Why the Royal Navy has been unconvinced by VL-ASROC

Why do some new anti-submarine frigates omit VL-ASROC?

A roughly twelve-nautical-mile torpedo delivery range offers too little advantage over helicopters and other weapons to justify a scarce launch cell, though a much longer-ranged successor could change that calculation.

For the Royal Navy, the current weapon's reach does not compensate for giving up a cell that could carry an air-defense missile. A helicopter can investigate and attack a contact much farther away, while a modern naval gun may reach a similar distance with an anti-submarine projectile. A future sixty-nautical-mile system could complement a helicopter that maintains contact after its own torpedo attack. The panel also describes separate work on a heavy-lift rotary-wing drone and a roughly one-ton air-dropped torpedo, while emphasizing that sonar classification remains an expert judgment problem in which operators combine scientific data with accumulated experience.