Fair point. How well would the Otago-class fare in either UK waters or even Med then?donald_of_tokyo wrote: ↑26 Oct 2023, 01:59Yes. In the original blue print, the hangar is 16-17m long, and thus can accommodate a Wildcat.wargame_insomniac wrote: ↑25 Oct 2023, 19:39 I think in a previous post you mentioned that the Otago class OPV's had hangar space sufficient to carry a Wildcat.
One thing to note is, Otago-class OPV is the Vard7 OPV, and as such designed to merchant ship standard (actually, it is their sales point, the words on top of their web-page). They do not have military-grade radar nor CMS, both of which River B2 has. I also "guess" the internal standard shall be more a merchant ship standard than an OPV standard.
Otago-class having a Wildcat-capable hangar is good. But, its 85-m short length make them unsuitable for blue-water helo operations. However, in littoral water (especially around an island), big wave and swell can be avoided by "hiding behind" the landmass, and then the OPV's helo operation will be possible there. This is why I prefer them to be used in WIGS.
Although the RN does need more vessels like either Proteus and Stirling Castle for both their respective roles of sea bed infrastucture monitoring and MCMV, in the short term we just need a greater geographical presence around UK waters, with the large numbers of Russian ships that have been "pasing through" recently. While it is still peacetime we should use our OPVs to shadow Russian ships, trying to preserve the T23's by using tham sparingly , especially if down to just 7*T23 ASW now Westminster has been retired