This is a game changer. Chinas advantage was always being in the theatre of interest and that it was out shipbuilding the US. If the US just quadruppled it's fire power then the slightly slower ship building won't be as dramatic.
I agree, but still urge you to be cautious about that way of thinking. I'm from the UK, our 'new' Type 45 destroyers are supposedly as effective as 4 destroyers from the previous generation, so the government in their infinite wisdom decided to build 4 times fewer Type 45's as then we'd still technically have the same capability. now they've discovered it's not that simple and things like lack of escorts for the carriers, rotations, maintenance, more area to cover with fewer ships etc. have a huge impact in your actual capability to fight, especially when the new ships are having teething issues and are out of operation more often. Quantity is a quality of its own
The only problem with this way of thinking is it goes against how modern warfare works having limited assets that hosts large amounts of firepower in my opinion is dumb especially if we plan on facing against a modern Navy like the Chinese who have anti-ship ballistic missiles anti-ship hypersonic missiles anti-ship drones anti-ship cruise missiles. I've never been in the Navy so I won't try and act like what I'm talking about but does it not make more sense to have many assets that hold a limited number of weapons versus a limited number of assets that hold the majority of your offensive and defensive weapons it seems to me my country is looking for ways to fix our shipbuilding problems without actually building more shipyards. While I'm very happy that we have a weapon that offers us more capability this doesn't change the fact that China is outbuilding Us in ships and quite frankly they're building ships that are nearly equally as capable.🤷🏾♂️ The way my civilian mind understands it America needs shipyards.
At 28 million per quad pack launcher, it remains to be seen how much this increases available firepower, you actually have to buy them first. The Navy likes wasting money on BS like LCS, Zumwalt, and the million dollar shells it was supposed to fire so we'll see if the Navy can find any change under the couch cushion. 28 million dollars per quad pack, I assume it'll replace $2 million dollar SM-2, because why replace SM3 or 6... Figure they replace 16 SM2 that cost 36 million, add 64 Patriot Pac-3... that would make a real difference in a fight. But it would cost over 400 million dollars per ship. So figure 47 Burkes and you're looking at ~20 billion. Worth it, force multiplier and all that... which is why I doubt it happens. Spend the money to get everything setup, work out the kinks, then don't fund the final product seems to be the modus operandi.
Why? A single PAC3 missile costs $8M, while China, Russia and Iran can build over 200 suicide drones and guided missiles for the same price. For the cost of ONE PAC3, The Houthis could launch enough drones and missiles to exhaust the entire AD battery of an entire US Carrier Group.
@@disco1974ever well, first off, a PAC-3 MSE Interceptor cost less than half of what you are stating. Secondly, PAC-3 MSEs are not used against Houthi rockets.
@@bryanhoppe1481yea but Russia has been doing for ever since missile technology there air defense for the navy is s300 400 and 500 missile for there navy they never really made a navy only air defense I think it much better having a missile design for the job it’s like having a handyman for plumbing gas electric roofing there okay but there not the best and you can tell look at Russia navy against Ukraine
I'm not expecting that we'll have the edge in quantities of anything. We have to avoid making the mistakes of Germany in WW II, with wonder-weapons defeated by T-34's. I hope we can have enough of a technological edge to win but they're very asymmetrical despite being a peer. They'll have the initiative and element of surprise. FBI Director said China has been very clear about using cyber-attacks on US civilian infrastructure *from the outset* to break the American will to resist. That's dirty. We have to be committed. We can win.
Both of my ships are Deep sixed, one sunk as target during RIMPAC, 12 July 2006, and the other sold for scrap on 9 March 1994. If that does not tell you how old I am nothing will.
Some correction. The PAC-3 MSE is not abled to be "quad-packed" in MK-41 cell, still one round per cell. The origin PAC-3 might do four-in-one, but not the enlarged/enhanced PAC-3 MSE. Lockheed Martin's original plan was developing a "folding wing" version of PAC-3 MSE that fitting two missile into one MK-41 cell, but this plan did not get a go ahead; The currently strategy is making a common PAC-3 MSE for both Navy and Army instead of custom-made. Despite that, PAC-3 MSE still have advantage in terms of space that it can be fit into shorter MK-41 tactical-length version, while SM-2 Block IV and SM-6 required MK-41 strike-length, which means PCA-3 MSE enable ASBM capability on smaller surface combat ships that only equipped with tactical-length version of MK-41.
I'm not really sure where you are getting your information on the specs of the PAC-3MSE. The MSE has an 11in diameter as opposed to the 10in diameter of the original PAC-3 but they are still quad packed on the patriot launcher there is even an image on the wikipedia page showing the difference. As for how they would fit into a MK41 that I do not know I haven't looked into it much but space wise 4 would 'fit' if a canister was designed for it to do so. Also every platform in the US navy that uses MK41 uses strike length cells so that argument is only applicable to some allied nations. The RAN's old perry class ships use self defense length while the Adelaide, Hobart, Anzac, and Hunter class all use Tactical length. To my knowledge every other Mk41 platform is strike length.
@@LordOceanus A Naval News report on April 11th, 2023 talked about the earlier idea of PAC-3MSE "dual-packed" in one MK-41 cell (not quad-packed) which was revealed in IDEX 2015. However the demo in SNA 2023 was still one PAC-3MSE with the current Army configuration in a MK-41 cell. Modification like folding wing need approval of partners, but this is a feature that US Army doesn't need; if there is no folding wing, dual-pack or quad-packed won't happen. The title of this Naval News 2023 article is "Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Patriot PAC-3 MSE Update", you can easily google it (seems youtube does not allow to reply with the URL)
@@LordOceanus Quoted from this Naval News article on April 11th, 2023: "Naval News also inquired about the first instance of Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 MSE integration into VLS, which was seen during IDEX 2015. In an IHS Janes article, it was reported that with “a small amount of integration work” the missiles could be dual-packed into a single Mk.41 cell. However, at SAS 2023 and SNA 2023, the displays only showed one missile per VLS cell. While the Lockheed Martin representatives at SAS could not answer the 2015 comments, they did state why for this concept they went with only one missile per cell. “I think there’s a lot of studies of what you can do. Our big thing is to keep the missile the way it is. So you have to get into things like folding things and other stuff if you wanted to try to increase the capacity within one cell. What we want to do is work and partner together. So one missile comes off the line and can go to the Army, the Navy and it’s not unique to that to that it’s just one way to go.” Tom Cavanaugh of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control also commented on the decision for only one missile per cell, stating. “Yeah, if you begin to modify the design of the missile into a missile gap, and that’s cost prohibitive at some point. We’d rather invest in the development of the capability we have today to support the Navy and the Army at the same time. So I think that’s the best approach from there rather than redesigning the missile.”"
@@picardtseng Yeah they have thought it out it seems. I still think taking advantage of quantity and putting as many missiles as possible on the ship is likely to be the best plan in the long run but i totally understand the argument about keeping the production line streamlined to just 1 variant. If you modified a PAC-3 to allow for quad packing you'd basically have just made a smaller SM-2 which mind you is a great idea but at that point why not just make a stretched length ESSM?
A step in the right direction but costs have to come under control. I recently saw a video from a Chinese missile factory making cruise and anti ship missiles, they had rows of unmanned CNC machines being fed material by a huge pallet system with very high automation. The type of thing you usually only see in automotive and other high volume production. To me this is more scary then any hyped up wounder weapon that may or may not work.
