Why doesn't everyone ditch Phalanx for RAM/SeaRAM? Cost? (Those are million-dollar/shot weapons I understand)
Industry-politics related in my opinion. General Dynamics wants their share.
RAM is also always backed up by smaller caliber guns for the close-in work (and for when you want to discriminate), adding topdeck weight and CIC console space.
Anything beyond sight of the shore they tend to lose their capacity, as they are almost totally dependent on third party guidance, usually from the shore.
Which is why the defense suite also includes a hefty dose of ECM systems.
There's a regular series of littoral warfare maneuvers in the Baltic Sea,
Northern Coasts. Probably the largest exercise in that kind of warfare these days, been going on for ten years now with around 4,000-5,000 soldiers, 40-50 ships and 20 aircraft every year.
And it has components exactly along those lines. Defending against: small groups of speedboats from the beaches, shore-to-sea ATGM and mortar use against ships, shoreside EW blanketing the naval task group, helos and aircraft popping up over the shoreline between hills, mine warfare in archipelagos, targets hiding in large amounts of civilian vessels etc. When that got a bit repetitive they added hostile submarines. And when that got repetitive they added landing troops to the shore in that kind of context, both amphibious with landing craft andd helos from LPDs, SOF from small boats and submarines and larger-scale paratrooper drops after securing the seaside airspace.