The Type 45 Class has some of the most modest armaments of any modern destroyers with just 48 vertical launch cells each.
By contrast, modern AEGIS ships in South Korea, Japan and the U.S. deploy 96 missiles or more each, while China’s new Type 055 destroyers deploy 112.
The upgrade to the Type 45 will see the number of vertical launch cells deployed by each ship increased to 72, which will still leave them considerably behind any modern non-European destroyer class.
The shortfall in firepower is particularly serious considering that launch cells on British ships can only deploy two missile types – the Aster 15 and Aster 30 – both of which can only be used in anti-air roles.
This contrasts sharply to the vertical launch velds on AEGIS ships, on modern Chinese destroyers, and even on the latest Russian frigates and corvettes, which can deploy a wide range of missiles for air defence, anti submarine warfare, anti shipping, land attack and in the case of U.S. and Japanese ships ballistic missile defence as well.
The 24 new launch cells will be allocated to carrying Aster 15 short-range surface to air missiles, with the remaining 48 dedicated to deploying the longer-ranged Aster 30 which is also designed exclusively for air defence.
The range, speed and overall performance of these missiles, however, is far inferior to air defences deployed by rival destroyers such as the SM-3 and SM-6 used by U.S. and allied AEGIS destroyers or the HHQ-9 and HHQ-16 used by Chinese ships.
The Type 45’s lack of versatility and its inability to operate in roles other than air defence represents a major shortcoming.
The British destroyer class has also faced considerable performance issues including very high maintenance requirements and in previous years a tendency to break down and suffer engine failure when operating in warm waters.
The announcement of plans to upgrade the Type 45 follows an alleged violation of Russian territorial waters by one of the six ships in the Black Sea, which led Russia to deploy fighters to warn it away and resulted in Moscow issuing a strong warning.
Source: Military Watch
Easy targets….
Great! fools liars with greedy simple minds as our government, and bathtubs with muskets as Navy, up against one of the best leaders of all time with a competent government and well equipped forces! and God on their side! we’d better choose the flowers we want at our funeral, our government is still engaged in creating the fake scamdemic narrative for the new abnormal woke communism.
Gonna be sickening watching all that money sinking from a few hypersonic missiles.
The Brits had to borrow airplanes from the US to outfit their new carrier. Wonder who’s going to loan them the new guns and engines and…. well, you get my drift….
Hey Britannia,,, the sun set on your empire over a hundred years ago. Even a bunch of raggedy colonists run you off back in 1776. Of course looking at the depraved disaster called the US today,,, it was a horrible waste of time and lives.
As for the US,,, your time is near. Especially after sneaking out of Afghanistan in the middle of the night (lol) leaving millions/billions of dollars worth of equipment, arms, and munitions we tax donkeys paid for. Most powerful military in the world…… sheeeeit.
What does an insignificant little cesspit like Britain/England need a navy for, nobody is going to invade, they produce, nor possess, anything of value, the UK is breaking up and England will be left to wither and die on its own, while its unique blend of perfidious, moronic, psychopaths longingly dream of Empire.
The Poms and the bigmouth, low IQ, exceptionalist Yanks are both in a race to the bottom!
These are the same people who built Navy ships using aluminium, until the Falklands debacle. Ignoring lessons learnt during WW 2, that aluminium burns, their Air Force pilots learnt the hard way. Bring on the Falklands and LO and Behold, their fancy new spankin alumiuim navy ships went down to Davey Jones’es locker, after catching fire and being unable to put them out. L.O.L. Smarting from that lesson, they’ve held off building replacements with steel, plus they can’t afford the cost anyway. Yet these Bozzos think they can take on the Bear ???? W.T.F. Clearly, it won’t be the Brits leading such a charge, more like the stupid Europeans NATO suckers being the cannon fodder.
Britain has become a vassal state just like the confederation of the Rhine under Napoleon. It’s military is just a token force to make the main Empire feel like it has allies.
Twenty more spears is still twenty more spears…
Western war criminals march on to oblivion.