Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Contains threads on Royal Navy equipment of the past, present and future.
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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

GibMariner wrote: had their Sea Cats replaced with GWS-25 Sea Wolf. The refits ended up costing almost as much as a new frigate.
Just says how "on the cheap" the frigates were being built.

When the T23s had the Merlin added, their unit cost went up by 53% (I presume that includes the hangar).
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Aethulwulf
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Aethulwulf »

Were the Type 21s were modified to carry Exocet after they had entered service..?

Ron5
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Ron5 »

Ironically the high cost of warship refits led to the original T23 concept of a warship that would never need a mid life refit because they wouldn't be in service long enough.

The quote from the RN on the last time they changed primary missile systems said it was in the 70's so I think Gibmariner wins the prize. Well done!

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Ron5 »

Aethulwulf wrote:Were the Type 21s were modified to carry Exocet after they had entered service..?
I was after the last time one missile system replaced another system.

Caribbean
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Caribbean »

Ron5 wrote:If the RN aspired to reduce their standards to that of the Irish navy, you might have a point but seeing as they don't ...
The point, which you clearly missed, was about the relative costs of the BAE and Vard/ Babcocks designs. Both will be good at the OPV job, but one costs vastly more than the other, despite there being little difference between them or the tasks that they will perform
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donald_of_tokyo
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

Caribbean wrote:
Ron5 wrote:If the RN aspired to reduce their standards to that of the Irish navy, you might have a point but seeing as they don't ...
The point, which you clearly missed, was about the relative costs of the BAE and Vard/ Babcocks designs. Both will be good at the OPV job, but one costs vastly more than the other, despite there being little difference between them or the tasks that they will perform
On what are you saying so? Batch 1River was not so expensive than Irish OPVs and they are not built to tha same standard.

As steel is SO cheap and air is free, I am now thinking that the standard is what determines the cost.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Ron5 »

Caribbean wrote:
Ron5 wrote:If the RN aspired to reduce their standards to that of the Irish navy, you might have a point but seeing as they don't ...
The point, which you clearly missed, was about the relative costs of the BAE and Vard/ Babcocks designs. Both will be good at the OPV job, but one costs vastly more than the other, despite there being little difference between them or the tasks that they will perform
Ah but there's the rub! As Donald-san points out, there's a lot of difference between the two designs. To exaggerate a little, the B2 Rivers are mini-warships, the Beckets are maxi fishing boats.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Caribbean »

donald_of_tokyo wrote:I am now thinking that the standard is what determines the cost
Very true, Donald-san. That is undoubtedly the case. My point is that the River B2s are OPVs. Why did we need to build them to such a high standard? There may well be good reasons, such as skill retention and training for the ship-building workforce, but these are not military reasons.

Ron - just realised that my response may have come over as a bit harsh - didn't mean to put it that way - suffering from jet-lag at the moment :?
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Ron5
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Ron5 »

No need, we're all friends here :-)

PapaGolf
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by PapaGolf »

Why built to such high standards?
During the Falklands war the Royal Navy assembled an armada of small ships to operate in "admin" roles. This included the Castle class OPV, survey vessels, mine sweepers and fishing trawlers from STUFT! Should we need to assemble another large maritime task force, the Rivers would likely be included and may be under direct fire.

Spinflight
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Spinflight »

Don't confuse high standards with warship spec.

Whilst they are somewhat warrier than the originals it is only somewhat and they shouldn't be confused with full fat warships.

Basically they did what they could within the confines of the original design, tweaked this and that.

It is not however the complete redesign that Lloyd's warship standards would require, merely OPV +.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Digger22 »

When does an OPV Become a Frigate, light or otherwise?
Answer,
It doesn't. We're blurring the lines here, and an OPV Will always be just that by definition.
We need to increase our surface fleet with capable escorts not pumped OPV. We need OPV's but as just that, IMHO.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Caribbean »

Spinflight wrote:It is not however the complete redesign that Lloyd's warship standards would require, merely OPV +
Precisely. The changes are clearly quite major, but they seem to have been both extremely costly and to have achieved little of military value. Perhaps more will happen in the future that justifies the expenditure - we shall see.
PapaGolf wrote:During the Falklands war the Royal Navy assembled an armada of small ships to operate in "admin" roles
The Castles and Heclas were used in totally non-combat missions in the Falklands (despatch and casualty transport, respectively), where they were kept well out of harm's way (the Hecla's were painted in Red Cross livery). The trawlers weren't chosen at random either. They were 1400 tonne deep-sea trawlers with 7600nm range, earmarked and kept in readiness for conversion to minesweepers under a cold-war plan for sweeping the North Sea of Russian mines. They were not intended to operate in an active war zone as the expectation was that the Argentinians would have surrendered by the time that they arrived (oops!). They proved useful as (expendable) utility transports (and you can launch a SF Gemini down the net chute, apparently!), but did very little minesweeping prior to the Argentine surrender, as it was simply too risky.
Digger22 wrote:When does an OPV Become a Frigate, light or otherwise?
Arguably, if you build an OPV to full military standards, it becomes a corvette. And the RN doesn't do corvettes (which may be a mistake when you have so few hulls)
Digger22 wrote:an OPV Will always be just that by definition
Agreed
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by dmereifield »

https://www.strategypage.com/default.aspx

Does anyone know anything about this website, the editor or contributing author(s) or the validity of it's content?

