to say that the Lightweight is more or less an entirely new system.
The 127/64 gun employs a 64 calibers barrel made of high-resistance steel alloys. It has a water cooling system and a pepperpot muzzle brake, while the stealth shield of the turret is realized in aluminum, lighter and cheaper than the Glass Reinforced Plastic used in previous models. The gun tower comprises a modular automatic feeding magazine with four rotating drums, each holding 14 ready-to-fire rounds, for a total of 56 shells.
The drums can be reloaded while the mount is in operation, allowing for the sustainment of extremely long bombardments. The drums can be manually reloaded by personnel lifting the rounds in position, or they can be refilled automatically by the highly mechanized AAHS magazine system. The auto-loader is equipped with a system that automatically recognizes each variant of the shells in the drums, allowing the quick selection, in any moment, of any kind of ammunition available. The ammunition flow is also reversible, so each round can be unloaded and exchanged right up until immediately before the firing.
The AAHS mechanized, automated ammunition depot is a wholly modular system which can extend over two or three decks into the ship. It is equipped with special “moles” which can take the rounds out of the storage boxes and bring them into the feeding drums of the gun mount. Again, the ammunition flow is reversible, so the rounds can also be brought all the way back, with little to no direct human intervention. On the FREMM frigates of the Italian navy, the AAHS is installed over two decks (deck 2 and deck 3) and can hold 350 rounds in addition to the 56 held in the feeding drums.
The 127/64 gun system is thus able to fire 30 and up to 35 rounds per minute. The Naval Fire Control System calculates the ballistic trajectories, programs the fuzes and, when the GPS-guided VULCANO rounds is used, sets up the GPS data before launch. It can be easily integrated via LAN onto any kind of Combat System, in a Plug and Play fashion. Thanks to the NFCS, the 127/64 is also very effective in anti-air role.
Images from the firing trials of the 127/64 of the FREMM frigate Carlo Bergamini. The first image shows the excellent capability of engagement at very short range, which can seriously ruin the day for suicide boats and similar threats.
The revolution, though, comes with the VULCANO family of long range projectiles. The VULCANO, differently from LRLAP, ERGM and SGP is not a rocket-propelled munition, but an under-calibre, rocket-shaped dart with a diameter of 90 mm. VULCANO employs a discarding sabot to be fired out of the barrel at extremely high speed while avoiding two of the main complexities of full-calibre rocket-propelled rounds: increased barrel wear and tear, and difficult deployment of the folding fins used for guidance. These problems, along with huge cost escalation, were the factors which killed the ERGM.
VULCANO is a steerable sub-munition with tail fins and canards. The submunition is the same in both the naval 127mm variant and in the land 155mm variant. The difference comes down to the sole sabot and launch charge assembly: the naval shell is an all-up round compatible with any NATO 5’’ gun, while the army variant is modified to employ land-specific modular launch charges.
The VULCANO family comprises the BER (Ballistic Extended Range) variant, which is not guided and only has fixed winglets: it uses aerodynamics and ballistic trajectory to extend its reach to 70 km, and it is useful for a long range bombardment in which pin-point accuracy is not needed.
The most interesting VULCANO variants are, however, the Guided Long Range (GLR) ones. These include:
- GPS / Inertial Navigation System
- GPS / INS / Semi Active Laser
- GPS / INS / Infra-red Imaging
The GPS/INS/SAL round variant was originally to be developed only for use from land 155mm howitzers, but when Germany entered into the VULCANO program, they pushed to develop it for the 127mm naval guns as well. The industrial agreement giving the go ahead to this development was signed in the summer 2012 during Eurosatory. Oto Melara supplies the projectile, while Germany’s Diehl supplies the miniaturized, shock-resistant Semi-Active Laser seeker. The VULCANO is, effectively, a tri-national program which sees Italy, Netherlands and Germany co-funding the development.
The addition of a SAL seeker to the GPS and inertial navigation guidance makes this variant of the round extremely accurate. With external laser designation of the target, it can engage with high accuracy even moving targets.
The GPS/INS ammunition is mostly suited to use against fixed targets, whenever high accuracy is needed to reduce the risk of collateral damage. The Circular Error Probable for this round variant is inferior to 20 meters. This is possible thanks to the steerable canards and fins which guide the ammunition on the target with a near-vertical descent, which maximizes both accuracy and lethality.
The addition of a SAL seeker makes the VULCANO capable to engage small, fixed, moving and relocatable targets (including vehicles and small boats) with extreme accuracy, with a CEP reduced to a handful of meters. The Semi Active Laser seeker guides the shell on a target illuminated by an external laser marker, which could be “painted” on the objective by a UAV or by observers on the ground.
The IIR seeker is instead meant primarily for anti-ship role. This variant of the round is in fact produced only for the 127mm naval guns. Targeting enemy ships on the open sea is a complex job, and it might be very hard, if not flat-out impossible, to have a third party observer marking the target with a laser. The anti-ship VULCANO is meant to be fired over the area where an enemy ship is known to be sailing, and engage the target on its own.
The ammunition is thus programmed to enter a descending trajectory already a few miles before entering the target area, allowing the built-in IIR seeker to scan the surface of the sea to detect and track the heat signature of the enemy vessel. Once the target is located, the maneuvering round will pursue it, using its canards and fins to steer to compensate for the enemy’s evasive maneuvers.
Much cheaper than an anti-ship missile, the VULCANO IIR is much less deadly, taken singularly, since its warhead is much, much smaller. However, a dart as small and fast as a VULCANO is considerably harder to detect, track and engage with hard-kill defences such as CIWS guns and missiles. Besides, a big number of guided shells can be fired in very short time against the same target, saturating its defences and inflicting deadly damage with multiple hits.
VULCANO rounds employ a microwave fuze called 4AP (4 Action Plus) which offers detonation on impact, proximity, time or airburst, with the possibility to program before the launch the height over the ground at which the round will explode to pelt the target with pre-fragmented slivers.
The advanced fuze, the high accuracy and the modern pre-fragmented warhead compensate for the much smaller payload carried by the sabot-discarding dart, ensuring an adequate lethality.
In terms of useful range, the VULCANO BER round offers a 60 km reach when fired from the old naval 127/54 or from land howitzers in caliber 155/52 (fired by a shorter 155/39 barrel, as mounted on the British Army’s AS90, the value would be inferior). Fired from the 127/64, the range is around 70 km.
The GPS/INS and GPS/INS/SAL will fly 120 km if fired by a 127/64, reducing to around 100 km when fired from the shorter barrels of the 127/54 and of the 155/52 howitzers employed on land.
The anti-ship ammunition has shorter legs, since it begins to descend from its ballistic trajectory much earlier than the other variants, to enable the IIR seeker to find the target. A warship will be engaged at around 70 to 80 km.
