No European NATO Navies are Ready to Fight Today’s War at Sea

[SVPete]

No European NATO Navies are Ready to Fight Today’s War at Sea

https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/no-european-nato-navies-are-ready

We are coming up on three years from the final wakeup call after October 7th, 2023, that conventionally armed ballistic missiles are the premier threat to critical capabilities ashore and at sea.
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At sea, which will be our focus today, we just made it across the finish line in time with the RIM-161 SM-3, which built off the success of the iterative development of the SM-2 for decades.

This work has paid off via the exceptional performance of our Arleigh Burke Class destroyers off Israel, and in defending our fleet from the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea against Iran and her proxies.

With each engagement, our software gets better…the next update to our missiles gets better, and, more importantly, it has yanked the Lotus off the dinner plate of our defense establishment to expand production and inventories.
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Here’s the issue. We’re alone here, and our European allies just don’t seem to get it. Their historical passivity in this area is why a decade and a half ago the U.S.A. deployed inside the NATO framework Aegis Ashore installations—one in Deveselu, Romania and one in Redzikowo, Poland—and the American Arleigh Burke DDG based out of Rota, Spain.

Classic NATO: “The Americans will do it. Let increase aid for foreign NGOs instead.”
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That is a lot of appreciating the problem, fitting-for-but-not-equipped-with kind of thinking, but the fact remains that at this moment and at any time in the near future, no European NATO navy has a capability even approaching the SM-3.

Range and reach. The SM-3’s range is well past 1,000km and more importantly, it can intercept missiles outside the atmosphere—exo-atmospheric.

Nothing else at sea in the West can do this. The closest the Europeans have is the French Aster 30 B1NT, which we can expect the French Navy, Italian Navy, Royal Navy, and Swedish Navy to equip their ships with.

On paper, it is an exceptional capability, but it is much closer in capability to the SM-6.

Both of these can do anti-ballistic missile (ABM) work, but only endo-atmospheric. ...
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As wretchardthecat pointed out on X, I believe, correctly,

Consider the French Charles de Gaulle. A normal CdG group includes at least one Horizon-class air-defence frigate. It has no SM-3 equivalent. It has no dedicated exo-atmospheric interceptor.

British Queen Elizabeth carriers are organically defenseless against an Iranian antiship attack. Everything depends on Type 45 escort which has the same capability as the French Horizons.

Either ship might withstand a light attack but probably lack the capability to survive against the volume of fire the USN took.

My emphasis.

[SVPete]

I do not know whether Argentina has rebuilt their navy and air force, but I do not think the UK could respond effectively if Argentina decided to invade the Falklands again. Last I heard, QE and PoW are working through significant "teething" problems. And it's an open question whether the UK has enough operational destroyers to provide escort for a carrier task group.