Royal Navy Future Surface Combatant (FSC) - until late 2004

[Triton]

Artist's impressions from Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), now QinetiQ, of a possible Future Surface Combatant (FSC) frigate dating to 1998.

EDIT: Cutaway drawing of Future Surface Combatant removed because of larger image later in this topic.

Sources:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/fsc-pics.htm
http://navy-matters.beedall.com/fsc-pre2005.htm

 

[Triton]

Artist's impression of US Coast Guard cutter using the DERA FSC trimaran configuration.

An artist's concept of a candidate "system" for the Deepwater project, showing an advanced technology cutter that would support high-speed small craft, tilt-rotor aircraft as well as HH-60J Jayhawk helicopters, and Guardian/Sentinel-type Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Deepwater also will employ satellites for various support functions.

Polmar, Norman.The Naval Institute Guide to Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet, Seventeenth Edition. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 2001. p.


Source: From my hard disk drive, possibly the Popular Mechanics or Popular Science website.

 

[Triton]

Artist's impression from 1999. Notice the three different vertical launch system (VLS) systems are carried forward.

Source:
http://navy-matters.beedall.com/fsc-pre2005.htm

 

[Triton]

Artist's impression of a DERA concept of a slightly larger 6,500 tonnes trimaran FSC "destroyer". Notice the "long hull" outriggers compared with the "short hull" outriggers in the pictures above.

Another FSC concept from DERA, dating to 1999.

From Navy Matters:

Further mono- and multi-hull updates of the FSC baseline concept. The artists impressions were publicly used by the Defence Procurement Agency in 2000 but are dated 1999. The trimaran appears to be another view of the concept immediately above. The illustrations do no match well to the mono-hull baseline 5 and trimaran baseline 7 of 2001.

Source:
http://navy-matters.beedall.com/fsc-pre2005.htm
http://www.britisharmedforces.org/pages/nat_navy_future.htm

 

[Kokoro]

bigger version

 

[Triton]

Thank you, Kokoro.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

Interesting stuff. My understanding of Trimaran warships is limited. What are the potential advantages here?

 

[Grey Havoc]

On a interesting note: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,28678.0.html

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1184057560732753920

 

[TomS]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1184057560732753920

May I suggest that rather than posting the same Twitter thread to multiple ship topics, it might be better suited to the Naval Gun projects thread:

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/naval-gun-projects.1672/page-4#post-296424

Or perhaps we have enough on TMF to create its own thread?

 

[Ron5]

Don't bother. Nothing new there and he seems to think Bae in the UK and Bae in the US are the same when it comes to gun development.

 

[TomS]

Don't bother. Nothing new there and he seems to think Bae in the UK and Bae in the US are the same when it comes to gun development.

Yeah, I thought the excursion into AGS Lite was odd.

I don't think enough people understand how different AGS was compared to NATO 155mm (Quadrilateral Ballistics Agreement-compliant) guns. It certainly took me a while to understand it, and I was actually working for the guys running the SC-21 program. I'm still not sure I fully grasp what differs, but I know it includes a different chamber, low-twist rifling, and a whole slew of other features seemingly designed to make it impossible for AGS to simply use off-the-shelf 155mm howitzer ammunition.

 

[Hood]

A couple of FSC concepts from the late 90s.