That's the inherent downside of a fully capitalist system, the shipyards and weapons companies prioritise profits over the national interest, they just want money it doesn't matter if the USN ship numbers keep falling behind china because the US Govt would just keep their coffers full
Why exactly should that need to be solved. China is a sovereign nation correctly out to reclaim its rightful territory and to be boxed in navally by predatory powers that would love to carve it up and economically subordinate it. The US is a global bully frankly
@@aaravtulsyan They couldn't afford to keep huge production lines with most of them mothballed while also keeping the manufacturing technology up to date on the offchance that the DoD will one day place a massive order for missiles. The problem for the whole of NATO is endless rounds of cuts (less so in the US obviously) which have seen procurement numbers drop so low that in many cases manufacturing facilities can't be kept operating past the original short production run.
I went to the fire academy right across the street from the Lockheed Martin facility in Camden, Arkansas. It was pretty sweet. You couldn't really see much because of the trees but you can hear them testing the rocket engines ALL the time.
550 PAC-3 and 100-200 SM-3 isn't really that much; Ukraine would consume _a lot_ more than the 2-3 per day being produced if they had them, and a hot war between China or Russia with NATO would consume _vastly_ more than 2-3 per day. It's a pretty sweet upgrade, but the Army & any US allies are going to be also having heavy demand for those missiles to defend themselves against air, missile, and drone attack in any kind of war. The total production of munitions in the US and NATO needs to increase, not just ammo interoperability.
Correct. Stopping the recent Iranian missile & drone attack on Israel ate up hundreds of defensive missiles in just a few hours. In the Russo-Ukrainian war, both sides have already expended more air defence missiles than the entire production run of Patriot missiles to date. The US and NATO are not prepared to fight a hot war with China or Russia, their production capacity would have to go up by at least an order of magnitude, and that ain't happening anytime soon.
The Russia-Ukraine war has seriously depleted western stocks of 155mm rounds (and many other munitions). If there is ever a (land-based) US vs Russia or China, we'd be out of ammo really fast. The expected ammo expenditure rate in a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict was completely off the charts back in the day. Or a long-range missile attack against a carrier battle group by Soviet bombers - probably every surface to air missile would have been shot off. Doesn't look like anything has changed.
@@Kriss_L Peace dividend has come back and bite the west collective rear end. That being said, people has come to their senses and starting to rebuild the defense manufacturing capability.
As someone who worked on the PAC-3 program at LM for several years, i am impressed with the accuracy and quality of this video. Ive since moved on to the THAAD Interceptor but still love the PAC-3 missile. Great job from a new subscriber.
@@nietkees6906 What accuracy failures are you referring to? And, the MSE would be quad-packed in the VLS. On the Patriot launcher, you're correct, it's single stacked up to 12 per launcher.
@@bryanhoppe1481 No, it wouldn't be quad packed in the VLS. Dual packing could maybe work if they made foldable fins, but there are currently no known plans to do that.
Hey I'm from Magnolia which is 30 miles from Camden, AR! Never been real sure why...but there's *several* defense companies that have plants there...🤷♂️ lol. Love the channel!! Became a member recently and you're the first and only channel I've done that on and it's worth every penny Aaron!!!
Thanks Aaron, I was supposed to watch that CSIS talk but well, I got buried under work, thank you for making me aware of this. I appreciate it and keep up the good work
My carrier backed over the Leyte Gulf during work ops doing back full emergency. The TR went on deployment minus one CWIS. The cruiser needed over a year in the yard.
Please start bringing us some submarine briefs. This is what drew me to your channel. Especially the Soviet cold war subs. You could even dive into the older historical stuff from WW1 and WW2. You are the best content creator when it comes to this stuff so love the content regardless
Oh he still does all kinds of ship and sub briefs, he just charges for them now and has them behind a paywall. That’s why I don’t watch his stuff near as much as I used to. I just happened to catch this video
@@SubBrief he’s a CZcamsr who does short-form comedy, and some long-form informational videos. He’s also active duty and is an instructor teaching the operation of the Patriot system. His channel name is Habitual Line Crosser.
Production rate, Production rate, Production rate. Can’t scale up fast, and by fast i mean 6 months? Then you got problems. You could almost fit an entire years production on a SINGLE ship!
Unfortunately, the ship is going into the LSA status -" Logistics Support Assets (LSA) will be used as a primary means of cannibalization and equipment removal for ships. Cannibalizations and equipment removal from these vessels is authorized without replacement." Dated March 2024. Maybe that has or will change.
Don't worry. Missiles will be cheaper with advance in electronics. Your smartphone has more computing power than most of the modern missiles. Missile will be smarter and cheaper as time goes by.
@@youcantataLogically you would think so; but it doesnt really seem to ever work like that. However if/when an ACTUAL WAR (peer v peer) ever breaks out, all of a sudden missiles will start popping up at a fraction of the price. (Until then the Military industrial complex will have their slice of the pie)
That's the way the world is pretty much going I believe. With the enormous missile compliment they can carry they pack a huge punch. Smaller ships are cheaper to build and staff. Guns aren't really used to much for ship to ship. I'm pretty sure they can build cruisers if they want.
Honestly smaller more capable ships is the way to go. Especially since missiles are the weapons of the future. Spread out the load and reduce the impact of inevitable losses
The Burke's are not much smaller than the Tico's. The 3rd flight of the Burke's are going to weigh about the same as a Tico (Which were originally going to be called Destroyers).
One thing I wanna point out: Congress has been worried about the retirement of the Ticonderogas, and the drop in the total number of VLS tubes operated by the Navy. This solves that problem from what I can tell, allowing us to replace the Ticonderoga with the more technologically advanced Arleigh Burke and increase total missile capacity, whilst bringing cruiser level capability to the entire destroyer fleet. This could also be game changing for the Constellation class, potentially making these ships comparable to an older Arleigh Burke. So yeah, this is huge.
The value of VLS cells is directly proportional to the number of missiles you have to reload them with. The US Navy inventory of missiles isn't that big (open source info in the federal budget each year), and the Navy has been shooting a few in the Red Sea recently.
actually, it's not. you still have fewer ships. this won't increase the number of ships which is key specially with china which already has more ships. carrying more missiles won't do much. specially against threats like DF-41s. and PAC 3 MSE is a really bad choice when you have much better and cheaper PAAC-4s.
We should have South Korea build us a couple of dozen Sejong the Great class destroyers and fit them out with 128 US style VLS plus some box launchers. Could put some cruiser like command centers in them and otherwise features similar to Alreigh Burke flight III. The US ship yards are struggling to put out enough destroyers and there is a shortage of skilled labor and suitable facilities. Korea is extremely capable at building large vessels quickly and at low cost. US manufacturers would still be supplying most of the internal components. Vessels like this would be more capable overall than the Ticonderoga class cruisers with better radars and more firepower. South Korean shipyards could deliver the hulls for fitting out in an extremely short time frame.
Thats crazy 4 patriots in one cell is a game changer for air defense. I hope Canada opts for it in the new frigates when they arrive. Excellent content love it thanks for your hard work. Calgary Ab
Aegis and Patriot? It's like wow, this chocolate bar sure is good, but do you know what would make it better? Wow, another chocolate bar! Two of a thing I like, together!
