The Goalkeeper can be reloaded aboard under deck and that is much saver then walking on deck.
Requiring below decks volume is an advantage now? Because
God knows you're on the path to victory if you need to reload your CIWS
while under fire. If you're using your CIWS at all you're having a bad day.
RAM is newer, so I wasn't taking it into mind for this..... but for an ship of that time, the goalkeeper offers more range, and because it fires in shorter bursts it can attack more targets at the same time. for an ship like this that means you have to fit fewer mounds, and if I am correct (I'm not sure about that) the phalanx can't provide 360 degrees cover, while the goalkeeper can (of course this depends on other guidance systems on board, I am now only talking about the inbuild systems)
( and the fact that it is Dutch makes me favor it too
)
I'll be honest, I don't know much about goalkeeper, but I do know about Phalanx. Take a look at this cutaway from
NavWeaps
.
That's Phalanx - all of it. Hook that up to electricity, chilled water, and a cueing system and you're good to go. You will also note that in the big white part you have two different radars, a Ku band search set (on the top, under the dome, where it can spin around and see all around it), and a Ku band tracking/gunlaying set (in the cylinder).
Here is another image showing the self-contained nature of Phalanx (again from Navweaps):
Because Phalanx is so compact and light, you can place it on the beams of a ship. or in other positions close to the superstructure where
THE SHIP LIMITS THE FIELD OF VIEW, THUS MAKING 360° TRACKING POINTLESS. But wait! The radar atop Phalanx has a full 360° field of view (when not stopped by programmable software blocks to prevent the irradiation of the hull by your own radar), and the mount is fully trainable (±150° around and a minimum of -10° to +80° on the first blocks, so functionally the same as 360°).
Phalanx also has a good history of intercepts when turned ON (when OFF or in STANDBY, it doesn't fire).
Phalanx has also been integrated into a land-based roll as C-RAM (Counter-Rocket, Artillery, and Missile). While in service the 30 or so systems that were deployed with the US Central Command in 2008 had defeated over one hundred attacks.
This is not to say that Goalkeeper is a bad system, or that it isn't better than Phalanx in certain roles, only to say that Phalanx does have certain distinct advantages (deck penetration, ease of shipboard integration, proven service record, weight, and oh yeah COST*).
*It doesn't matter how good a CIWS is if you can't afford to have your ships cover all of their arcs which usually means more than one mount per ship.