It is sobering to contemplate how warships, who’s CIWS and PDMS mostly amounted to a couple of old Oerlikon 20mm or Bofors 40mm cannons and obsolete Sea Cat missiles might have fared in the Norwegian Sea, GUIK or North Atlantic against a hail of Soviet anti-ship missiles. In the 1970s RN could have argued that it was primarily an ASW navy, and had not prioritised close-in defence for the surface fleet. The loss of HMS Coventry in particular also demonstrated the fallibility of missile systems, even if a PDMS is present a more potent CIWS could provide a last-ditch backup. Other ships were hit during low-level bomb attack and the lack of close-in defensive capability was badly exposed. HMS Sheffield and MV Atlantic Conveyor were lost and HMS Glamorgan badly damaged by Exocet missiles. Unfortunately, Sea Wolf was expensive, had a large equipment footprint and had only been fitted to a handful of frigates when the Falklands war unexpectedly erupted in April 1982. In the late 1970s, the RN was also aware of the threat from sea skimmers and the GWS-25 Sea Wolf Point Defence Missile System was seen as the answer. Substantial development and trials were needed before the Mk-15 Phalanx went into full production in 1978 with USS Coral Sea taking the first operational Block 0 mounts to sea in 1980. The first Phalanx prototype was installed on destroyer, USS King, in 1973. In parallel, the US Army pursued a similar idea, producing the tracked vehicle M163 Vulcan Air Defense System (VADS). Using a Gatling gun combined with radar in the close air defence role to create a ‘wall of steel’ offered a relatively simple solution. The M61 Vulcan Gatling gun had been in service since 1959 and was initially developed for use in air-air combat. Here we look at the history, design and capabilities of this system.ĭevelopment of the Vulcan Phalanx began in the 1960s as the US Navy woke up to the threat of the sea-skimmers after the destruction of Israeli destroyer Eilat by Russian-made Styx missiles in 1967. Upgraded over time, it has been in service for 38 years with the Royal Navy. The ubiquitous Phalanx close-in weapon system (CIWS) provides warships a last line of defence against missiles, aircraft and small boats.
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