With any serious after AA fire sort of dead on the vine, I'm now considering deleting the big awesome rotating X-band AESA aft in favor of a very much more modest unit like Variant, Sea Giraffe, TRS-16... Right now I'm keeping the larger unit so that you could handle ESSM illumination, but it's a frigate. I'm willing to lose that backup capability if I have to. It's a question of using a cheaper additional type of system versus having as few things in the supply chain as possible. Thoughts?
In the interested of keeping the supply chain clean, I'd go with the TRS-16 over Variant or Sea Giraffe, simply because both the USN and the USCG are deploying the sets on LCSes and NSCes.
I nixed the Voith units just in time to discover the pretty cool-looking
Schottel pump-jet propulsor, which I'd dearly love to use for auxiliary propulsion in favor of the usual deployable unit. I don't see why it would be particularly unreliable, although I have concerns about flow noise. Perhaps you could have some sort of cover for the intake grill. The fact that these units don't seem to be in naval use suggests to me they haven't undergone much shock testing, although they don't seem to me like they should be particularly vulnerable. Anyway, I'm considering this change. Discussion and advice are appreciated.
The pumpjet has a lot of appeal, and I don't see anything that might be problematic for shock hardening. Makes me think of hydropower turbines.