Government approval has been received to install up to three Raytheon Phalanx 20 mm close-in weapon systems (CIWS) on both of the Royal Australian Navy's (RAN's) 27,500-tonne Canberra-class landing helicopter dock (LHD) vessels.
Commodore Rob Elliott, director general for Surface Combatants and Aviation within the RAN's Strategic Command, told IHS Jane's on 5 July that the number of mounts depended on final design and radar cross-section analysis. Installation, he added, was unlikely to begin before 2018 at the earliest.
This is also the anticipated date for the return from the United States of the first of the RAN's current inventory of 12 Phalanx mounts after being upgraded to the Block 1B Baseline 2 configuration.
No comments:
Post a Comment