How does THAAD compare to any of the SM’s? Also would the iron dome be useful on a ship or is the range to short or can it no effectively target threats to ships?
I'm interested in know what change the vertical launcher might make in its engagement envelope or range. Maybe none since the mark 41 are already built for hot launches.
Are you sure they are quad packed? Last I read, they are single packed and, with still to be authorized fin modifications, they were expecting to double packed them only.
These new developments are great. I still think we need to double our manufacturing capability across the board, from high tech missiles to artillery shells. The 127mm, 57mm, and other gun type weapons will be essential in a full scale war, which is not entirely up to us to decide on.
Question: If a VLS cell is 'dual pac' or 'quad pac' - does this mean each missile can be fired individually - or do 2 / 4 (respectively) need to be fired at the same time (albeit at different targets) ?? Thanks.
DO you think Mine warfare ships are obsolete due to drones? Meaning, will they be going the way of the old battleships? Just curious as to your thoughts on the matter
Couple questions here Are they quad packed so that they can hold 4 in a launch cell What is the production rate for these? Are we producing them in sufficient quality and. rates so that we have adequate stockpile on hand, instead of waiting years for inventory to catch up as usual? Missiles do take a long time to produce, it's not like making rifle ammo which takes less than a second to make
A while back I saw an AEGIS cruiser in port on the way in to work. A few days later I realised it was in the dead fleet and decomissioned. That made me feel old. The I looked it up on-line and found out it was from the second round of decomissionings. That made me feel real old.
Hi! Can you please turn up the audio volume on your videos just a little bit? I have my device volume maxed and i always have just a little trouble hearing you. Love your great videos!
Russia been doing it for years the never really made a air defense missile just for the navy the use the s300-400-and500 missile platform I actually think the layer defense is way better cause it’s like a handy many they do multiple jobs plumber electric roof and sometimes there good at one job or they just make things work but not to perfection like a person that does that one job for a living look at Russia they never really been able to test the missile on sea like they have been on land and even now there coming with problems cause they haven’t experienced a certain situations and the is navy does have a system for balistic missiles for the navy and I think there layers system is way better cause we can make a spicifc missile for short long hyoersoinc and drones and much more for the specific job and it could do it way better yes the cost is more but what's the cost you but on human life
Very true on the ESSM but my comment was more aimed at if they need something which can reach out further than ESSM... It's a good upgrade without dipping into the SM stocks and being able to quad pack makes it extremely useful...
@@hmmjediyeah but the pac-3s can’t be quad packed, they talked about it in 2015 but would have had to have put folding fins and other modifications into it. Instead they went with a standardized approach to streamline the production between Army/Navy so there’s not a specific version for each branch and that way any missle coming off the line can go to either service so they did away with the quad packing idea long ago
This is great news. You hear a lot about "Force Multipliers" in military jargon, this is a true force multiplier. Especially with recent events in the middle east where cruisers and destroyers are having to deal with large volumes of one way drones, cruise and ballistic missiles coming out of Yemen, the ability to quad pack an effective and solid ranged interceptor makes these platforms so much more flexible and effective. This is exactly the kind of innovation we need right now from our defense industry to get the most out of the hulls we have available
Bringing PAC-3 MSC onboard US Navy ships still required slight hardware change, mainly integrating its C-band data link onto shipborne systems (Standard and ESSM support S/X bands uplink)
Ok I'm getting confused with some of the comments so which Patriot PAC 3 missile are you referring to? and what Mk 41 VLS system the strike version only or tactical and strike versions.
In somewhat related news, there have been sightings of a Super Hornet flying around carrying a SM-6 mounted under its wing. This was a naked missile, no sign of a VLS canister.
HIMARS is a Lockheed Martin product so they could make that work. An actual HIMARS was fired from the USS Anchorage as a test at some point. The question is would it fit in the VLS container and would it be a useful replacement for something?
Would there be any reason that the Destroyers can't fire off land based Patriot batteries using their Aegis systems while the Army radars are off? Effectively having a hard to hit mobile system? Especially with island campaigns being envisioned.
I don't see how they will quad pack them. The PAC 3 has a diameter of 10 inches while the largest SM6 is 21 inches. There is only 4 foot difference in height between the SM6 and the PAC-3 at 17 feet and 22 feet long. The MK-41 cells are 25 feet long so I can see dual packing a MK-41 cell but not quad packing it.
@@tbe0116 I had to look it up and you are right. Holy crap, if you had 10 cells of ESSSM and 10 cells of PAC 3, that is 80 missiles for use so you can save you SM-6's for the most high valued targets.
@@jintsuubest9331 Yes, you are correct, I was wrong. I wonder how many of these could be fit in a Virginia Payload module? That thing can hold something like seven tomahawks.
Small digression here (and quite personnal)... By watching you SITREP videos on China, during a conference i got last week with Pr. Eldridge, we came to similar conclusions as you got in your videos ! The guy more or less say the same you say since years ! When you know the pedigree of that guy, it's a compliment to your good analysis !
This is great news, but.... Only 500 or so missiles are produced each year and there are a ton of customers for them. We need to make many more times that to be able to have our Navy equipped with a good war fighting capability.
Can someone give me a clue as to just how much better a Patriot is compared to an ESSM? Also, what is the cost and annual production relative to ESSM as well?
5:58 96 VLS cells and still not enough missiles! Germanys next generation Frigate 126 will have 16 VLS cells at 10500 tonnes weight and a planned unit cost of €1.37 billion... Yeah, that sounds about right.
Great report. Finally, someone is dealing with the limited ammo issue. The Phalanx is great, for what, 3-4 min? They then must "leave the combat area" to reload. They have improved it greatly, but still, I fear a real swarm attack...
I am interested in what the F35 sees and feeding to the picture and the pac 3 giving little to no warning at impact phase that is launched from VLS cells in the fleet whether its a tico, burke or the future constilation, imagine a constilation with this, it quadruple its payload potential instantly
The range quoted was against ballistic missile specifically. The interceptor needs to match the speed of the target in the same order of magnitude, and maybe even exceeded a little bit. ballistic missiles even in the mid-phase are going significantly faster than fighters. the intercept point for ballistic missiles is also at a significantly higher altitude, and going the same distance up is always harder than going the same distance across. Both of these mean that the missile has to burn a lot more fuel a lot quicker for that type of target. Or more simply, the amount of energy required to match the flight characteristics of a BM Target is significantly more than even that to try to follow around a maneuvering fighter.
Interesting that the Patriot will now be coming out of a vertical launch tube, like the S-300 family. Does anyone have any comments about the potential of this?
You dont retire a piece of gear, equipment, or a vehicle unless you have something built or being built to replace it. When you just rush to decommission stuff(saying it will save money) without an actual replacement, you end up losing capabilities. A perfect example of this is the space shuttle, it was retired with no replacement.
