Mine countermeasures and Hydrographic capability (MHC) (MHPC)

[RetroSicotte]

One of the few success stories in European defence industry co-operation, v welcome indeed.
- unlike in many other fields, the half "forced" consolidation in the missiles field has also returned great results

French weak in MCM. UK strong.

French partner with UK, extract all UK know how.

French make products using UK know how. Sells.

UK loses.

Same old.

See also UK-French partnership on UAV's: UK strong on stealth. French weak. So UK politicians sign partnership against strong objections from Bae. French get UK knowledge for free. Yippee. Expect French only UAV for sale very soon.

Same old.

Only time it didn't work: UK strong on modern carrier design. French propose partnership: UK give CVF plans to French, maybe French buy UK parts to their new carrier, maybe. UK says plans cost 100 million. French fade away.

French very, very, bad partners. Only idiot UK politicians and civil servants have not realized this.

Germans will learn on tank partnership. As soon as French get German know how. French only tank will appear for sale.

Bingo, right on the money.

Even the US have realised this.



Skip to 10:45, for their perception on what the French do around their allies and how they spent Red Flag and even a war flying around their allies basically openly "sniffing" at their electronic signals and RCS outcomes.

[Ron5]

UK says plans cost 100 million. French fade away.

I thought they paid up?

Nope. They balked.

[Ron5]

By the way, the French will sell to anybody. If the Russian hordes come surging thru the gap, they'll have French sights to help them. Russian industry could not make them so the French helped out.

[ArmChairCivvy]

UK says plans cost 100 million. French fade away.

I thought they paid up?

Nope. They balked.

For all of it, or just for the 45% that was contingent on them going ahead with the design?
"France agreed to pay the UK for access to the design due to the investment made to date. These payments were £30 million in January 2006, £25 million in July 2006 and a further £45 million if France decides to proceed with the project."
"UK-French agreement on aircraft carriers UK Ministry of Defence". UK Ministry of Defence. 24 January 2006.

[Ron5]

Agreeing to pay and paying are two different things. Frenchies cancelled their 2nd carrier and everything with it.

[The Armchair Soldier]

We've gone way off-topic here guys. Let's swing it back onto MHPC.

[Steakholder]

First of all sorry for my English. I am not a native speaker.
What about a new platform to replace the Hunt, Sandown? Is there any winer. I have heard about the Venator.
Do you have any info on that?
I will appreciate every pice of news on that.

[shark bait]

Not expected for a long time, out into the late 20's.

Right now work is on the new autonomous systems, it hasn't even begun looking at a platform to replace the Hunts or Sandowns yet.

[marktigger]

suspect the hunts will be around for a while yet be interesting to see if they bring the one up from raleigh and refurbish her.

[shark bait]

Venari-85-Image-8-920x923px.jpg

Venari-85-Image-3-920x923px.jpg

I must say BMT's VENARI concept looks spot on for a future MCM vessel.

Big focus on off board vehicles, with plenty of space to take on additional roles across a few domains. Hopefully it can be delivered as a simple cheap hull, and put the focus onto the offboard systems. Payloads over platforms.

[Caribbean]

I like their ideas about the design being including better "survivability" features. Transforms the concept into a significant enabler for the T31. It effectively becomes the mission bay to the T31s "combat platform". Combine several ships together to get a virtual T26 (well, OK T25 and a half)

[donald_of_tokyo]

Measuring the brochure, the hull width is 16m, if its length is 85m. Typically 94% of the size of the Echo-class. So, it may weight 0.94^3 x 3740t =~ 3000t FLD. I like it. The brochure is worth reading, filled with concepts of off-board MCM operation analysis.

Aft Working Deck astern is ~20m long, 16m wide. Maybe similar in its area to the mission bay of T26.
Flight deck is 18-20m long, 16m wide, surely not Merlin capable but Wildcat capable.

[shark bait]

Yes, just finished reading their brochure, and not a bad read, with some interesting MCM insights. Good to see the mission system demoed at unmanned warrior featured. Although not seen, that was the real star being demonstrated at unmanned warrior, proving a system of systems can be integrated and work together. Getting that software platform right is going to be critical to the future operational concepts.

The platform in general looks like its hitting a lot of points to become a flexible drone platform for the future. Big mission spaces, and therefore inherent flexibility baked in from the start. Also interesting to see a point about ASW in there;

VENARI-85 could be deployed as an ASW surveillance capability in a nation’s own waters to monitor and deter another nation’s submarines, thereby releasing the more expensive Frigates and their higher levels of specialist ASW capability to be employed in more demanding operations globally.

