GarryB Mon Dec 20, 2021 7:41 am
Depends how long they want to operate at sea... initially they said it would be slightly heavier than the Mistrals at about 30K ton, but the government official quoted 40K which is a problem... is that standard weight is that overload weight... we really don't know.
I suspect they probably looked at all the new armour and new helicopters and all the new gear their naval infantry are likely to be getting over the next few years and made it heavier.
No one ever complained at a ship being too big, but a ship that is too small for the next upgrade is a common problem... more so on British ships ironically because they tend to make small modern missiles and weapons so when it comes time to upgrade the new system can often be just as small but they want more of them like a SAM or something.
In comparison with Soviet vessels they looked cluttered with all the electronics and sensors and weapons and equipment they crammed on and the new missiles and weapons are often smaller and lighter but also much better than the previous systems.
For instance Metel anti sub rocket powered missiles that dropped torpedoes on target like the Ikara Aussie missile is huge, while the 91ER1 that replaces it is better all round and much more compact and can be loaded and launched from a torpedo tube.
A 50km range 533mm torpedo gets replaced by a 400mm torpedo with a 20km range but a solid ballistic rocket that carries it 40km at mach 2, so the target gets less warning and the torpedo has a better chance for a kill.
The new electronics would free up loads of space for extra equipment and systems too because the older Soviet ships tended to be bigger than they needed to be with extra radars instead of sharing, so the SAM might have a radar and an anti ship missile system might have its own radar too and the ships main search and tracking radar and another radar for the large calibre guns...
Another aspect is that they talked about the new ships as having slightly different roles where one is a pure landing ship and the other has a more drone focus, which might be interesting... perhaps landing ship in the Pacific fleet for the Kuriles and also potentially for disaster relief in the pacific ring of fire... for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as well as storms and floods etc, while based in Tartus a drone focused ship with more special forces landing forces of high mobility with Typhoon rather than Kurganets or Boomerang type platforms and of course helicopters and hovercraft and landing ships and subs etc as well as drone aircraft and subs and surface ships...
Hopefully they will be a success and they make two of each that can be operated together to support each others operations... would be good to see it supporting Egyptian Mistrals in the Med...