Yeah, I've heard of this earlier, what's intriguing is that the 2 systems (Patriot vs. Aegis) use different search and targeting radar frequencies (C vs. S+X band), different guiding system (TVM vs. semi-active), I guess the later only needs some software and/or hardware patches, the former issue....uhm, Raytheon changed the seeker onboard the missile? In case you do not know yet, actually US Navy and Army is the only example, that 2 services adopt totally different area air defense missile systems, all other nations have common platform for land and sea (sometimes even air), e.g. S-300V(land)/S-300F(sea) (and Chinese licensed copy HQ-9/HHQ-9), Aster(land/sea)/MICA(air), MR-SAM(land)/LR-SAM(sea) US Navy had Sparrow which is tri-service common platform, but since it evolved into ESSM (and Sparrow replaced by AMRAAM), the commonality was gone
Quad packing is very important to other countries that do not have 96 Mk 41 VLS cells. Many have like 32 or 48 cells for newer designs, while many older ones have only 16 cells.
Glad to see the navy integrate a land system, im sure its cheaper than starting from scratch. Im guessing the pac 3 is just a temp fill in right? the navy has a few missiles in the works now. so im curious if this is just a stop gap. Also i would love to see the navy slap an extra pac3 launcher unit on the outside of the ship, to add to the vlss. because china would be sending hundreds upon hundreds of missiles towards our ships. we need all the launch capability we can get. But yes this is huge. huge. good job navy.
All upsides here. The Patriot PAC3 uses active radar homing for its terminal phase versus semi-active radar homing of the SM-2 and ESSM block 1, has twice the range of the ESSM and can be quad packed like it, and it could replace the aging SM-2's and complement the SM-6. Plus production could be scaled up to reduce the per unit cost when compared to the SM-2 (at today's dollars)
If they want cost savings, they could also integrate PAAC-4 SkyCeptor which are much cheaper less than 1M USD if I'm not wrong. It also has more range however only 2 -3 can fit inside a MK 41 VLS canister theoretically.
Does it completely outclass the ESSM in terms of all capabilities, cost not withstanding, or does the Sea Sparrow have greater maneuverability against small targets?
@@Laotzu.Goldbug The Patriot PAC 3s have proven quite effective against small fast and maneuvering targets in Ukraine. Plus Active radar terminal guidance is preferable because it doesn't require an external radar to illuminate the target during its terminal phase.
@@Laotzu.Goldbug PAC-3 is like AIM-9X with its own style of thrust vectoring control TVC. Only difference it uses 180 tiny pulse solid propellant rocket motors mounted in the forebody of the missile called Attitude Control Motors instead of a vectoring nozzle. So its the most maneuverable SAM out there.
Cost exchange rate is the game we must concentrate on. The ESSM only goes about 20nm so we have a 40 mile path we can protect. With a Python-V derived surface-to-air missile with a booster can travel 50nm and cost a lot less.
I am one of those naysayers about the Patriot missile though it has improved much more than I thought it would . Nothing is perfect and anything can be overwhelmed with numbers .Today fewer do get through . Your Patriot got stuck in my peanut butter .
When you mentioned, “These ships don’t have to come back as much for reloads,” does that mean no underway replenishment is VLS missiles? Also, my mind boggles at my unrefined concept of just how many Patriots we need to produce in order to adequately supply our armed forces, as well as our allies. Thanks as always for your superlative videos!
A question can someone answer please? Is this missile called the Patriot PAC-3 MSE missile? if so, this seems to be a dedicated almost entirely anti-ballistic missile mission set with a hit to kill capability. Does it have a capability to intercept aircraft and low manoeuvrable stealthy anti-ship cruise missiles? Note: The current build of the SM3 missile with over 1200km range and SM6 missile with a 370km range take full advantage of the entire dimensions of the Mk41 VLS Strike cell in height and diameter and they do have a far better interception ranges. ESSM missiles are more of a medium range missile with over a 50km range, hardly a point defence missile with ranges approaching the old SM1 and far exceeding the old Sea-Sparrow missiles they replaced. RAM missile seems to make the current point defence missile.
This is a game changer. Chinas advantage was always being in the theatre of interest and that it was out shipbuilding the US. If the US just quadruppled it's fire power then the slightly slower ship building won't be as dramatic.
100% correct. You understand how pivotal this is.
I agree, but still urge you to be cautious about that way of thinking. I'm from the UK, our 'new' Type 45 destroyers are supposedly as effective as 4 destroyers from the previous generation, so the government in their infinite wisdom decided to build 4 times fewer Type 45's as then we'd still technically have the same capability. now they've discovered it's not that simple and things like lack of escorts for the carriers, rotations, maintenance, more area to cover with fewer ships etc. have a huge impact in your actual capability to fight, especially when the new ships are having teething issues and are out of operation more often. Quantity is a quality of its own
China's advantage
"lol, lmao even." - US M.I.C.
The only problem with this way of thinking is it goes against how modern warfare works having limited assets that hosts large amounts of firepower in my opinion is dumb especially if we plan on facing against a modern Navy like the Chinese who have anti-ship ballistic missiles anti-ship hypersonic missiles anti-ship drones anti-ship cruise missiles. I've never been in the Navy so I won't try and act like what I'm talking about but does it not make more sense to have many assets that hold a limited number of weapons versus a limited number of assets that hold the majority of your offensive and defensive weapons it seems to me my country is looking for ways to fix our shipbuilding problems without actually building more shipyards. While I'm very happy that we have a weapon that offers us more capability this doesn't change the fact that China is outbuilding Us in ships and quite frankly they're building ships that are nearly equally as capable.🤷🏾♂️ The way my civilian mind understands it America needs shipyards.
At 28 million per quad pack launcher, it remains to be seen how much this increases available firepower, you actually have to buy them first. The Navy likes wasting money on BS like LCS, Zumwalt, and the million dollar shells it was supposed to fire so we'll see if the Navy can find any change under the couch cushion. 28 million dollars per quad pack, I assume it'll replace $2 million dollar SM-2, because why replace SM3 or 6...
Figure they replace 16 SM2 that cost 36 million, add 64 Patriot Pac-3... that would make a real difference in a fight. But it would cost over 400 million dollars per ship. So figure 47 Burkes and you're looking at ~20 billion. Worth it, force multiplier and all that... which is why I doubt it happens. Spend the money to get everything setup, work out the kinks, then don't fund the final product seems to be the modus operandi.
That is seriously the best news about our Navy I've heard in years. Fantastic.
@@bjorntorlarssonWhat are you talking about?
Why? A single PAC3 missile costs $8M, while China, Russia and Iran can build over 200 suicide drones and guided missiles for the same price.
For the cost of ONE PAC3, The Houthis could launch enough drones and missiles to exhaust the entire AD battery of an entire US Carrier Group.
@@disco1974ever well, first off, a PAC-3 MSE Interceptor cost less than half of what you are stating. Secondly, PAC-3 MSEs are not used against Houthi rockets.
@@disco1974ever they cost that much for foreign buyers. I think the army paid 3.6M each. plus why would u use it for a slow drone. Wouldn’t make sense
@@bryanhoppe1481yea but Russia has been doing for ever since missile technology there air defense for the navy is s300 400 and 500 missile for there navy they never really made a navy only air defense I think it much better having a missile design for the job it’s like having a handyman for plumbing gas electric roofing there okay but there not the best and you can tell look at Russia navy against Ukraine
This is good news. We still need more ships and subs and the facilities and people to repair them. Quantity has a quality of its own!