That again sounds good, if its already optimised in that way, it may make sense to extend its use to ASW patrols. To me it say, use for home waters to protect thr deterrent, whilst the big escorts go off and escort the task group globally. That is fully reasonable.

I like it a lot, although it does not look dissimilar to the polar ship that is already in construction, its just a scaled dowm version. It could make a nice pair to the Venator in the future, which im sure is what BMT is hoping for.

[Engaging Strategy]

Rumours in the Daily Mail that Scott may be sold.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailym ... rices.html

[MRCA]

Venari-85 is perhaps what we should be spending the type31 budget on. Can probably undertake the same martine security tasks as a type31 could, yet this is actually useful in that mcmv and survey are vital and growing tasks all over the world and we might actually be able to sell some of these.

[Repulse]

Rumours in the Daily Mail that Scott may be sold.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailym ... rices.html

FFS, that is just plain dumb if true.

[Aethulwulf]

Measuring the brochure, the hull width is 16m, if its length is 85m. Typically 94% of the size of the Echo-class. So, it may weight 0.94^3 x 3740t =~ 3000t FLD. I like it. The brochure is worth reading, filled with concepts of off-board MCM operation analysis.

Aft Working Deck astern is ~20m long, 16m wide. Maybe similar in its area to the mission bay of T26.
Flight deck is 18-20m long, 16m wide, surely not Merlin capable but Wildcat capable.

Extend the Venari-85 by 10 or 12m so that the working deck is ~28m long and change the davits for a different type of crane and the ship would be able to operate two LCMs (like the CAIMEN-60). The ship would then be excellent for HADR missions.

Load up the garage under the flight deck with engineering vehicles and pallets of aid. Once the LCMs are launched, the aid/vehicles can be offloaded in to them by crane and off you go.

A couple of Venari 95s (and a T31?) forward deployed to the Caribbean could be a neat package that frees up the Bays and other RFAs from this routine work.

Then add 12-24 Sea Ceptor launchers behind the main gun, a couple of DS30 Seahawk Sigma and a UAV armed with LMM, and you have a self escorting MCMV.

A couple of Venari 95s and a T31 forward deployed to the Gulf could be a package that neatly covers the Kipion requirements.

[ArmChairCivvy]

An interesting catalogue. RE: HMS Scott, one can ask if we need anything that big after the new research ship will be making its rounds, paid from another budget
"Endurance provided a sovereign presence in polar waters, performing hydrographic surveys and supporting the British Antarctic Survey in Antarctica. Her usual deployment saw her in the Southern Ocean and returning to the UK through tropical waters each year. Later, a longer, 18-month deployment was designed to maximise her time available for BAS usage."

[Aethulwulf]

Not sure I believe this story about HMS Scott in the Mail (shocking, I know).

The rest of the article is just about MOD selling off old equipment it no longer needs (it even mentions snatch land rovers and gazelle helicopters) and trying to whip this into a credible scandal.

The news about selling Ocean to Brazil is old news.

Selling HMS Scott is odd; who would want to buy her (apart from Russia and China)?

[dmereifield]

Would be interested to see if the B1 rivers are ok the list.....

[Gabriele]

The surprises on the list are HMS Scott and the Bae 146 fleet. The rest was expected and known, although losing the Lynx 9A is not helpful and means losing 657 AAC Sqn, Joint Special Forces Support Wing, without replacement.

HMS Scott had a 2022 OSD until last year. Guess that, in the complete absence of any effort to replace her, either way she wasn't going to live long.

RFA Argus next, with a 2024 OSD. Guess what is going to happen...

[Spinflight]

I wouldn't get too fond of Echo and Enterprise either.

[RetroSicotte]

An interesting catalogue. RE: HMS Scott, one can ask if we need anything that big after the new research ship will be making its rounds, paid from another budget

No, one cannot ask anything. It's a cut, plain and simple, and should be opposed at all possible levels.

[donald_of_tokyo]

Very important sells, where can I see the list? Or just the Daily Mail article only?

[MRCA]

The price of carrier strike, a price that will continue to grow and a navy high command prepared to gut a navy to pay for a capability that will now be a shadow of what was initially envisaged. Chickens of sdsr15 are starting to come home to roost.