Sea Ram To Be Tested by British Destroyer York

By ANTONY PRESTON

Antony Preston, a London-based naval analyst and broadcaster, is co-founder of the international newsletter NAVINT.

The U.K. Royal Navy (R.N.) has given approval for a trial installation of Raytheon’s Sea Ram Inner-Layer Defence System (ILDS) on a Type 42 destroyer. Sea Ram is the low-cost evolution of the Mk15 Phalanx close-in weapon system (CIWS) into an autonomous Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) ILDS. This first-ever Sea Ram trial will be undertaken next year by HMS York.

Five companies from Europe and the United States—including Raytheon, RAM-System GmbH (RAMSYS), Devonport Royal Dockyard Ltd., Hunting Engineering Ltd., and Pilkington Optronics—have formed a transatlantic consortium to pursue the next step in the evolution of ship defense for the Royal Navy. Raytheon’s U.K. subsidiary will serve as the prime contractor, and the consortium will draw upon the various strengths of the member companies to establish a strong industrial base in Europe for the Sea Ram program.

Sea Ram will retain the autonomous nature of the Mk15 Phalanx while combining its best features with proven RAM missiles to develop an ability to engage multiple targets at greater ranges. In essence, the Phalanx 20mm "Gatling" gun will be replaced by a RAM launching container holding up to 11 missiles, which can be fired either singly or in a sequenced salvo.

The Royal Navy first acquired Phalanx during the 1982 Falklands conflict to counter the Exocet antiship missile threat. Since then the R.N. inventory has expanded to 36 systems, which have been subject to only minor upgrades during their service lives. The Royal Navy now has a need to examine ways of improving CIWS perform-ance to meet the more complex antiship threat now emerging.

Sea Ram offers a significant upgrade to Phalanx, building on existing assets through the incremental acquisition and insertion of technology. The York demonstration will give the Royal Navy the opportunity to work with industry on developing the system, but with no current formal commitment to buy.

Live firing will not be carried out, primarily because sufficient missile-performance data is already available from the records of more than 150 RAM firings that resulted in greater than 95 percent success. Reports from the U.S. Navy suggest that the latest version of RAM has achieved impressive kills against Russian supersonic terminal-maneuver missiles.

Raytheon Company is the prime contractor for the Phalanx CIWS and continues to serve as the design authority for the U.S. Department of Defense and 20 navies, including the Royal Navy, throughout the world. Raytheon’s Missile Systems unit in Tucson, Ariz., has an equal partnership with RAMSYS in Germany to design, develop, and produce the RAM system, and the partners are now jointly developing Sea Ram.

RSL and the Sea Ram U.K. consortium will be responsible for the U.K. demonstration and for the system’s potential introduction into R.N. service.

NATO’s Sorbet Royal Tests Submarine Rescue Capabilites

NATO started Exercise "Sorbet Royal 2000" on 4 September, just three weeks after the Russian submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea, killing all 118 of her crew.

Lt. Cdr. Ali Cekic, commanding officer of the Turkish submarine TCG Sakarya, said that, if his boat had plunged to the bottom of the Mediterranean, which reaches nearly 10,000 feet at its deepest, there would have been virtually no chance of survival. The U.S. Navy’s Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles (DSRVs), NATO’s most advanced submarine rescue vehicles, have an operating depth of 5,000 feet. Cekic pointed out, though, that his submarine has a maximum operating depth of 825 feet. "Everything depends on the depth," he said. The Sakarya played the role of a bottomed submarine in the exercise.

In the event of a submarine accident, NATO currently must alert its member countries to assemble as many rescue vehicles as possible for the time-critical rescue mission. On 5 September, the Sakarya’s hatch was marked with white paint to render it more visible for the DSRV Mystic (DSRV 1) to mate with it.

The Mystic, which operated from the Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Dallas during Sorbet Royal 2000, can carry 24 survivors in a single trip.

Escaping unaided from a submarine is possible in any case at a maximum depth of just over 600 feet; at depths greater than that escapees are exposed to extreme, and probably fatal, water pressures.

Sorbet Royal 2000, the fourth such exercise, involved: (a) a search for a submarine in distress; and (b) the rescue of survivors from a bottomed submarine—at a depth of 480 feet—by using a minisubmarine, submarine rescue chambers, and/or atmospheric diving suits. The exercise, which lasted until 13 September, was scheduled long before the loss of the Kursk. In addition to the Dallas, four submarines from Turkey and Italy participated in the exercise. Israel, Argentina, Chile, Singapore, and Sweden sent observers.

On 25 August, coincidentally, the U.K. Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) issued an invitation to tender for a NATO Submarine Rescue System (NSRS), with full logistic and operational support, to replace current capability by 2005. DPA said it hopes to procure at least one NSRS, but possibly more. Under a memorandum of understanding signed by France, Norway, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, the DPA will lead the project. The project-definition phase is expected to start early next year and run until the spring of 2002.

Budget Cuts Threaten Norway’s Small Combatants

The first of the Royal Norwegian Navy’s updated missile boats, KNM Stegg, will start acceptance trials this month. The 20-year-old missile-armed fast attack craft (FAC) is the first of 14 Hauk-class vessels to be fitted with the French SENIT 8 combat management system (under a contract signed three years ago). The Stegg has been refurbished and modernized at the Umoe-Mandal shipyard (formerly Kvaerner Mandal) in southern Norway.

The SENIT 8 system uses core software developed by the French official design bureau Directions et Constructions Navales (DCN) and application software from Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace (KDA). DCN’s marketing arm, DCN International, secured the contract, which includes a high-value option to equip the new Skjold-class surface-effect FACs. Both classes of FACs are scheduled to be equipped with the SENIT 8 combat management system and the new NSM antiship missile.

Despite this promising start the program is under a cloud created by the publication earlier this year of the Defense Analysis Plan 2000, which recommends retiring the Hauk-class FACs and canceling plans for production variants of the Skjold. Approval of that recommendation would be a severe blow to both KDA and Umoe-Mandal, which hope to install the new NSM missile in place of the existing Penguin Mk2s with which the Hauk-class FACs are equipped. Presumably, DCN International would be entitled to significant compensation for curtailment of the order. KDA, DASA, and Umoe-Mandal’s hopes of exporting the advanced technology embodied in the Skjold design and NSM also would be seriously affected.

Kockums Wins New Order for Submarine AIP System

Kockums has received an order from the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration (FMV) for continued development of its Stirling Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP) system. The order, for the Stirling Mk3 development project, is worth $4.9 million. Completion is scheduled for the end of June 2002.

The Stirling Mk3 system is intended for installation in the 10 next-generation conventionally powered submarines that will comprise the pan-Nordic Viking project, a joint venture among Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The Stirling system already is in service on four Royal Swedish Navy submarines, and is being backfitted in two more. Phase 1 of the Stirling Mk3 order was completed and submitted to FMV last June, with excellent results claimed. The order includes an option for a third phase, which would extend the contract from 2002 to 2004.

The Stirling system, developed and improved by Kockums over many years, has generated considerable international interest and already has attracted several export customers, among them Japan, which is evaluating a land installation.

The use of an AIP system enables diesel-electric submarines to remain submerged for considerably longer periods than has previously been possible, but it does not function as the main power source. The Royal Swedish Navy said it plans to have the system installed in all of its submarines.