I'm not expecting that we'll have the edge in quantities of anything. We have to avoid making the mistakes of Germany in WW II, with wonder-weapons defeated by T-34's. I hope we can have enough of a technological edge to win but they're very asymmetrical despite being a peer. They'll have the initiative and element of surprise. FBI Director said China has been very clear about using cyber-attacks on US civilian infrastructure *from the outset* to break the American will to resist. That's dirty. We have to be committed. We can win.
Both of my ships are Deep sixed, one sunk as target during RIMPAC, 12 July 2006, and the other sold for scrap on 9 March 1994. If that does not tell you how old I am nothing will.
My old ship is the only SPRUANCE class DD still afloat - ex PAUL F FOSTER (DD 964). She's now the Self Defense Test Ship out of Port Hueneme.
Some correction. The PAC-3 MSE is not abled to be "quad-packed" in MK-41 cell, still one round per cell. The origin PAC-3 might do four-in-one, but not the enlarged/enhanced PAC-3 MSE. Lockheed Martin's original plan was developing a "folding wing" version of PAC-3 MSE that fitting two missile into one MK-41 cell, but this plan did not get a go ahead; The currently strategy is making a common PAC-3 MSE for both Navy and Army instead of custom-made. Despite that, PAC-3 MSE still have advantage in terms of space that it can be fit into shorter MK-41 tactical-length version, while SM-2 Block IV and SM-6 required MK-41 strike-length, which means PCA-3 MSE enable ASBM capability on smaller surface combat ships that only equipped with tactical-length version of MK-41.
I'm not really sure where you are getting your information on the specs of the PAC-3MSE.
The MSE has an 11in diameter as opposed to the 10in diameter of the original PAC-3 but they are still quad packed on the patriot launcher there is even an image on the wikipedia page showing the difference. As for how they would fit into a MK41 that I do not know I haven't looked into it much but space wise 4 would 'fit' if a canister was designed for it to do so.
Also every platform in the US navy that uses MK41 uses strike length cells so that argument is only applicable to some allied nations.
The RAN's old perry class ships use self defense length while the Adelaide, Hobart, Anzac, and Hunter class all use Tactical length. To my knowledge every other Mk41 platform is strike length.
@@LordOceanus A Naval News report on April 11th, 2023 talked about the earlier idea of PAC-3MSE "dual-packed" in one MK-41 cell (not quad-packed) which was revealed in IDEX 2015. However the demo in SNA 2023 was still one PAC-3MSE with the current Army configuration in a MK-41 cell. Modification like folding wing need approval of partners, but this is a feature that US Army doesn't need; if there is no folding wing, dual-pack or quad-packed won't happen. The title of this Naval News 2023 article is "Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Patriot PAC-3 MSE Update", you can easily google it (seems youtube does not allow to reply with the URL)
@@LordOceanus Quoted from this Naval News article on April 11th, 2023:
"Naval News also inquired about the first instance of Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 MSE integration into VLS, which was seen during IDEX 2015. In an IHS Janes article, it was reported that with “a small amount of integration work” the missiles could be dual-packed into a single Mk.41 cell. However, at SAS 2023 and SNA 2023, the displays only showed one missile per VLS cell. While the Lockheed Martin representatives at SAS could not answer the 2015 comments, they did state why for this concept they went with only one missile per cell.
“I think there’s a lot of studies of what you can do. Our big thing is to keep the missile the way it is. So you have to get into things like folding things and other stuff if you wanted to try to increase the capacity within one cell. What we want to do is work and partner together. So one missile comes off the line and can go to the Army, the Navy and it’s not unique to that to that it’s just one way to go.”
Tom Cavanaugh of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control also commented on the decision for only one missile per cell, stating.
“Yeah, if you begin to modify the design of the missile into a missile gap, and that’s cost prohibitive at some point. We’d rather invest in the development of the capability we have today to support the Navy and the Army at the same time. So I think that’s the best approach from there rather than redesigning the missile.”"
@@picardtseng Yeah they have thought it out it seems. I still think taking advantage of quantity and putting as many missiles as possible on the ship is likely to be the best plan in the long run but i totally understand the argument about keeping the production line streamlined to just 1 variant. If you modified a PAC-3 to allow for quad packing you'd basically have just made a smaller SM-2 which mind you is a great idea but at that point why not just make a stretched length ESSM?
Leyte Gulf Plankowner here. So sad to see her go. It is very shortsighted that we have no new cruisers to replace these......
A step in the right direction but costs have to come under control.
I recently saw a video from a Chinese missile factory making cruise and anti ship missiles, they had rows of unmanned CNC machines being fed material by a huge pallet system with very high automation. The type of thing you usually only see in automotive and other high volume production. To me this is more scary then any hyped up wounder weapon that may or may not work.
And i bet 80% of the components comes from the US and its allies😂
@@ronnerup14Then you will lose that bet, but for curiosity, why do you believe that China need western tech to build missiles?
That's the inherent downside of a fully capitalist system, the shipyards and weapons companies prioritise profits over the national interest, they just want money it doesn't matter if the USN ship numbers keep falling behind china because the US Govt would just keep their coffers full
Why exactly should that need to be solved. China is a sovereign nation correctly out to reclaim its rightful territory and to be boxed in navally by predatory powers that would love to carve it up and economically subordinate it. The US is a global bully frankly
@@aaravtulsyan They couldn't afford to keep huge production lines with most of them mothballed while also keeping the manufacturing technology up to date on the offchance that the DoD will one day place a massive order for missiles. The problem for the whole of NATO is endless rounds of cuts (less so in the US obviously) which have seen procurement numbers drop so low that in many cases manufacturing facilities can't be kept operating past the original short production run.
I went to the fire academy right across the street from the Lockheed Martin facility in Camden, Arkansas. It was pretty sweet. You couldn't really see much because of the trees but you can hear them testing the rocket engines ALL the time.
550 PAC-3 and 100-200 SM-3 isn't really that much; Ukraine would consume _a lot_ more than the 2-3 per day being produced if they had them, and a hot war between China or Russia with NATO would consume _vastly_ more than 2-3 per day. It's a pretty sweet upgrade, but the Army & any US allies are going to be also having heavy demand for those missiles to defend themselves against air, missile, and drone attack in any kind of war. The total production of munitions in the US and NATO needs to increase, not just ammo interoperability.
Both production and operability need improvement.
You are perceptive enough to see this.
@@richbattaglia5350 that's what I said: it's a pretty sweet upgrade, but overall production needs to increase too, not just interoperability
Correct. Stopping the recent Iranian missile & drone attack on Israel ate up hundreds of defensive missiles in just a few hours. In the Russo-Ukrainian war, both sides have already expended more air defence missiles than the entire production run of Patriot missiles to date. The US and NATO are not prepared to fight a hot war with China or Russia, their production capacity would have to go up by at least an order of magnitude, and that ain't happening anytime soon.
The Russia-Ukraine war has seriously depleted western stocks of 155mm rounds (and many other munitions). If there is ever a (land-based) US vs Russia or China, we'd be out of ammo really fast.
The expected ammo expenditure rate in a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict was completely off the charts back in the day. Or a long-range missile attack against a carrier battle group by Soviet bombers - probably every surface to air missile would have been shot off.
Doesn't look like anything has changed.
@@Kriss_L
Peace dividend has come back and bite the west collective rear end.
That being said, people has come to their senses and starting to rebuild the defense manufacturing capability.
Interesting and informative as always.
