Ron5 wrote:Gritting my teeth and side stepping the interesting discussion on mushrooms, here's the second in my series on troll like behaviors.
Another hall mark of the troll is repeating a misleading piece of information ad nauseam well after it has been comprehensively proven to be bogus. Case in point is the 300 million cost of the Danish Iver Huitfelds which has been used repeatedly as a stick to beat the Royal Navy.
The low cost of those ships was because of a perfect storm of factors that couldn't be repeated anywhere else, not even in Denmark and is therefore less than useful in any discussion of ship costs.
They were that low because of 5 factors:
1. The hull blocks were built at 3rd world prices in Lithuania and Estonia
2. The blocks were completed by Odense Shipyard, a very experienced commercial builder that was going out of business that, as a last favor to the Danish government, did this work under cost before shutting its doors for the final time.
3. The ships used commercial standards and equipment to a far greater extent than would be acceptable to the RN or USN
4. The ships were fitted out at Danish navy facilities using Navy personnel i.e. not at regular commercial prices, using equipment recovered from decommissioned warships
5. The ships that were commissioned into the Danish Navy were not fully functional, in particular, the AAW systems were not working
Gritting your teeth for two weeks must make your gums sore
You made similar claims re. IH on the T31 News thread, in response to my post on 17th Feb, some agreed with others disagreed and asked you to back up your claims, you never replied, so I'll repost it
Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]
Postby NickC » 18 Feb 2020, 15:36
Ron5 wrote:Copying and pasting large sections of brochures is nice but not conclusive.
Would be most interested if you could give list and source of the brochures you are referring to?, my info taken from snippets on web
Ron5 wrote:The IH design was thrown out of both the Canadian & US frigate competitions for various reasons. It didn't last long in Australia either.
Really interested if you can back up this statement.
The USN point blank has refused to disclose which contenders had not made the cut for the FFG(X) competition, the only one for certain I know of was the Atlas Elektronic/Blohm&Voss bid with the MEKO 200 as they announced their bid, the RDN certainly did take IH to US on sales mission, but as far as know Danes never came to any agreement with US shipyard to make bid for FFG(X) eligible, unless source of Ingalls bid for which they have never ever released any details, though think it unlikely. (It does not say much for the USN selection process that one of the bids they did accept was from Lockheed based on their LCS Freedom, it went from a 3,500t to 6,000t+ before Lockheed eventually pulled it as proved totally impracticable to meet the requirements with its semi-planning hull).
Re Canadian competition only know of the Alion-Damen De Zeven Provinciën; Italian FREMM; LMC-BAE Type 26; Navantia F100, have never seen any mention of Danish bid with IH, source?
Ron5 wrote:One comment for the US was that the ship would require so much redesign to meet US warship standards, it would amount to a new ship and would lose any advantage of being a pre-existing desig
Would agree, but then then to meet USN standards the Italian FREMM has been re-designed. Fincantieri added 300t of steel, increased displacement from 6,900t to 7,400t and length by 22 feet, new and more powerful DGs and electric motors etc
donald_of_tokyo wrote:One common factor was a feeling that the Danes had done themselves no favors by greatly overstating their costs savings which don't hold up to much examination.
No knowledge, again interested in source for this comment.
Ron5 wrote:So no, nobody is saying the IH's aren't "real" warships except you.
Bryan Clark Senior Fellow of the influential Washington CSBA think tank, former USN Captain and Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations
Ron5 wrote:What many, professional and amateurs alike, are saying is that:
1. The IH costs quoted by the Danes are not repeatable and were for an incomplete warship
Agreed as said RDN had the technical nouse to install and integrate the systems to keep within their tight budget
Ron5 wrote:2. IH used commercial standards to an extent that's not acceptable to all navies
Would just quote Caribbean "Well - yes and no. The philosophy was to build those bits that needed it to naval standards and the rest to commercial standards. The end result was a design that survived standard shock testing (perhaps proving that they got the mix right?)"
Ron5 wrote:3. IH hasn't "proven" anything apart from its ability to float and to partake in NATO exercises
Well that's a much better record than the T45 which cost approx three times as much per ship, long history of breaking down and now having a very expensive and time consuming shipyard propulsion re-build.
Ron5 wrote:4. Despite aggressive decade long marketing, no one has bought IH, it has failed in every international competition
Again that applies to many navy ships, a prime example being the T45
Ron5 wrote:5. In the UK, the base IH design won in a two horse politically decided, race. Way too soon to say its a failure or a success but when it enters RN service it will be significantly different from the original IH's
Agree
Ron5 wrote:6. The Danish Navy is a very fine & professional lot
In spades
PS Not really a T31 news post