River Class (OPV) (RN)

[Repulse]

Wasn't a Merlin adaptable hangar apart of the requirements? A Merlin capable hangar can already operate two wildcats.

Merlin Capable Hanger = 2 Lynx.jpg

add to a merlin capable flight deck gives a large open area that can be utilized for other things when Helicopters aren't being carried.
The hanger is also a very usefull mission bay

Yes, and? It's a hangar attached to a £250mn hull, the same could be attached to a £150mn hull saving £100mn for more £25mn Wildcats or more ships.

5 x base T23e = 6 x River B3s (each with 2 Wildcats and say 2 CB90s).

[Zealot]

I don't understand this, the Royal Navy never wanted B2s in the first place. Why would they want modified B2s aka B3s? Why waste the money on more Rivers.

[james k]

Because they are versatile adaptable and economic ships that have upgrade potential. They can maintain a presence overseas and support warlike operations by the fleet with a small crew. The RN might very well like a fleet of T45's and T26's but if they insisted on it then they would loose out and not all of the tasks assigned to the senior service require very large, complex and expensive warships.

I don't understand this, the Royal Navy never wanted B2s in the first place. Why would they want modified B2s aka B3s? Why waste the money on more Rivers.

[marktigger]

Because they are versatile adaptable and economic ships that have upgrade potential. They can maintain a presence overseas and support warlike operations by the fleet with a small crew. The RN might very well like a fleet of T45's and T26's but if they insisted on it then they would loose out and not all of the tasks assigned to the senior service require very large, complex and expensive warships.

I don't understand this, the Royal Navy never wanted B2s in the first place. Why would they want modified B2s aka B3s? Why waste the money on more Rivers.

and then the politicians and treasury can say you can do the job with a bargin basement vessel then an internation incident occurs and pictures of burning and sinking Royal navy vessels are on the Front page of the papers with official statements like "in the course of its duties with in the total exclusion zone around x HMS Y etc" and the royal navy pays in lives for the misguided belief that you can do it all on the cheap! sorry have seen it once in my lifetime to often!

[james k]

Were the Type 42's a cheap option?

[Gabriele]

They were. Particularly the initial, short design that everyone knew would not work that well.

[Repulse]

Sorry, these arguments that only "battleships" can contribute to warfighting are as worse as the politicians who think everything can be done on the cheap - this is exactly why we are where we are. We are trying to build the RN around a fleet of Rolls Royces with the budget of a fleet of Minis, whereas what is needed are some Rolls Royces, some minis and some BMW X5s - it's all lost the idea of balance. What was the major contributing factor to the losses in the Falklands, was it "cheap designs" or was it a complete lack of Air Superiority and AEW? Also who believes if we'd had a fleet full of full fat T22s / T42s that there would have been even close the numbers to equip the task force? The options are we either find this bloody magic money tree, surrender our citizens to foreign attack or just get on and do the best we can through a balanced fleet.

Rant over.

[Engaging Strategy]

They were. Particularly the initial, short design that everyone knew would not work that well.

The initial design was the long version. It was shortened to save money.

[Ron5]

Were the Type 42's a cheap option?

They were. Particularly the initial, short design that everyone knew would not work that well.

The initial design was the long version. It was shortened to save money.

No they were not the cheap option. Even shortened, many thought escorts could be designed to be built better and cheaper and more exportable than the Type 42's, by non-RN design shops. Sound familiar?

The resulting public and political pressure resulted in the Type 21 orders. They ran massively over cost during build and, although popular with the younger officers for their speed & spacious accommodation, attracted zero export orders, needed expensive surgery to fix weaknesses in their hulls, were next to useless in the Falklands conflict and were quickly sold off for a song afterwards.

They were even called the new Leanders during the initial euphoric period.

What goes around, comes around.

