Shipbucket

The ground launched Small Diameter Bomb is a neat idea. Is it your own idea or do you have some further reading about it?

It's an actual proposal by Boeing. To me it seems like a good follow-on to the POLAR idea IMO. In theory it should be easily navalised.

http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/bds/me ... b_1013.pdf

Gets my approval.

I'd love to see your take on modernising the real Type 23 within this timeframe to see what perhaps could have been done.

I might well end up looking at that over the Christmas period. Gotta have some sort of project to tide me over.

One very, very minor point. In order to get the most out of the GL-SDB you really need a separate launch booster to get it out of the cell and pointed down-range. Right now you're basically just launching it straight upwards which is a very inefficient way of gaining range.

Also, shouldn't the painter go all the way to the RHIB?

Re: GL-SDB. I'm just going on basic knowledge of POLAR which to my knowledge didn't have a booster, although that's not to say on shouldn't be fitted. So long as I can keep the length below that of an SM-2MR i'll be happy. Though preferably even shorter would be better.

As for the painter lines, they originally did meet up, then I re-drew things and never changed them...

I suppose it doesn't have to be a booster, but you do need something to steer it with during launch since you can't point the launch tube in the direction you want it to go.

I think maybe the ideal option would be to use the same form factor for the motor but use a gimbal equipped derivative motor instead.

ETA All drawings updated with revised GL-SDB arrangement and revised RHIB lines.

Harpoon seems to be getting rather old, and long in the tooth. By this point, I'd think that the latest version of Exocet is probably more capable. The USN places little priority on AShMs, preferring to rely on its carriers, so I'd question the real ability of Harpoon to do its job for lack of major upgrades; I think my choice at this point would be NSM, as it's at least stealthy enough to get close to its target.

That does imply buying more than can be found scrounging around warehouses at Portsmouth of Devenport though. If it were up to me I'd have invested in something new years ago.

Short of purchasing Exocet as a stopgap between something like Perseus or LRASM I'd be content to either leave the Harpoons on there or just remove them completely.