As someone who worked on the PAC-3 program at LM for several years, i am impressed with the accuracy and quality of this video. Ive since moved on to the THAAD Interceptor but still love the PAC-3 missile.
Great job from a new subscriber.
Welcome to the Crew. Great to have you onboard.
Hello Bryan. I am a spy. Tag, your it THAAD man. ;D
I am not impressed with the accuracy. PAC-3 MSE can't be quadpacked.
@@nietkees6906 What accuracy failures are you referring to? And, the MSE would be quad-packed in the VLS.
On the Patriot launcher, you're correct, it's single stacked up to 12 per launcher.
@@bryanhoppe1481 No, it wouldn't be quad packed in the VLS. Dual packing could maybe work if they made foldable fins, but there are currently no known plans to do that.
Hey I'm from Magnolia which is 30 miles from Camden, AR! Never been real sure why...but there's *several* defense companies that have plants there...🤷♂️ lol. Love the channel!! Became a member recently and you're the first and only channel I've done that on and it's worth every penny Aaron!!!
Wow our navy did something that makes sense. Unbelievable
Thanks Aaron, I was supposed to watch that CSIS talk but well, I got buried under work, thank you for making me aware of this. I appreciate it and keep up the good work
My carrier backed over the Leyte Gulf during work ops doing back full emergency. The TR went on deployment minus one CWIS. The cruiser needed over a year in the yard.
In 1996?
I think I remember reading about that back in the day.
Thank you for the updates SIR.👉🏻
Great news and great explanation! Thank you.
If a new Pacific Ocean war comes, we'll miss those VLS cells on the cruisers.
Please start bringing us some submarine briefs. This is what drew me to your channel. Especially the Soviet cold war subs. You could even dive into the older historical stuff from WW1 and WW2. You are the best content creator when it comes to this stuff so love the content regardless
Oh he still does all kinds of ship and sub briefs, he just charges for them now and has them behind a paywall. That’s why I don’t watch his stuff near as much as I used to. I just happened to catch this video
When you called out the Army, I half expected HLC to jump in.
i don't know what HLC means. Is that another youtuber?
Yep habitual linecrosser
And I tried so hard not to be noticed.
@@SubBrief he’s a CZcamsr who does short-form comedy, and some long-form informational videos.
He’s also active duty and is an instructor teaching the operation of the Patriot system.
His channel name is Habitual Line Crosser.
Wasn't really convinced of the benefits until I heard it could be quad-packed. That is massive. These things could have ranges greater than an SM-2.
my response too
Unfortunately this particular variant can’t be quad-packed.
Except that it likely can't be quad packed.
They did away with the idea of quad packing them trying to streamline production between Army and Navy
Production rate, Production rate, Production rate. Can’t scale up fast, and by fast i mean 6 months? Then you got problems. You could almost fit an entire years production on a SINGLE ship!
I strongly recommend the navy keep the USS Leyte Gulf in a state where she can be re-activated over the next 5 years in fairly short order.
That’s what we’re doing with the USS Antietam
Congress has said that there will be no full decommissioning of any ships with VLS and require they stay in a state that allows a fast recall.
Like the Iowa Class!
Pointless. Congress will never fund the Navy to fix these cruisers as the cost would be astronimical, and it would take many years in a shipyard.
Unfortunately, the ship is going into the LSA status -" Logistics Support Assets
(LSA) will be used as a primary means of cannibalization and equipment
removal for ships. Cannibalizations and equipment removal from these vessels
is authorized without replacement." Dated March 2024. Maybe that has or will change.
Wait until the Constellation Class comes. The new figs with these babies will be awesome. Also God Bless CG 55 crew.
150 Standard missiles a year is less than two per ship per year, imagined that...
If this group of military contractors existed in WWII, we would have lost. The modern military industrial complex cant build worth a damn
@@acars9999modern systems are hard bro but yeah the war on terror shift from a quasi wartime production and economy to whatever bs we have now
@@acars9999that’s why the aid to Ukraine is key, it’s not only helping them but rebuilding our production capacity.
Yeah, they need to double their capacity for both systems. Patriots are deployed all over the World! 1,000 a year probably won't cut it either.
@@acars9999 We aren't in a war tine economy. In WW2 nearly ever business was put toward the war effort.
What a force multiplier!
QuadPAC...man, the catchy nickname just writes its self with this one!
CG Leyte Gulf actually just returned from a deployment from Miami Fleet Week! I worked the event and enjoyed visiting the ship's crew.
If my maths are right.. a ship will now cost less than the ammo it carries ??
HOLY MOLLY !
Pay2Win ammo ain't cheap.
Don't worry, the Navy always finds a way. 🤠
Don't worry. Missiles will be cheaper with advance in electronics. Your smartphone has more computing power than most of the modern missiles. Missile will be smarter and cheaper as time goes by.
@@youcantataLogically you would think so; but it doesnt really seem to ever work like that. However if/when an ACTUAL WAR (peer v peer) ever breaks out, all of a sudden missiles will start popping up at a fraction of the price. (Until then the Military industrial complex will have their slice of the pie)
Economy of scale will reduce the cost somewhat.
Hard to believe that the USN cannot build a cruiser replacement, you are going the way of the Royal Navy.
That's the way the world is pretty much going I believe. With the enormous missile compliment they can carry they pack a huge punch. Smaller ships are cheaper to build and staff. Guns aren't really used to much for ship to ship. I'm pretty sure they can build cruisers if they want.
Why do you need a bigger ship to carry standard sized missiles? Build multiple ships and spread the risk.
Honestly smaller more capable ships is the way to go. Especially since missiles are the weapons of the future. Spread out the load and reduce the impact of inevitable losses
The Burke's are not much smaller than the Tico's. The 3rd flight of the Burke's are going to weigh about the same as a Tico (Which were originally going to be called Destroyers).
That's what the Burke Flight III is for if I'm not wrong.
Thanks.
Dude, you're awesome. Keep up the great work..
This sounds like a great idea! It’s always good to use proven off the shelf technology and skip the huge R&D cost. 👍
Way to go, US Navy!
One thing I wanna point out: Congress has been worried about the retirement of the Ticonderogas, and the drop in the total number of VLS tubes operated by the Navy. This solves that problem from what I can tell, allowing us to replace the Ticonderoga with the more technologically advanced Arleigh Burke and increase total missile capacity, whilst bringing cruiser level capability to the entire destroyer fleet. This could also be game changing for the Constellation class, potentially making these ships comparable to an older Arleigh Burke. So yeah, this is huge.
The value of VLS cells is directly proportional to the number of missiles you have to reload them with. The US Navy inventory of missiles isn't that big (open source info in the federal budget each year), and the Navy has been shooting a few in the Red Sea recently.
More eggs in fewer baskets
actually, it's not. you still have fewer ships. this won't increase the number of ships which is key specially with china which already has more ships. carrying more missiles won't do much. specially against threats like DF-41s. and PAC 3 MSE is a really bad choice when you have much better and cheaper PAAC-4s.
We should have South Korea build us a couple of dozen Sejong the Great class destroyers and fit them out with 128 US style VLS plus some box launchers. Could put some cruiser like command centers in them and otherwise features similar to Alreigh Burke flight III. The US ship yards are struggling to put out enough destroyers and there is a shortage of skilled labor and suitable facilities. Korea is extremely capable at building large vessels quickly and at low cost. US manufacturers would still be supplying most of the internal components. Vessels like this would be more capable overall than the Ticonderoga class cruisers with better radars and more firepower. South Korean shipyards could deliver the hulls for fitting out in an extremely short time frame.