I saw the following article on the T26, which makes a number of statements that seem odd, e.g.:

1) they will have torpedo tubes

2) they will be named after counties

Taking with a large pinch of salt....but I'm hoping the second point is true!

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/20170717.aspx

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by abc123 »

dmereifield wrote:https://www.strategypage.com/default.aspx

Does anyone know anything about this website, the editor or contributing author(s) or the validity of it's content?

I saw the following article on the T26, which makes a number of statements that seem odd, e.g.:

1) they will have torpedo tubes

2) they will be named after counties

Taking with a large pinch of salt....but I'm hoping the second point is true!

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/20170717.aspx
This part seems bit odd:

"The Type 26 ships are 150 meters (492 feet) long and have a top speed of 50 kilometers an hour. Range is 13,000 kilometers (at 28 kilometers an hour) before refueling and resupply is necessary."

:?:
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Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Timmymagic »

dmereifield wrote:https://www.strategypage.com/default.aspx

Does anyone know anything about this website, the editor or contributing author(s) or the validity of it's content?

I saw the following article on the T26, which makes a number of statements that seem odd, e.g.:

1) they will have torpedo tubes

2) they will be named after counties

Taking with a large pinch of salt....but I'm hoping the second point is true!

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/20170717.aspx
I wouldn't believe anything on Strategy Page without clarification from another sort. It's like the The National Interest. About 15 years ago it had a vibrant community but that died off about 5 years ago.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Timmymagic wrote: The National Interest.

They have good quality pieces coming out; the bias is in the name. To be honest, I thought it was a publication rather than a forum (yes, the comments/ commentators are a bit rag tag).
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

dmereifield
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by dmereifield »

Thanks for info TM/ACC. Not heard of the National Interest before

Spinflight
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Spinflight »

The expenditure on the Rivers was partly down to toba, partly down to skilling up the workforce to prevent delays in the t26 (lots of apprentices apparently) and partly down to military utility.

For instance rather than imagining HMS Forth bravely steaming into the line of fire think closer to home.

Without any mpa ability our one realistic asw bird is the Merlin. Having a fight deck and vessel capable of refueling them allows a greater range from land bases which is useful for protecting the casd.

Also there are a multitude of potential uses given the current availability of, and likely development of, iso containerised payloads. From the fancy pants such as operating uavs to the more mundane and seemingly trivial such as comms relay and j6 processing to alleviate the reach forward / back bandwidth issues.

Don't however get excited. These are indeed merely very expensive OPVs, will be used as such and can expect the vast majority of their working lives to be spent in home waters looking after fish.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Spinflight wrote: (lots of apprentices apparently)
In economics that is called the "pig cycle", for anything that has long-ish lead times. Not just skilling the workforce, but e.g. mines. While new ones are being opened up, they have no impact and when they come (all at once) on-stream, the prices crash, older mines close and here we go again.
- feast and famine, in British warship building
- first the T45s had to be rushed through, to free the capacity for starting the carriers. This involved building in blocks, dispersed. Probably made it more expensive, but experience was helpful for smoothing out the carrier project
- after that feast, then famine ( and now we are reinventing the dispersed building in blocks again, may be...ref NSS)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by dmereifield »

So now we have the T26 as the City class, will the RN/MoD continue that ethos with her little sister, the T31, being the town class?

Clive F
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Clive F »

Can someone tell me which places are affiliated with current T23/T45's. This may give a clue as to where the geographical names of new T26's will be?

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by dmereifield »

Clive F wrote:Can someone tell me which places are affiliated with current T23/T45's. This may give a clue as to where the geographical names of new T26's will be?
Anyone outside the RN has no idea about this, even those in the respective towns/cities....thats why the naming the ship itself is important to invoke more civic pride and affinity. Really pleased they did this with the T26, to some extent the rivers, and hope they continue with the T31s...

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Dahedd »

Bare with me, about to type in total guff.

So now we know the name of the T26 class what about the T31?

Say they select a variant of the Venator what about names starting with a V?

First ship in class being HMS Venator then how's about Vulcan, Valiant, Victor, Viking ?
Last ones a stretch mind you. 4 of them being RAF aircraft (Viking trainer?) Give the ship's association with RAF squadrons that used to fly said aircraft?

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Dahedd wrote:Last ones a stretch mind you. 4 of them being RAF aircraft (Viking trainer?)
There is a close (more recent) maritime connection: the weather forecast :D
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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