The Striker : A Warship for the 21st Century

Some war events and provocative proposals that lead to the Concept... In 1982, during the short Falklands War, the destroyer HMS Sheffield was fatally set afire by an Exocet "sea-skimming" missile launched from an Argentine Super-Etendard airplane. Then, in 1987, in the Persian Gulf, the frigate USS Stark was crippled by a couple of such missiles delivered by Iraqi Mirage F-1 aircraft. In contrast, during the Iran-Iraq war, many of the 133 commercial tankers which were hit by Iraqi Exocets survived. It appeared that, thanks primarily to their strong hull structure and tight compartmentalization, tankers were much tougher than flimsy built warships. Thus the suggestion to design warships as structurally strong as tankers. In 1988, a sensational article by Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf III, USN, heralded a "revolution at sea" by recommending a "topless" kind of missile ship, with neither superstructures nor aerial sensors, as most detection and targeting tasks are now performable from a variety of flying, spatial or land platforms. Rene Loire's design of "Striker" ("Le Frappeur" in French), a Missile Ship, is based upon both the Metcalfian philosophy and the lesson taught by recent conflicts, in particular by Desert Storm. The latter saw 282 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, launched from 18 ships, hit Baghdad with devilish accuracy. The concept is well known to major navies and has influenced some US Navy's novel ship designs.