[marktigger]

Sorry, these arguments that only "battleships" can contribute to warfighting are as worse as the politicians who think everything can be done on the cheap - this is exactly why we are where we are. We are trying to build the RN around a fleet of Rolls Royces with the budget of a fleet of Minis, whereas what is needed are some Rolls Royces, some minis and some BMW X5s - it's all lost the idea of balance. What was the major contributing factor to the losses in the Falklands, was it "cheap designs" or was it a complete lack of Air Superiority and AEW? Also who believes if we'd had a fleet full of full fat T22s / T42s that there would have been even close the numbers to equip the task force? The options are we either find this bloody magic money tree, surrender our citizens to foreign attack or just get on and do the best we can through a balanced fleet.

Rant over.

how wise will it be after the event when like in 82 we are having to build a series of replacement vessels for those lost or expensive rebuilds to rectify the mistakes caused by penny pinching? was the bill ever released for the cost of rewiring the fleet?

[Repulse]

I'm one for avoiding penny pinching, but that is not the scale we are talking about, hope you've found that money tree...

[Gabriele]

The initial design was the long version. It was shortened to save money.

The chief designer claimed that they had always proposed to build it with the long bow, but regardless of what they wished the Type 42 was born to stringent size and cost limitations, to be a cheap replacement for the Type 82s that were not going to be built.
Eventually, more capability was added in along the way.

[Engaging Strategy]

The resulting public and political pressure resulted in the Type 21 orders. They ran massively over cost during build and, although popular with the younger officers for their speed & spacious accommodation, attracted zero export orders, needed expensive surgery to fix weaknesses in their hulls, were next to useless in the Falklands conflict and were quickly sold off for a song afterwards.

Sorry but a lot of that is frankly nonsense. Yes, they ran over cost but the estimate for them was unrealistic. A brand new gas turbine ship was always going to cost more than the later Leanders with their tried and tested design refined over more than a decade and tens of iterations.

As for zero export orders, Type 21 was an RN version of the Vospers Mk.5 and Mk.7 frigates, both of which generated export orders.

Next to useless in the Falklands war? No more useless than the Leanders and Rothesays sent down there. They did hard service on the gun line, supporting the army and RMs ashore and did their job protecting capital units in San Carlos Water, but I supppose that doesn't count.

Nor were they "quickly sold off". They served for another decade and were only ditched when the peace dividend reductions of the 1990s started to bite.

They were not fabulous first rate ships, but to paint them as worse than useless is frankly disingenuous.

[Digger22]

Alacrity was sent to 'Detect' mines in Falkland sound, presumably if she survived there were no mines. Luckily there weren't any. Would we send in a T45/T26/T23 to do the same now?? NO. Some jobs come up that you just can't account for, and you have to have a plan B!

[Gabriele]

Having more deployable MCM detection and clearance means is a MHC task, thank gods. Whoever suggests that there should be "sacrificable" frigate classes in the event of having to repeat that act of courage is implying two programme failures: of MHC, and of the escort programme.

[Ron5]

The resulting public and political pressure resulted in the Type 21 orders. They ran massively over cost during build and, although popular with the younger officers for their speed & spacious accommodation, attracted zero export orders, needed expensive surgery to fix weaknesses in their hulls, were next to useless in the Falklands conflict and were quickly sold off for a song afterwards.

Sorry but a lot of that is frankly nonsense. Yes, they ran over cost but the estimate for them was unrealistic. A brand new gas turbine ship was always going to cost more than the later Leanders with their tried and tested design refined over more than a decade and tens of iterations.

As for zero export orders, Type 21 was an RN version of the Vospers Mk.5 and Mk.7 frigates, both of which generated export orders.

Next to useless in the Falklands war? No more useless than the Leanders and Rothesays sent down there. They did hard service on the gun line, supporting the army and RMs ashore and did their job protecting capital units in San Carlos Water, but I supppose that doesn't count.

Nor were they "quickly sold off". They served for another decade and were only ditched when the peace dividend reductions of the 1990s started to bite.

They were not fabulous first rate ships, but to paint them as worse than useless is frankly disingenuous.

I respect your love for the Type 21's and it was nice to call my comments "frankly nonsense" and not just "nonsense".

But ..

1. Type 21's were supposed to cost 3.5m each. They turned out at between 14 and 27 million. That's really crappy cost growth.

