HMS Mersey visit to Grand Cayman Mersey arrived in George Town, Grand Cayman for a second attempt at visiting the UK Overseas Territory. With high winds and rough seas cancelling her earlier port call, Mersey returned in better weather and took full advantage of her shallow draught to come alongsid...

or a river with 2 CB90? with the Bay supporting a merlin, More CB90's , LCU or 2 LCVP I would have been interesting to see a River deployed, but presumably the excuse is that we haven't got one spare at the moment, with Mersey in the Caribbean. The B1s could probably ship an additional large RHIB, ...

VOS Grace is primarily a Emergency Response and Rescue Vessel rather than Platform Supply Vessel. As well as the low freeboard rescue zone, she carries a Daughter Craft and Fast Rescue Craft, which can be launched rapidly. Worst-case she can safely carry up to 300 survivors. Vessels like her are re...

VOS Grace. Had to look her up. Seems an odd choice, sending the offshore safety ship

RetroSicotte wrote:Decided to get a summary of what people are thinking of.

Nice idea - I've added the "T23 lite" idea - feel free to modify/ improve

how many ships are still carrying 20mm GAM BO1 the E class survey vessels have them and I think the Hunt have them as additional armament Apart from the B1 Rivers, I think its just the Echos and the RFAs (apart from the Waves) now, though the Archers are ffbnw. The Hunts have DS30Bs now. I think th...

Caribbean by the time the fictional light frigates are meant to be being built you are looking at 2030. So you have the 2020 & 2025 elections so I'd say its a fairly probable scenario that Labour will win one of these most probably 2025. Well, they would have to win the 2030 election to be in p...

However the River like the RFA's should not be on these tasks they should be tasking of proper warships In an ideal world, I would agree with you. But it isn't Given there are insuficient vessels to patrol home waters it is misguided to deploy them over seas. Again, in an ideal world. Maybe we shou...

if you are using common components then a paralell build makes more sense as you can get some economies on scales of purchase Agreed! I would see one of the design challenges for the FLF as being "how can we build a smaller cheaper frigate using as much as possible out of the T23/ T26 parts bi...

LMM? OK - lets use a £25000 missile to fire a warning shot, shall we? LMM on the Sigma mount is an excellent upgrade for the secondary armament on a genuine warship, but its a bit OTT for a patrol vessel in peacetime (and in wartime I would be more concerned with getting some form of air defence ont...

From my POV, the serious limitation of the 30mm (and from what I read, the 40mm) is it's effective range of only 2000m (i.e. half a kilometer less than the Arab worlds old favourite the ZU-23, or 3.5 km less than the Kornet). Range - not hitting power - it's what allows you to stay outside of the da...

Just because it is suppose to be cheaper doesn't directly mean less capable. If we try and build a cheap type 26 we will end up with a shitty type 26. So, don't do that, break the mould and try something unconventional. All of the suggestions on this forum have been unambitious cheap traditional fr...

shark bait wrote:Caribbean wrote:
AND by implication slightly less capable

Disagree.

I was referring to the "T23 being overqualified" quote, so I believe that the implication is correct

Sounds nice, an absalon / damen crossover still offers more utility in the flexible general purpose role though. Agreed, but I suspect that we are unlikely to see something like that until the amphibs are replaced, though there might be a case for something similar in the C3 role In 2005 perhaps. T...

shark bait wrote:It doesn't make sense.

Completely capable of the role it's intended for and cheaper - makes perfect sense.

Donald-san, I think you have a very interesting solution with your either/or hangar/mission bay idea. I would just go one step further and make the two sides more symmetrical, maybe retain the slightly different widths, but with an external door on both sides and an internal door between them as wel...

The short SSBN is an interesting idea. Doesn't the CMC come in 4 tube increments?

Shark Bait - yes - a very useful graphic. Does that imply that we will need to start building an Astute successor somewhere around 2029 - 30, as it looks as if the SSNs take 9-10 years to build and the SSBNs are expected to be something similar, or are the Astutues expected to serve more than 30 yea...

merlin already is, it needs Air to surface capability to make it an all round platform. There's probably a case to be made that the RN wants to move to an all Merlin force, but I don't think they are serious about that. Not until they decide to pay for Martlett and Sea Venom to be operated on Merli...

agree'd as a GP frigate it needs to be a good balanced all rounder. A bit like the GP T23? a deck and hanger big enough for merlin gives you flexibility if you are shipping a smaller helicopter the space can be used to carry other things. on some deployments a Merlin transport helicopter might be a...

CB90's would be great, not as a replacement but in addition to LCVP. I like the idea. I went down to have a look at HMS Mersey when she was in (well, OK - I went to my favourite watering hole, which just happens to overlook the dock) and I would say that two 16m boats looks like a tight fit, even a...

I must admit that I have always thought that there is a lot of sense in the C1,C2,C3 idea. But there is also a difference between the roles, so I don't think that we should be trying to shoehorn a T26s requirements list into the FLF design. Let me play Devil's Advocate for a bit here. The FLF is int...

Once again, apologies for responding to something way back up thread - I'll try to do better in future! in the actual Falklands war we managed to generate the task group without sacrificing the core commitments We did have rather more frigates and destroyers in those days - which rather emphasises t...

As far as I can see, the language used in the SDSR indicated that they wanted to investigate building the 5 GP ships to a different "slightly lighter" design (presumably to keep the design teams in practice) and , IF they think they will be cheaper (and that includes, I think,running costs...

If you want 5in gun in place of 3in, you may need additional 2-3m of hull, possibly. Donald-san - add 2 - 3 metres to your 104.6 and you get to around 107m - rather similar to the Venator 110 concept. It looks to me as if others are following the same thought process as you (and BMT seem to be recr...