TYPE 45 DARING CLASS ANTI-AIR WARFARE DESTROYERS, UNITED KINGDOM
Posted on 02/03/2006 7:51:28 AM PST by Republican Party Reptile
The most powerful frontline warship since the Second World War was launched by the Countess of Wessex yesterday, marking a resurgence of British naval ship building.
The first Type 45 destroyer is launched yesterday
The first of Britain's new Type 45 destroyers took to the waters of the Clyde as the world's most advanced air defence ship.
Daring will be able to track and destroy a target the size of a cricket ball travelling at more than three times the speed of sound, a "quantum leap forward in the Navy's capabilities", according the Royal Navy.
The boat's defensive system, combining a hugely powerful radar and missile system, has left American visitors to the yard "shaken and shocked", according to BAE Systems, its builders.
The destroyer's launch was watched by a crowd of 11,000 and hundreds of Daring's Glaswegian shipbuilders.
In the next 10 years, as many as eight T45s could be built at a cost of £650 million each. Also to be commissioned are two large aircraft carriers (£3.5 billion), four Astute class hunter killer submarines (£3 billion) and a fleet of up to 14 auxiliary ships (£3.5 billion).
Daring will be fitted with its radar and missile systems before its sea trials in early 2007. Its Samson radar, from its current location in Portsmouth, can monitor all take offs and landings from every major European airport.
29 January 2006[Money]: The big ship Navy is back 25 November 2005: MoD cuts equipment orders to save £700m 5 June 2005[Money]: French shipyards in line to build new Royal Navy aircraft carriers
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The British Are Coming!!!!
Very handy for when Eurabia becomes a reality........
American visitors left the yard "shaken and shocked".That line got my attention,must be impressive.Am i to assume the Brits are ahead of us technologically in that area?
Sounds like Cricket Balls have a lot to be worried about!!
Probably stunned that the Brits would spend their own money...
Well, someone had to come up with something better than Aegis eventually. Aegis is late-70s/early-80s technology.
The French Shipyards are building the Aircraft Carriers? How is that something to be happy about? Shouldn't English ships be built by the English. Doesn't England need jobs?
The Brits have always been very clever with radar systems, but if they've got it, we've got it.
I thought #2 was a hint.
Cricket balls have got to be microscopic.
Dang! The Brits ALWAYS seem to come up with a revolutionary new ship... Ever since HMS Mary Rose was launched by Henry VIII, "Hail Britannia" has ruled the seas with a succession of prototypes that instantly render the rest of the world's navies immediately obsolete. Let's see, there's been Drake's race galleons that defeated the Spanish Armada, the famed ships of the line such as HMS Victory and Soverign of the Seas, and let us not forget how HMS Dreadnaught created such a furor. I just wonder what response America's DoD has in mind with its DD(x) follow-on to the Aegis fleet?
Oh #2 was an excellent hint, but my #8 was just a smart-ass hint for good measure. ;)
Sounds impressive until you realize that the F117 has the radar crossection of a ball-bearing, and the B2 that of a bumblebee.
Yes, pathetic isn't it. At least the destroyers are being built in Scotland in the UK.
What a waste of money. Why don't they spend that money on bread and circuses for terrorists and let the bloody Americans spend all their national treasure on machines of war?
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