Shipbucket

Its been a few years since I posted last in here, guess its time to update all this stuff, eh? Well, last time I really worked on these was a year ago but whatever.



Lets start off with something small. 113-meter long warships equipped with a 100mm gun, 2 goalkeepers, some exocets, crotales and mistrals.



This is the one I'm probably most proud of because how it looks. 127mm gun with 2 goalkeepers and VLS to fire anti-surface/anti-submarine missiles. It has a CIWS in the rear which I wonder if the exhaust from the stack in front of it would mess with its search and track radar.



Air defense warship with a bunch of cool stuff. The VLS is offset with the CIWS and the helicopter hanger below it, which is why its only a 32-cell instead of the forward 64 cell.

nice work, and welcome back!
I have a few comments though......

The goalkeeper is AFAIK the most expensive CIWS system in the world, with 15M dollars per system. The goalkeeper also has bigger ship impact then bolt-on systems such as the Phalanx CIWS. I know of no frigate in the world that has 2 of them, except for some of the Dutch air defence command frigates (which are air defence and command ships, not really an frigate class as such)
keeping that in mind, I find it unlikely to find 2 goalkeepers on a frigate this size, but that is your choice. however, having them this badly placed seems off. On the last 2 ships, the foundations lack the space to actually place the goalkeeper (see the latest drawings of the goalkeeper and its related systems here: http://shipbucket.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 98#p121098) note that you there also find the latest drawings of the goalkeeper.
for more likely locations and setups of goalkeeper CIWS, take a look at the dutch frigates or the korean destroyers.

furthermore, on the 113m ship, the underwater hull seems a bit crude. take a look how the skeg, bilge keel, and the bow are shaped on ships in the archive it's not bad, just undetailed and a bit simplified as you have drawn it.
I am also really pondering why you have the lowered aft deck this way on your 113m ship. the radar placed there could much better be placed on the hangar, allowing you to have an larger helideck or to have an towed array there instead of this vulnerable and very low placed deck and radar. also, can she do her job? ASuW is not really an full time job these days, there are no ASW weapons and very little air defence...... so what is she supposed to do?

on the second ship, I am wondering a bit about some of the characteristics. the rudder looks to be sticking out quite far under the hull, as do the stabilisers. the engines seem to have no air intakes, or at least not very large ones, so I assume diesel power?
there are some strakes on the midship hull, what are they for? sponsons or something, to extend the width of the hull? again, not bad, just a bit odd in some places.

on the third ship, I repeat the comments on all kind of vulnerable stuff sticking out of the hull, I do wonder a bit about the non-stealth oto melara gun on this design (but the dutch LCF proves there can be reasons for this) and I do wonder about the weight balance when the heavy aft VLS is placed high in the hull, with only a small CIWS and an helicopter hangar (filled mostly with air and of light construction most of the time) you could offset this with other design elements, such as the radar masts or even the placement of fuel tanks, machinery and balast tanks, but non-symmetrical ships like that often have problems with using the available (hull) space efficiently, so you will end up with an bigger ship then you could have had with an more symmetrical arrangement...... which I think is exactly what you try to avoid.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
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Nice to see some modern French ships here!

Nice drawings altogether, but I'd second Acelanceloet's comment on several points.
Your light frigate/aviso is, I assume, meant mostly for ASW patrol, right? In that case, the whole AA outfit is probably overkill. I don't think you need that kind of main air-search radar to support nothing longer-ranged than a Crotale, and the short-range defense is indeed overkill for a ship that size. Two Goalkeeper, two SADRALs and one Crotale are enough for a 6000-ton destroyer. I would advise changing your radar set to a DRBV-15 target acquisition like on your second ship and a powerful surface search antenna, and you'd be good to go.
If my assumption about the missions set is right, then your ASW outfit is rather limited. The twin 324mm TLTs are a good start, although IRL French ships even of that size used to rely on 533mm heavy tubes, but that's your choice. OTOH, your ship shows no trace of either hull-mounted or towed sonars. If you cut donw on the AA by removing either the Goalkeepers or the Crotale, you could move your hangar forward a bit to make space for a VDS sonar deployed from the stern.

@Acelanceloet, the navigation radar on the quarterdeck has been done IRL in the French Navy, IIRC you can find it on the Lafayette frigates. It is meant for helicopter control and approach support only. I agree it could be moved a good half-meter lower to prevent collisions though.

Your second heavy frigate does indeed look good, with more detail, a more plausible general look and a broadly French appearance
Still, it also need a stern VDS of some kind to exploit those Sea Lance-looking ASW missiles to their full extent. And on this one, the AA weaponry might be on the light side. I assume that the box launcher over the hangar that looks deceptively like a RAM is some kind of second-generation Crotale? I don't know if you can easily re-jigger your main mast/bridge area to fit a second such launcher and director, but I feel that it would make sense. You can probably shave some volume off your reloading array given the apparent size of the missiles, and remove the search antenna from your missile director since your main AA radars should ensure target tracking already. Nice looking Oerlikon-like missile directors, by the way. Probably too complex for ship-borne used, except if you assume a ludicrously non-existent signal integration, something 1980s-Soviet level.

Not much to say from me on the third ship, given that it hews pretty closely to the Horizon line. The remark about the balance between hangar and VLS is a good point, and looking at your general configuration I would advise swapping both VLS blocks, use the forecastle for the heavier SylVer-A70 and the hangar for a lighter A-43 or A-50 reserved for the SAMs.
You can probably streamline your short-range AA as well, e.g. standardize on either Goalkeeper or 2nd-gen Crotale, if you wish to do so. Same remark as above on the Crotale, also you can probably integrate the director into your stern mast to improve radar signature. Nice job on the SLAT/Contralto torpedo defense, I might reuse that one later on if you don't mind.

By the way, is your second anti-ship missile an ANF/ANS of some kind?

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