It does seem a lot, but on the point of one of the missiles being similar to it’s predecessor, I don’t think the Wildcats have the ability to use the Sea Skua (or I have never read anything about them being able to do so). So while the Wildcat is developed from the old Lynx, it is most likely different enough that it needs to approach the integration from a completely new start.

Also we don’t know what new hardware and software needs to be added to the 28 helicopters. I would think it’s unlikely that the original contract for the helicopters included the two way datalink required for the FASGW(H). It also sounds like the contracts cover the cost of the guidance system for the FASGW-L.

I could see the cost of new hardware (and fitting it) being a couple of million per helicopter. With the rest covering development, new software, design work, and testing.

It still seems a lot, but I can see how it could cost this much.

The (very pretty!) graphics show 7 round launchers. I believe that’s now been reduced to 5 rounders. I wonder how many $ this one took to integrate?

Could the MoD / Military do some of this in house? What about the RAF’s AWC T & E elements?

The problem is that integration is remarkably complex and time consuming. The resources don’t really exist within MOD to do this in house anymore as the capacity has long been reduced. Its expensive because its the whole costs of everything from making sure the missile hits the target, through to getting it ready to go onto the ship in the first place (e.g. munitions etc).

Easy to mock, but as the Army found out with UORS, bolting kit on to things doesnt meant it will work, or that others things will continue to work. When you are dealing with wokkas, you want to be sure they won’t fall out the sky when you fire one! Its also a refleciton on how expensive defence is getting if you want ot keep a sovereign defence industry making missiles.

Missile integration today should NOT be difficult. In the old days you had to almost literally build the aircraft around the missile, or vice versa. Today, with digital weapons systems and modern electronics, it should not take years to get this working, especially with the modernity of the aircraft (Wildcat) being as cutting-edge as it gets. I’m of the opinion that this is a pathetic attempt to extort more cash from the MOD. Wonder what the French will pay to integrate the ANL?

Skua has nothing in common with Sea Venom (great name!). It is an old, analogue, semi-active homing missile. Venom is modern, IR guided and longer ranged.

I wonder what the export opportunities would have been for the improvement package they installed on the army mk9’s coupled with new sensors, rather than a new airframe?

Anyway the whole Wildcat programme is a bargain.

Going back to older threads, @RT has devised some great testing scenarios:
– semi-submersiblle, potentially inflatable too (i.e. not highly reflective)…_
– wil it hit those? How close do you need to be for detection in the first place etc.

Too late to send the bill!

TD, the fact that they are both missiles is all they have in common. You still have to programme seeker modes, search patterns, fuse settings and doubtless many more variables. Guidance is different, weapon programming and warmup is different, connection to the airframe is different, etc. Okay, so it’s not difficult to physically hang the thing on the side, but you are talking about trying to integrate systems as different as Mac and Microsoft. Well, maybe Mac and a 1970s calculator.

Jules please

The only AW helicopter we should be drooling over is a lovely Yeovil build AW159 not some shoddy Vergiate Italian job AW149, even if it can carry a proper number of troops and weighs in at a few more thousands of pounds than the slightly oddly sized wildcat.

I too have been shocked recently at the numbers being banded around for integration of existing weapons onto other existing weapons platforms. I completely understand that there are complex software platforms at play – but what is that not a common framework for exchange of information? In the private sector this is the sort of problem that has not existed for at least a decade.

Link 16 is there to provide a common communications solution. Why is there not something for providing a common software interface framework?

Jonathon, I too love the 159 but they should all be grey with dipping sonar and a brace of Sea Venoms or LW Torps…
And all have a Skull and Crossbones flag on em, just for kicks!

Oddly, no-one has mentioned the slight problem that while helicopters aren’t particularly fast or high flying, they suffer from a tremendous amount of vibration – the sort of thing that precision electronics and rocket motors really hate. That’s before you start operating them off the arse-end of a Frigate in the North Atlantic in February.

@ The Limey
My thoughts too, somwhere that would have a Eurofighter a Rafale, an F35 and a gripen and they just hang stuff off of them and drop stuff off them all day long, we’ll have three out of the four here!
A European weapons integration and test establishment, you know like BOSCOMBE DOWN USED TO DO!
Tongue firmly in cheek!!

@ mr.fred
No ones aying that they shouldn’t test, obviously they should and I get the Helicopter scenario you mention, I’ve been up in a few shakey ones myself, just that there could be quite a bit of cash saved if they just went and did it instead of a massive new integration private contract everytime someone widens a missile by half an inch

“Could the MoD / Military do some of this in house?”

We used to… but

As a naval helicopter and our surface fleet anti ship weapon surely the wildcat was designed to carry weapons! I would have thought integration would have been part of the early design considerations. Granted weapons change, the missiles have just be chosen etc. but plug-and-play electronics should be part of the design and as they always show lots of nice weapons in their sales pitches, the aerodynamic aspects of the weapons load and release I would have thought would make this integration task a lot cheaper.

The wildcat is already expensive

@ Mercator – I had something to do with the bid to fit the Follow on Stand Off Weapon (FOSOW) to the RAAF F-111 and AP-3C, with FA-18A as an option. Both these aircraft retained analogue Armament Safety circuits even though the mission systems had been updated to digital standard. In the end the cost of fitting the FOSOW and then the MU-90 to 1970’s US Navy Lockheed armament system in the AP-3C and certifying its safety was too much, as it was to fit FOSOW to the F-111 following the decade it took to integrate the AGM-142. Weapon safety standards are very rigorous.
In the end the RAAF chose the AGM-158 to fit to digital FA-18As only, with USN help, and even then it took years longer.

I think the bit everyone seems to be forgetting here is that gone are the days where weapons integration constituted a place to hang the missile and a button to fire it.
In the case of Meteor, CAMM and Sea Venom ( is that its real name ? really ? hmm OK )
Firing the missile is just the start.
All the above missiles ( inc Sea Viper actually ) stream back data and take back instructions.
Just in terms of FASGW-H it is using IMAGING IR ( not just a basic seeker ) to send back a “picture” of its target so that the Wildcat can then pick a really juicy spot on the target to hit. Bridge, radar, weapons, random deck hand staring up lazily as a 100kg warhead goes off on the end of his Cuban cigar… you know the kind of thing.
All this integrated with Wildcats lovely flat screen and in compliance ( one would hope ) with Wildcats stealth abilities.
And it will do 4 of that at once.
Unfortunately we only JUST ordered the dam missile. So regardless of the cat being all finished and shiny it doesn’t know how to talk vapor ware.
I’m not saying it’s not expensive, but in a way IT IS 50% of the weapons development and it’s the bit that makes FASGW-H capable of A LOT more than skua.

Well thats what i think anyway.

Beno

TAS – Wonder what the French will pay to integrate the ANL?”

£120 million and change (€150mm). That’s for just 2 platforms – NH90 and Dauphin/Panther.

You’d think that the integration cost would go down with each incremental type, through reuse of modular software, comparisons of expected to actual results, going up the knowledge curve on the key problem areas to troubleshoot…

… apparently not.

If the MOD is paying for integration of these missiles onto Wildcat does the MOD get a refund if the Wildcat+Missiles package is sold to any other customers?

TD

I saw this:

http://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php/news/defence-news/year-2014-news/july-2014-navy-naval-forces-maritime-industry-technology-security-global-news/1907-us-navy-is-evaluating-mbdas-dual-mode-brimstone-for-its-fa-18-super-hornet-jets.html

(The link also covers recent tests using Brimstone against speed boats).

Any reason why this couldn’t be helicopter launched ?