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US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
What I don't get is why they had to develop a new missile. Couldn't they just have put the Peacekeeper into production?
Perhaps after all this time the suppliers aren't around anymore and they need a new design. But still.
I was wondering that myself? Like you, I am guessing putting an old missile back into production is probably very expensive. On top of that, by designing a new missile you have the benefit of rehabilitating any atrophied industries related to ICBM design and building.
I was going to edit my above post and mention that I believe the US used to have three major rocket manufacturers. If you look at the Peacekeeper wiki, it lists Thiokol, Aerojet and Rocketdyne for manufacturing each stage. I think today it is just Northrop (Thiokol) and Aerojet-Rocketdyne, but I think Lockheed might be establishing their own rocket manufacturing capability if I am remembering correctly.
EDIT: Lockheed has invested in a company called X-bow which seems to be part of their plan to develop their own solid rocket motor provider. Anduril acquired Adranos to boost their own rocket production. I think both of these companies are rather small right now, but are being looked at by the DoD to expand for greater production of rocket motors.
EDIT: Lockheed has invested in a company called X-bow which seems to be part of their plan to develop their own solid rocket motor provider. Anduril acquired Adranos to boost their own rocket production. I think both of these companies are rather small right now, but are being looked at by the DoD to expand for greater production of rocket motors.
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Rocketdyne makes liquid engines. Not solids. The Aerojet solid rocket part is basically gone. They used to make the solids for the Atlas V rocket but now Aerojet doesn't even do those anymore.
Thiokol are basically a monopoly at this point. I don't think anyone else can even make the propellant in the US other than them anymore.
Thiokol are basically a monopoly at this point. I don't think anyone else can even make the propellant in the US other than them anymore.
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After receiving the new EW modules, USN FLIIA Burke’s will go back to the shipyard to have their SPY-1 radar replaced with a 24 RMA variant of the SPY-6 radar. This will not require updating the onboard power generation, but will require an increase in chiller capacity.
This is a significant boost in capabilities for the US Navy. Changing the old PESA radar for a GaN AESA. The new radar is supposed to have 35x more emission power with only 2x the power consumption and should be more resistant to countermeasures. But once again the US Navy are second to the Japanese in terms of radar technology. The Asahi-class destroyers had GaN AESA before any US ships did so.After receiving the new EW modules, USN FLIIA Burke’s will go back to the shipyard to have their SPY-1 radar replaced with a 24 RMA variant of the SPY-6 radar. This will not require updating the onboard power generation, but will require an increase in chiller capacity.
It still has not been confirmed that China is using GaN on its ships but I would not find surprising if all the Type 055s already came with GaN radar.
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The 2x power consumption is for the 37 RMA SPY-6 on the FLIII Burkes. If you dig through some of the publicly available data, you can find mention of GaN pre-amplifiers for SPY-1 being installed on FLIIA technical insertion Burke's since the mid 2010s. Then there was also this USNI article published in 2016 talking about the replacement of SPY-1 vacuum tube amplifiers with equivalent GaN solid-state amplifiers, while the radar still remains a PESA architecture:This is a significant boost in capabilities for the US Navy. Changing the old PESA radar for a GaN AESA. The new radar is supposed to have 35x more emission power with only 2x the power consumption and should be more resistant to countermeasures. But once again the US Navy are second to the Japanese in terms of radar technology. The Asahi-class destroyers had GaN AESA before any US ships did so.
It still has not been confirmed that China is using GaN on its ships but I would not find surprising if all the Type 055s already came with GaN radar.
This is a significant boost in capabilities for the US Navy. Changing the old PESA radar for a GaN AESA. The new radar is supposed to have 35x more emission power with only 2x the power consumption and should be more resistant to countermeasures. But once again the US Navy are second to the Japanese in terms of radar technology. The Asahi-class destroyers had GaN AESA before any US ships did so.
It still has not been confirmed that China is using GaN on its ships but I would not find surprising if all the Type 055s already came with GaN radar.
I'd say the Type-055 is almost certainly using GaN
You can find GaN AESA T/R modules being listed commercially on platform websites like Alibaba
They talk about up to 2years refit per ships, how many can be refitted at the same time ?After receiving the new EW modules, USN FLIIA Burke’s will go back to the shipyard to have their SPY-1 radar replaced with a 24 RMA variant of the SPY-6 radar. This will not require updating the onboard power generation, but will require an increase in chiller capacity.
It take approximately 28 months from keel laying to commissioning for a new ship of the class. Sure that refitting price will go up with time, new ship cost $2.2B. Hoping that refitting don't take place in the yards for building new ones.
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