[Skybird]

Checking its weapons, which are quite limited by current status and remain limited by possibility and/or intentions, I see that the only anti-ship capability is the 114 mm gun, the CWIS has been skipped, the older Phalanx not mounted so far, no land attack missiles, no ship attack missiles (Harpoon launchers were not mounted), no anti-submarine torpedoes but on board of the helicopter, and the arsenal of Aster anti-air missiles is limited to 48 missiles. In a missile exchange with an enemy flotilla or dedicated air raid, this ammount of weapons could get consumed extremely fast.

I assume it has good sensors, but beyond that I see this thing critical. The british navy says it wants to replace 11 destroyers with just 6 of these new ones. then you better make sure such a vessel does not get sunk - for when the fleet is so limited in size, every loss counts twice, if not three and four times.

Maybe I see it too amateurish, but a ship of that size should, I think, have a better punch to deliver, even more so when it should replace two older units instead of just one. My impression thus is that it is a an air defense platform and sensor platform, but anti-ship, anti-sub and anti-land combat capacities have been neglected. And for a ship of this high price, I think that is a bit too thin between the shoulders, or not?

the problem with forces composed of extremely expensive (and thus: limited in numbers) units is that forces are small, and that you cannot be in as many places as before, and ypou cannot afford any losses, whether it be by combat, or unlucky technical failure. There was a discussion in the 80s regarding this, concering the air forces of NATO and the WP. It was argued that the technologically better fighters of NATO would be able to compensate being outnumbered severely. Interestingly, many fighter pilots did not share this view. And I had two books on the matter where the authors, ex-pilots themselves, argued that such a comenpsation through better technology only works to this numerical relation- and not beyond, which is just common sense, I would say. Obviously, there were split opinions, between practitioners, and theoretical planners and politicians. and quite some people in the first group had their doubts that they would be able to compsnate the pressing numerical superiority of WP air fleets at that time, if there ever would be WWIII and an all-out war in europe taking place.

So, technological superioity can compensate numerical inferiority only to a given level, and not beyond this critical level of being outnumbered. Seen in this light, I wonder if the British really are having such a clever naval strategy anymore, with halving their destroyer fleet to 6 units by pointing out the new ships could spend 300 instead of just 230 days at sea per year. still, the number of locations and places of interest where they could be present at a given time, obviously is smaller.

Your views?