@@stupidburp Still wouldn't have enough missiles to load those VLS cells though.
Good
What about pariot warhead size? Isn´t it much smaller?
Thats crazy 4 patriots in one cell is a game changer for air defense. I hope Canada opts for it in the new frigates when they arrive. Excellent content love it thanks for your hard work. Calgary Ab
Wonderful news
Outstanding news. Thank you.
I still have concerns about a ship reloading VLS cells quick enough to return to the fight.
Aegis and Patriot? It's like wow, this chocolate bar sure is good, but do you know what would make it better? Wow, another chocolate bar! Two of a thing I like, together!
How does THAAD compare to any of the SM’s? Also would the iron dome be useful on a ship or is the range to short or can it no effectively target threats to ships?
I'm interested in know what change the vertical launcher might make in its engagement envelope or range. Maybe none since the mark 41 are already built for hot launches.
My favorite kind of building a sustainable future.
Are you sure they are quad packed? Last I read, they are single packed and, with still to be authorized fin modifications, they were expecting to double packed them only.
I’ve been to Leyte Gulf. Beautiful place. Beautiful country. 😊
These new developments are great. I still think we need to double our manufacturing capability across the board, from high tech missiles to artillery shells. The 127mm, 57mm, and other gun type weapons will be essential in a full scale war, which is not entirely up to us to decide on.
Question: If a VLS cell is 'dual pac' or 'quad pac' - does this mean each missile can be fired individually - or do 2 / 4 (respectively) need to be fired at the same time (albeit at different targets) ?? Thanks.
bigly news. way to go USNavy !!
Does the entire 4 pack have to be fired simultaneously? Or can each Patriot fire independently of the other 3 missiles in the cell?
DO you think Mine warfare ships are obsolete due to drones? Meaning, will they be going the way of the old battleships? Just curious as to your thoughts on the matter
I wonder if these will be mountable on a FREMM-derived Constellation class frigate?
Couple questions here
Are they quad packed so that they can hold 4 in a launch cell
What is the production rate for these?
Are we producing them in sufficient quality and. rates so that we have adequate stockpile on hand, instead of waiting years for inventory to catch up as usual?
Missiles do take a long time to produce, it's not like making rifle ammo which takes less than a second to make
A while back I saw an AEGIS cruiser in port on the way in to work. A few days later I realised it was in the dead fleet and decomissioned. That made me feel old.
The I looked it up on-line and found out it was from the second round of decomissionings. That made me feel real old.
How does PAC-3 compare in cost and capability to SMs?
As a USN FC, this is awesome news.
Layte Gulf was a hell of a battle
We have the ships in the fleet yet we are retiring said ships with what as a replacement?
Hi! Can you please turn up the audio volume on your videos just a little bit? I have my device volume maxed and i always have just a little trouble hearing you. Love your great videos!
I have it maxed on my end. I don't know why it's low for you.
Russia been doing it for years the never really made a air defense missile just for the navy the use the s300-400-and500 missile platform I actually think the layer defense is way better cause it’s like a handy many they do multiple jobs plumber electric roof and sometimes there good at one job or they just make things work but not to perfection like a person that does that one job for a living look at Russia they never really been able to test the missile on sea like they have been on land and even now there coming with problems cause they haven’t experienced a certain situations and the is navy does have a system for balistic missiles for the navy and I think there layers system is way better cause we can make a spicifc missile for short long hyoersoinc and drones and much more for the specific job and it could do it way better yes the cost is more but what's the cost you but on human life
Great Video ! Think I hear that production is going up to six hundred plus for the Patriate missile ! tjl
Would be a great upgrade for the new Constellation class frigates... instead of ESSM pack them with Patriots...
I'm sure they will have them.
Deploy both, the ESSM will still be the superior missile at shorter ranges being extremely manoeuvrable, especially against hypersonics.
Don't forget Raytheon also has ESSM Block 2, they won't let Lockheed Martin touch their cake that easy.
Very true on the ESSM but my comment was more aimed at if they need something which can reach out further than ESSM... It's a good upgrade without dipping into the SM stocks and being able to quad pack makes it extremely useful...
@@hmmjediyeah but the pac-3s can’t be quad packed, they talked about it in 2015 but would have had to have put folding fins and other modifications into it. Instead they went with a standardized approach to streamline the production between Army/Navy so there’s not a specific version for each branch and that way any missle coming off the line can go to either service so they did away with the quad packing idea long ago
This is great news. You hear a lot about "Force Multipliers" in military jargon, this is a true force multiplier. Especially with recent events in the middle east where cruisers and destroyers are having to deal with large volumes of one way drones, cruise and ballistic missiles coming out of Yemen, the ability to quad pack an effective and solid ranged interceptor makes these platforms so much more flexible and effective. This is exactly the kind of innovation we need right now from our defense industry to get the most out of the hulls we have available
Bringing PAC-3 MSC onboard US Navy ships still required slight hardware change, mainly integrating its C-band data link onto shipborne systems (Standard and ESSM support S/X bands uplink)
Ok I'm getting confused with some of the comments so which Patriot PAC 3 missile are you referring to? and what Mk 41 VLS system the strike version only or tactical and strike versions.
MSE
In somewhat related news, there have been sightings of a Super Hornet flying around carrying a SM-6 mounted under its wing. This was a naked missile, no sign of a VLS canister.
These are great comment sections. A lot of good opinions. Not used to this type of stuff on youtube
Would it work if you put a himars kit on a burke.
HIMARS is a Lockheed Martin product so they could make that work. An actual HIMARS was fired from the USS Anchorage as a test at some point. The question is would it fit in the VLS container and would it be a useful replacement for something?
Would there be any reason that the Destroyers can't fire off land based Patriot batteries using their Aegis systems while the Army radars are off? Effectively having a hard to hit mobile system? Especially with island campaigns being envisioned.
This is friggin awesome. AEGIS and PAC3 is going to be a killer.
I don't see how they will quad pack them. The PAC 3 has a diameter of 10 inches while the largest SM6 is 21 inches. There is only 4 foot difference in height between the SM6 and the PAC-3 at 17 feet and 22 feet long. The MK-41 cells are 25 feet long so I can see dual packing a MK-41 cell but not quad packing it.
The ESSM is 10” in diameter as well and they’ve been quad packing that for a while.
Isnt quad pack essm also 10 inches diameter?
@@tbe0116 I had to look it up and you are right. Holy crap, if you had 10 cells of ESSSM and 10 cells of PAC 3, that is 80 missiles for use so you can save you SM-6's for the most high valued targets.
@@jintsuubest9331 Yes, you are correct, I was wrong. I wonder how many of these could be fit in a Virginia Payload module? That thing can hold something like seven tomahawks.
Small digression here (and quite personnal)...
By watching you SITREP videos on China, during a conference i got last week with Pr. Eldridge, we came to similar conclusions as you got in your videos !
The guy more or less say the same you say since years ! When you know the pedigree of that guy, it's a compliment to your good analysis !
