Type 45 Daring Class Destroyer - The Largest and Most Powerful Air Defence Destroyer Ever Built

Type 45 Daring Class Destroyer - The Largest and Most Powerful Air Defence Destroyer Ever Built - The Type 45 destroyer, also known as the D or Daring class, is a class of six guided missile destroyers built for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy .
The Type 45 is primarily designed to be an anti-aircraft and anti-missile platform – protecting themselves and crucially the broader fleet. In the near future, these ships will help protect the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
Aside from air defence, the Type 45 can deliver many other capabilities, including tackling pirates and providing humanitarian aid.
The ships weapons systems also equip the Type 45 with the ability to tackle the threat posed by traditional or asymmetric warfare.
The Type 45 destroyer is equipped with the Sea Viper (PAAMS) air-defence system utilizing the SAMPSON active electronically scanned array multi-function radar and the S1850M long-range radar.
PAAMS is able to track over 2,000 targets and simultaneously control and coordinate multiple missiles in the air at once, allowing a large number of tracks to be intercepted and destroyed at any given time. This makes it particularly difficult to swamp PAAMS during a saturation attack, even if the attacking elements are supersonic.
The US Naval War College has suggested that the SAMPSON radar is capable of tracking 1,000 objects the size of a cricket ball travelling at three times the speed of sound (Mach 3), emphasising the system's capabilities against high performance stealth targets.
The ships are fitted with the 114mm mk8 mod 1 medium-calibre gun system for shore bombardment and two 30mm guns. There is provision for the installation of two close-in weapons systems such as the Raytheon Phalanx.
BAE Systems have teamed with Radamec Defence Systems (now part of Ultra Electronics) to provide the electro-optical gunfire control system (EOGCS).
Wide-area, long-range search is provided by the BAE Systems Insyte / Thales S1850M radar operating at D band, an enhanced version of the Thales Nederland (formerly Signaal) SMART-L. Raytheon Systems supplied the IFF (identification friend or foe) system.
Ultra Electronics (with EDO Corporation of the USA) was selected to provide the Type 45’s surface ship torpedo defence (SSTD) system which included the MFS-7000 bow-mounted medium-frequency sonar, a development of the sonar supplied by EDO to the Brazilian Navy.
The system provides automatic warning of a torpedo attack and tactical advice on ship manoeuvres and the deployment of decoys to defeat the threat.
The Type 45 destroyer has a flight deck and hangar to support the operations of a single helicopter. The flight deck can accommodate either a Lynx HMA8 or Merlin EH101 HAS 1 helicopter armed with anti-ship missiles and anti-submarine torpedoes.
Thales Sensors (formerly Racal Defence) supplied the Type 45’s radar-band electronic support measures (RESM) system.
The RESM is developed from Racal’s Outfit UAT but with new signal processing and emitter identification technology.
The vessels have the Royal Navy’s Outfit DLH active naval offboard decoy system, which includes the Siren decoy, an expendable radiating decoy against radar guided missiles, from BAE Systems.
The destroyer is also fitted with a Shaman communications-band electronic support measures (CESM) system.
The COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) open architecture Shaman systems were developed by BAE Systems C4ISR Networked Systems & Solutions (NS&S) for the Royal Navy surface vessels.
The Type 45 is powered by two WR-21 advanced cycle gas turbine engines with intercooler and recuperator (ICR) heat exchangers, which provide significant space and fuel savings.
The recuperator recovers energy from the exhaust gases to increase fuel efficiency. Each engine provides 25MW.
The engines were built by a team led by Rolls-Royce and Northrop Grumman. Alsthom Power Conversion provided other elements of the power and propulsion system, including the electric propulsion motors