Type 45 Daring Class Anti-Air Warfare Destroyers, United Kingdom

The UK Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyers are to replace the Type 42 destroyers, in service since 1978. Six ships have been contracted. The requirement was for 12 vessels of the class, but the UK Ministry of Defence announced in July 2004 that this would be cut to eight. The destroyers are to enter service by 2014.

A Full-Scale Engineering Development and Initial Production (FSED/IP) contract has been placed on BAE Systems Marine as project prime contractor. All ships are being assembled and launched at BAE's Yarrow, Scotstoun shipyard. Vosper Thorneycroft in Portsmouth is building the bow sections, masts and funnels for all six ships.

Production of the first-of-class ship, HMS Daring (D32), was begun in March 2003 and it was launched on 1 February 2006 at Scotstoun. It began first stage sea trials in July 2007 which concluded in August 2007. Second stage sea trials are due to commence in March 2008 and Daring is scheduled to enter service in December 2009.

Construction of the second, HMS Dauntless (D33), was begun in August 2004 and it was launched on 23 January 2007 and is to commission in 2010. First steel was cut for the third, HMS Diamond (D34), in February 2005 and it was launched in November 2007 and is to commission in 2011. The other vessels are HMS Defender (D35), HMS Dragon (D36) and HMS Duncan (D37).

The UK withdrew from participation in the tri-national Project Horizon / Common New-Generation Frigate (CNGF) programme for the UK, France and Italy, and the project was terminated in October 1999. The Type 45 programme is benefiting from work done on Horizon, for example the PAAMS weapon system and some of the internal architecture of the ship.

The destroyer's displacement is about 8,000t, the designed top speed greater than 27kt and the range of over 7,000nm.

MISSION

The main mission of the Type 45 anti-air warfare destroyer is to provide local area fleet defence, with long-range radar and wide area defence capability. The ship's combat systems also have the capability to control aircraft and coordinate the anti-air warfare operations of the task force.

The Type 45 is equipped with long-range weapon systems to intercept air threats including super-agile manoeuvring missiles with re-attack modes. The UK PAAMS will defend the ships from missiles approaching individually or in salvos and is capable of controlling a large number of airborne missiles simultaneously.

The Type 45 could also accommodate cruise missiles such as the Tomahawk and anti-ballistic missiles if a requirement was identified in future. The Type 45 will be able to operate a helicopter up to the size of a Royal Navy Merlin helicopter, but will initally operate with Lynx HMA.8 helicopters armed with Stingray torpedoes.

COMMAND AND CONTROL

BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies (Insyte) will supply the Combat Management System (CMS) and fast ethernet data transfer system for the destroyers. The Type 45 CMS will integrate the PAAMS missile system and control all sensors and weapons.

Thales Communications Ltd is leading the team, which includes Selex Communications, which will provide the Fully Integrated Communications System (FICS). Astrium (a joint venture of EADS and BAE Systems) has been awarded a contract to provide SCOT 3 satellite communications systems.

Raytheon Systems Ltd will supply the integrated navigation system, which includes Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS), inertial navigation subsystems and sensors including Raytheon Pathfinder navigation radars. Raytheon Marine GmbH of Kiel is the major subcontractor. RSL is also supplying the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems.

Northrop Grumman (formerly Litton) Marine Systems with Rockwell Automation will provide the platform management system. BAE Systems Insyte will provide the METOC (Meteorological and Oceanographic) system.

PRINCIPAL ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE SYSTEM (PAAMS)

The primary weapon system of the Type 45 will be the Principal Anti-Aircraft Missile System (PAAMS). PAAMS is a tri-national programme involving France, Italy and the UK. The contract for series production was placed in November 2003. The prime contractor is Europaams SAS, a joint venture company two-thirds owned by Eurosam (MBDA and Thales) and one-third by the UKAMS subsidiary of MBDA.

The missiles being developed for PAAMS are the Aster 15 and the Aster 30. The Type 45 will be able to carry up to 48 Aster 15 and Aster 30 missiles. The Aster missile carries an inertial computer with datalink, an active J-band Doppler radar seeker and 15kg warhead. The speed of Aster 30 is Mach 4, and the range is over 80km. The missile has manoeuvrability of up to 62g, achieved through the use of the EADS Aerospatiale PIF/PAF guidance system. Aster 15 has a speed of Mach 3, range over 30km and manoeuvrability of up to 50g.

While the French / Italian PAAMS uses the Empar G-band radar, the UK PAAMS has the BAE Systems Insyte Sampson multi-function, dual-face active array radar operating at E/F bands. Each face of the array carries 2,500 gallium arsenide transmit and receive modules, with an output of 25kW. BAE Systems has reconfigured Sampson to produce a near spherical design which retains the two arrays internally.

Modes of operation include long- and medium-range search, surface search, high-speed horizon search and high-angle search and track. Sampson uses digital adaptive beamforming which makes it highly resistant to electronic countermeasures. The The Sampson radar completed installation on the HMS Daring foremast in April 2007 in preparation for PAAMS integration in 2008.

PAAMS uses a DCN Sylver A50 vertical launcher with eight cells. The Type 45 will have six Sylver VLS. The command and control system will be supplied by UKAMS, although Thales Airsys will build some of the core elements.

GUNS

The ships will be fitted with the 114mm mk 8 mod 1 medium-calibre gun system for shore bombardment and two 30mm guns. There is provision for the installation of two close-in weapons systems such as the Raytheon Phalanx.

BAE Systems, teamed with Radamec Defence Systems (now part of Ultra Electronics) will provide the Electro-Optical Gunfire Control System (EOGCS).

SENSORS

Wide-area, long-range search is provided by the BAE Systems Insyte / Thales S1850M radar operating at D band, an enhanced version of the Thales Nederland (formerly Signaal) SMART-L. Raytheon Systems Ltd will supply the IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) system.

Ultra Electronics (with EDO Corporation of the USA) has been selected to provide the Type 45's Surface Ship Torpedo Defence (SSTD) system which includes the MFS-7000 bow-mounted medium-frequency sonar, a development of the sonar supplied by EDO to the Brazilian Navy. The system will provide automatic warning of a torpedo attack and tactical advice on ship manoeuvres and the deployment of decoys to defeat the threat.

COUNTERMEASURES

Thales Sensors (formerly Racal Defence) will supply the Type 45's Radar band Electronic Support Measures (RESM) system. The RESM is developed from Racal's Outfit UAT but with new signal processing and emitter identification technology.

The vessels will have the Royal Navy's Outfit DLH active naval offboard decoy system, which includes the Siren decoy, an expendable radiating decoy against radar guided missiles, from BAE Systems.

The destroyer will also be fitted with a Shaman Communications-band Electronic Support Measures (CESM) system. The COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) open architecture Shaman systems is being developed by BAE Systems C4ISR Networked Systems & Solutions (NS&S) for the Royal Navy surface vessels.

PROPULSION

The Type 45 will be powered by two WR-21 advanced cycle gas turbine engines with Intercooler and Recuperator (ICR) heat exchangers, which provide significant space and fuel savings. The recuperator recovers energy from the exhaust gases to increase fuel efficiency. Each engine will provide 25MW.

The engines will be built by a team led by Rolls-Royce and Northrop Grumman. Alsthom Power Conversion Ltd will provide other elements of the power and propulsion system, including the electric propulsion motors.

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