The Zumwalt ships seem to be a natural candidate for these systems
What is a standard missile?
This is great news, but.... Only 500 or so missiles are produced each year and there are a ton of customers for them.
We need to make many more times that to be able to have our Navy equipped with a good war fighting capability.
Man. I hope her awards are preserved somewhere. USS Leyte Gulf!
Can someone give me a clue as to just how much better a Patriot is compared to an ESSM? Also, what is the cost and annual production relative to ESSM as well?
Not sure about production, but Patriot has considerably more range than ESSM. At $3 million per, Patriot is also much more expensive.
Bueno. 👌
5:58 96 VLS cells and still not enough missiles!
Germanys next generation Frigate 126 will have 16 VLS cells at 10500 tonnes weight and a planned unit cost of €1.37 billion...
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Yeah the armment of the F-126 is absolutely pathetic for the price tag. Basically a 10000t river monitor boat
How can the ammo cost more than the ship? What am I missing here?
This system was good even in the 90s. My dad would call my grandma and she told me you could hear the patroits firing and intercepting scud missiles.
Great report. Finally, someone is dealing with the limited ammo issue. The Phalanx is great, for what, 3-4 min? They then must "leave the combat area" to reload. They have improved it greatly, but still, I fear a real swarm attack...
I am interested in what the F35 sees and feeding to the picture and the pac 3 giving little to no warning at impact phase that is launched from VLS cells in the fleet whether its a tico, burke or the future constilation, imagine a constilation with this, it quadruple its payload potential instantly
Why is the PAC3's range against missiles so much shorter than against aircraft?
The range quoted was against ballistic missile specifically. The interceptor needs to match the speed of the target in the same order of magnitude, and maybe even exceeded a little bit. ballistic missiles even in the mid-phase are going significantly faster than fighters. the intercept point for ballistic missiles is also at a significantly higher altitude, and going the same distance up is always harder than going the same distance across. Both of these mean that the missile has to burn a lot more fuel a lot quicker for that type of target.
Or more simply, the amount of energy required to match the flight characteristics of a BM Target is significantly more than even that to try to follow around a maneuvering fighter.
And yet, even better would be a small swarm of drones of various types with NAVAIR Spike like missiles on CAP and other missions.
Also Raytheon makes the radar for patriot and Lockheed is prime on pac3 and aegis but Raytheon makes a decent amount of hardware for aegis.
Interesting that the Patriot will now be coming out of a vertical launch tube, like the S-300 family. Does anyone have any comments about the potential of this?
Would be cool to see a Mk41 like VLS on an erector launch trailer. Pull it with something like an M1070A1 with HUSK protection.
You dont retire a piece of gear, equipment, or a vehicle unless you have something built or being built to replace it. When you just rush to decommission stuff(saying it will save money) without an actual replacement, you end up losing capabilities. A perfect example of this is the space shuttle, it was retired with no replacement.
This will be very interesting when the Navy implements TRAM.
Yeah, I've heard of this earlier, what's intriguing is that the 2 systems (Patriot vs. Aegis) use different search and targeting radar frequencies (C vs. S+X band), different guiding system (TVM vs. semi-active), I guess the later only needs some software and/or hardware patches, the former issue....uhm, Raytheon changed the seeker onboard the missile?
In case you do not know yet, actually US Navy and Army is the only example, that 2 services adopt totally different area air defense missile systems, all other nations have common platform for land and sea (sometimes even air), e.g. S-300V(land)/S-300F(sea) (and Chinese licensed copy HQ-9/HHQ-9), Aster(land/sea)/MICA(air), MR-SAM(land)/LR-SAM(sea)
US Navy had Sparrow which is tri-service common platform, but since it evolved into ESSM (and Sparrow replaced by AMRAAM), the commonality was gone
In my latest issue of WAR ZONE, this system was shown to be effective and deployable.
Quad packing is very important to other countries that do not have 96 Mk 41 VLS cells. Many have like 32 or 48 cells for newer designs, while many older ones have only 16 cells.
Glad to see the navy integrate a land system, im sure its cheaper than starting from scratch. Im guessing the pac 3 is just a temp fill in right? the navy has a few missiles in the works now. so im curious if this is just a stop gap. Also i would love to see the navy slap an extra pac3 launcher unit on the outside of the ship, to add to the vlss. because china would be sending hundreds upon hundreds of missiles towards our ships. we need all the launch capability we can get. But yes this is huge. huge. good job navy.
All upsides here. The Patriot PAC3 uses active radar homing for its terminal phase versus semi-active radar homing of the SM-2 and ESSM block 1, has twice the range of the ESSM and can be quad packed like it, and it could replace the aging SM-2's and complement the SM-6. Plus production could be scaled up to reduce the per unit cost when compared to the SM-2 (at today's dollars)
If they want cost savings, they could also integrate PAAC-4 SkyCeptor which are much cheaper less than 1M USD if I'm not wrong. It also has more range however only 2 -3 can fit inside a MK 41 VLS canister theoretically.
Does it completely outclass the ESSM in terms of all capabilities, cost not withstanding, or does the Sea Sparrow have greater maneuverability against small targets?
@@Laotzu.Goldbug The Patriot PAC 3s have proven quite effective against small fast and maneuvering targets in Ukraine. Plus Active radar terminal guidance is preferable because it doesn't require an external radar to illuminate the target during its terminal phase.
@@Laotzu.Goldbug PAC-3 is like AIM-9X with its own style of thrust vectoring control TVC. Only difference it uses 180 tiny pulse solid propellant rocket motors mounted in the forebody of the missile called Attitude Control Motors instead of a vectoring nozzle. So its the most maneuverable SAM out there.
@@johnsilver9338 The issue with the PAAC-4 is the booster is too big for dual-pack. Beside it is not a Lockheed Martin missile.
Cost exchange rate is the game we must concentrate on. The ESSM only goes about 20nm so we have a 40 mile path we can protect. With a Python-V derived surface-to-air missile with a booster can travel 50nm and cost a lot less.
✊
I am one of those naysayers about the Patriot missile though it has improved much more than I thought it would . Nothing is perfect and anything can be overwhelmed with numbers .Today fewer do get through . Your Patriot got stuck in my peanut butter .
How do you know Patriot are as good as you say they are?
When you mentioned, “These ships don’t have to come back as much for reloads,” does that mean no underway replenishment is VLS missiles? Also, my mind boggles at my unrefined concept of just how many Patriots we need to produce in order to adequately supply our armed forces, as well as our allies. Thanks as always for your superlative videos!
A question can someone answer please?
Is this missile called the Patriot PAC-3 MSE missile? if so, this seems to be a dedicated almost entirely anti-ballistic missile mission set with a hit to kill capability.
Does it have a capability to intercept aircraft and low manoeuvrable stealthy anti-ship cruise missiles?
Note: The current build of the SM3 missile with over 1200km range and SM6 missile with a 370km range take full advantage of the entire dimensions of the Mk41 VLS Strike cell in height and diameter and they do have a far better interception ranges.
ESSM missiles are more of a medium range missile with over a 50km range, hardly a point defence missile with ranges approaching the old SM1 and far exceeding the old Sea-Sparrow missiles they replaced.
RAM missile seems to make the current point defence missile.
It is a do everything missile but quite expensive because of that.
Leyte Gulf as in Leyte, Philippines.