2. Mk 5's & 7's were noticeably different in design & equipment than Type 21's. There no evidence I am aware of that shows the RN acquiring 21's lead to sales of the other ships.

3. Yes, useless in the Falklands. They were employed as decoys in San Carlos as they had no credible AA armament. Any success at NGS was more due too the design of the 4.5" gun that the ship that carried it. Failed to detect any of the Argentinian submarines.

4. Aluminum superstructure was so bad that its left a prejudice in the RN that lasts to this day. See Adm Z's comments at DSEI 2017: "anything but aluminum".

5. Hull so weak, speed had to be dropped in a seaway. Expensive steel reinforcements cut 5 knots off top speed.

6. Insufficient margins to add towed array or CIWS.

6. Up for sale after the Faklands war, took some time to find a country willing to spend the money to get them working again and into service.

Bad ships. Lives on today in the LCS. Fast but weak & low capabilities.

[james k]

Ron two points here.

Aluminium and warships don't go together, prejudice against it is not for it's own sake and is based on hard earned experience - experience which the USN fails to take notice of.

Re-enforcing a hull is fairly common in both the USN, USGC, RN (Type 42 stretched and Type 22 BIII) and French Navy. This is not necessarily symptomatic of a bad design

In addition

They also carried out their NGS tasks exceedingly well. When sold to Pakistan the USCG had enquired about purchasing them and since their sale they've all been modernised giving good service.



" I respect your love for the Type 21's and it was nice to call my comments "frankly nonsense" and not just "nonsense".

But ..


4. Aluminum superstructure was so bad that its left a prejudice in the RN that lasts to this day. See Adm Z's comments at DSEI 2017: "anything but aluminum".

5. Hull so weak, speed had to be dropped in a seaway. Expensive steel reinforcements cut 5 knots off top speed.


Bad ships. Lives on today in the LCS. Fast but weak & low capabilities.[/quote]

[ArmChairCivvy]

experience which the USN fails to take notice of.

Not in the sense that you meant. But in brand new ships (LCS) they get fractures in the hull from just crossing an Ocean - an Ocean for which they were designed (despite the name) to carry out fast interdiction tasks. Not to mention that the Ticos are getting the same problem for their superstructures (more age related; but how do you reinforce a superstructure? More complicated than with (more uniformly shaped) hulls)

[donald_of_tokyo]

Uhm, not big impact on this discussion, but when talking about T21/Vospher series' export, please do not forget Brazilian Niteroi class. I think they are better than T21, with CODOG propulsion, 45 days endurance, 30 knot top speed, in 3500-3700t FLD hull. Even they are disbanding (and sinking) T22B1s, they keep using Niteroi class.

I am not a lover of T21. But, I think most of the blames cast on them is not fair. Aluminum was a world trend (JMSDF Yuki-class has it), in-sufficuent armament is also for all frigates of 1982, lack of margin is partly caused by not adopting CODOG as proposed from Vosper, but RN/MOD insisting on COGOG, which made CoG higher, and forced them to add hundreds of tons of ballasts.

Even I am not a lover of T21, considering Niteroi-class, I think the "T21 series" was so so successful. If RN did not go with 8 T21 and rather went with 6 Niteroi-like...

[RetroSicotte]

Okay, folks, getting a little too far from the River class. Take it to the Escorts thread.

[ArmChairCivvy]

to the Escorts thread.

Would it be a better guide if that thread were to be renamed "Escorts and Patrol Vessels"
- as an acknowledgement for the violent disagreement on T31 i.e. where does it fall (even before knowing the spec in more than just an outline)?

[RetroSicotte]

That's a pretty decent suggestion. I'll consider doing that when I'm home if I can't think of any reason not to. Cheers.

[Smokey]

HMS Forth will be heading to the South Atlantic to relieve HMS Clyde.

http://en.mercopress.com/2017/09/22/fal ... -hms-forth

[WhitestElephant]

Will the Argies moan and squirm as they did when we first sent a T45 to the islands?

[Smokey]

Will the Argies moan and squirm as they did when we first sent a T45 to the islands?

They'd moan even if HM Govt. sent a klepper kayak.