UK Defence Forum

Scortch.

So that's why HMS Daring was berthed in 3 Basin's "Pocket".

The Americans are a bit twitchy about security of their kit for some strange reason.
RM would normally escort SSBN to and from Faslane but obviously not secure enough for USN.

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I suppose a T-45 has a greater deterrent effect for the tree huggers comparted to a couple of small police type launches

HMS Dragon arrived home this morning.


(ships, planes and gaming) 6th July 2019


(ships, planes and gaming) 6th July 2019

According to Navy Lookout, Dragon was on her way to the Upper Harbour Ammunition Facility (UHAF).

So HMS Duncan is being deployed to the gulf to take over from Montrose so she can go in for maintenance and crew change

How politicians must be wishing that we still had a "Persian Gulf Squadron". Oh, they must have forgotten that they themselves are responsible for there not being one!?!?!?

Ironic that we have an east of Suez base again, but nothing to put in it.

Surely an ASW T23 would have been more useful considering the number of Midget subs the Iranians have?

SKB wrote:

Considering her engine issues, how smart was to send her, especially in summer?

Type 45 Destroyers: Deployment:Written question - 275139, asked by Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) : 09 July 2019
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many times the UK's six Type 45 destroyers have been put to sea in the last twelve months.
Answered by: Stuart Andrew : 15 July 2019. The normal operating cycle of every ship involves them entering different readiness levels depending on their programmes and Departmental planning requirements.
From records available, the number of days each Type 45 destroyer has spent at sea between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019 is shown below.

Total number of days at sea
HMS DEFENDER 118
HMS DIAMOND 91
HMS DRAGON 154
HMS DUNCAN 116
HMS DARING 0
HMS DAUNTLESS 0
TOTAL 479

From <https://www.parliament.uk/business/publ ... 09/275139/>

So on average each T45 deployed 80 days/22% of year, a good, bad or very indifferent record for a fleet of six ships? Understand USN Burkes ~135 days whose ships date back to the 90's and with the new FFG(X) USN aiming to more than double that figure. No reason given why MoD did not report different readiness levels, so presume need to draw your own conclusions.

SKB wrote:

Would note the DS30M Mark II guns (30mm Bushmaster II) might have a 200 RPM but as barrels air cooled can only fire in burts of ~5 sec before stopping to allow barrel to cool, secondly though 2+nm range effective range ~ 2 km

NickC wrote:So on average each T45 deployed 80 days/22% of year, a good, bad or very indifferent record for a fleet of six ships? Understand USN Burkes ~135 days whose ships date back to the 90's and with the new FFG(X) USN aiming to more than double that figure. No reason given why MoD did not report different readiness levels, so presume need to draw your own conclusions.

See this is a miss leading sum for me and a leading question as the number of days at sea and the number of days ready to go to sea if needed are different thing. we have to note that the RN dose not have the funding that the UN navy enjoys. What I see when looking at the figures above is that of the 4 ship available ( that were not in refit ) 2 were at ready or at sea all year round

Edit : this means that the four available ships had average of 119 sea going days meaning there at ready availability must be near to 140 to 150 days very good in my eyes for a highly complex AAW destroyer

Tempest414 wrote:

NickC wrote:So on average each T45 deployed 80 days/22% of year, a good, bad or very indifferent record for a fleet of six ships? Understand USN Burkes ~135 days whose ships date back to the 90's and with the new FFG(X) USN aiming to more than double that figure. No reason given why MoD did not report different readiness levels, so presume need to draw your own conclusions.

See this is a miss leading sum for me and a leading question as the number of days at sea and the number of days ready to go to sea if needed are different thing. we have to note that the RN dose not have the funding that the UN navy enjoys. What I see when looking at the figures above is that of the 4 ship available ( that were not in refit ) 2 were at ready or at sea all year round

Not saying your interpretation is incorrect but USN funding directed on buying shiny new ships, maintenance was severely underfunded for years and only now on upward trend after the two Burke collisions at sea in 2017 with the loss of seventeen sailors lives (inquiry found a long list of inoperative machinery/systems when they put to sea).

My thought for the low numbers for deployed days reflected by the problems with the T45 propulsion system and actual crew numbers available.

Tempest414 wrote:

NickC wrote:So on average each T45 deployed 80 days/22% of year, a good, bad or very indifferent record for a fleet of six ships? Understand USN Burkes ~135 days whose ships date back to the 90's and with the new FFG(X) USN aiming to more than double that figure. No reason given why MoD did not report different readiness levels, so presume need to draw your own conclusions.

See this is a miss leading sum for me and a leading question as the number of days at sea and the number of days ready to go to sea if needed are different thing. we have to note that the RN dose not have the funding that the UN navy enjoys. What I see when looking at the figures above is that of the 4 ship available ( that were not in refit ) 2 were at ready or at sea all year round

Edit : this means that the four available ships had average of 119 sea going days meaning there at ready availability must be near to 140 to 150 days very good in my eyes for a highly complex AAW destroyer

RN T45 and T23 BOTH enjoyed 140-150 sea going days on average, around 2010. This is clearly a massive reduction.

For me it is the “stealth cut”, saying we have 19 escorts but actually operating tempo per ship is 40% less than those we saw in 2010.

Again, RN is NOT using 19 escorts for years. Actual number is 40% less = 11-12 hulls.

Do we really need 5 T31?

For me it is clear, even if we get 2 more T26 in place of 5 T31, UK loses nothing in it hull number, because it is using only 60% of the 19 escorts on paper, while capability increase is also quite clear.

A smaller fleet would give less ship availability not the same. A flawed argument. We need 19 Escorts min.

As this is T45 thread, I think to have 2/3 ships in refit at the same time is a scandal. If we needed to deploy a Task group today we couldn't.

Digger22 wrote:A smaller fleet would give less ship availability not the same. A flawed argument. We need 19 Escorts min.

Thanks, will proceed in escort thread.

Digger22 wrote:A smaller fleet would give less ship availability not the same. A flawed argument. We need 19 Escorts min.

As this is T45 thread, I think to have 2/3 ships in refit at the same time is a scandal. If we needed to deploy a Task group today we couldn't.

On the other hand, with their engine issues, how much was really lost? I mean, just look now with the T45 sent to Gulf in the middle of summer, with problems not yet rectified, would you like to be a sailor on that ship?

Type 45 news only in this topic please.

"HMS DUNCAN ARRIVES IN THE GULF"

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-l ... pH5P9jNako