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Originally Posted by Galrahn
I have a question. I have heard by many people they would take SeaRAM over Phalanx if given a choice due to ammunition issues with the CIWS. The point I have heard is that during attacks, you could run out of CIWS ammo very quickly, and it takes time to manually reload, while the SeaRAM can engage more targets and be reloaded by the same number of crew at sea. Does anyone have any insight into this? How many rounds would a Phalanx actually fire against a single incoming missile, and based on ammo load, how many total could it engage in a single engagement prior to reloading?
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I have worked on both CIWS installations for several classes of ships and proposed RAM installations on the FFG-7 class of ships.
It is true that a CIWS can run out of ammo pretty fast. It is "governered" down to fire "only" 50 shots per second. The rotary magazine under it only holds about 950 rounds so that means you only have 19 seconds of firing time.
Also, though the CIWS acquires and tracks the incoming target from about 5 miles out, it doesn't open fire until the target is 1,850 meters away (about 2,000 yards or one sea mile). It can take on multiple targets and select which ones to shoot first.
However, due to the high penetrating qualities of the depleted Uranium sub-caliber penetrators, there have been a couple of test cases where the CIWS only knocked out the guidance system of the incoming missile but did not break through into the warhead. Thus the reason for the short "open fire" range to get as many bullets as possible through and into the warhead in as short a possible time.
The proposed RAM installation on the FFG-7 ships would have put it aft of the stack requiring a lot of ablative protection in case of a hang fire. While visiting General Dynamics they said their missiles don't hang fire. I reminded them that just two days before one of their Tomahawks hang fired on the
Missouri over in the Gulf.
They demonstrated their launchers for us and it was interesting and disturbing at the same time. Because the targeting RADAR cone is only 30 degrees, they have to fire the first RAM at 15 degrees above Earth level to catch a straight-in sea skimming bird and quickly fire a second RAM at 45 degrees should the bird turn into a Pop-Up like our Harpoons can do.
One launcher arrangement carried 10 RAMS whereas their larger launcher carried 21 RAMS (don't know what they are now). I noticed in a photo of a post above that they have a RADOME on top similar to CIWS. That makes sense because on the FFG-7 ships they would be tapping off the data of the RADARS in the aft (and only) CIWS gun to fire the missiles that would have a longer range than the gun.
What was a thorn in my side was that they couldn't find any space to have a magazine to reload the launchers with the exception of armored lockers on the upper deck. I recommended they get rid of the 76 mm Oto Malera (sp?) gun as it was useless for anti-ship, anti-aircraft or shore bombardment. It is a good tank or anti-tank gun but doesn't belong at sea except for small gunboats and then the 25 mm Chain Gun would take care of them (every ship that deployed to the Gulf had two Chain Guns "temporarily" mounted port and stbd, including the Battleships).
With the 76 mm mount gone, they would have plenty of room for the RAM launcher topside and lots of room down below for magazine and workshop in place of the 76 mm ammo mag and loading machinery.
But by that time I was crowding 39 years of service to the Navy and already past minimum retirement age so "senile thinking" like that was rather ignored.