Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: terryr@ogicse.ogc.edu (Terry Rooker)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Reloading (was Rate of Fire)
Message-ID: <1990Jul6.032614.27280@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 6 Jul 90 03:26:14 GMT
References: <1990Jul3.031818.6630@cbnews.att.com> <1990Jul5.020313.13721@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR
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From: terryr@ogicse.ogc.edu (Terry Rooker)
In article <1990Jul5.020313.13721@cbnews.att.com> tek@CS.UCLA.EDU writes:
>
>Mk41 is the vertical launch system and it uses modules of 8 cells, to
>form either 29 or 61 cell systems (3 cells are taken up by a loader
>crane). Rate of fire is one per two seconds. To reload you want to pop
>out the fired cell and stick a new one in. It does have a crane built
>in, but still I imagine its a tedious process.
>
It is very tedious.  There was an article (in USNI Proceedings, I
believe) about the difficulty in this procedure.  It is so difficult
that it virtually precludes underway replenishment.  Given the state
of the current ammo handling UNREP equipment it is not clear how the
replacement missiles will be staged on the deck before they are
lowered into place.  An additional complication is the lack of
magazines (by definition) for the vertical launchers.  Each round must
be brought onboard and stowed directly into the launcher.  Without
magazines and ammo handling areas, there isn't even any place to
temporarily stow the missiles.  Well I gues you could alsways leave
them lying on the deck :-)

-- 
Terry Rooker
terryr@cse.ogi.edu