Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

[new guy]

Hard to tell if the BAE LPX model has a conventional well-deck.



What is that 'Door' at the rear?

Why are the landing craft at the front?

Are those boats lifted out of water?

Steel beach?

[new guy]

The top priority is the first design so both Albions and Argus can be retired ASAP. This is because the Albions are old, require too many crew to propery man, and lack hangars.

We have options for the second design for RFA including variety of Enforcer and BMT designs.

The Albion vessels are about the same age as the type 45s they commissioned around 2004. So about middle aged but not old.

Agree, the Albions are young and the Bays even younger - the ships they replaced were in on average in @35 years old and almost @40 years old respectively with one the Round-table class still in service with the Brazilian navy. Neither classes are in urgent need of replacement, they are either not fitting requirements anymore or de-prioritised.

As for crew you could man both and probably a type 23 head count wise for what we are using for the 2nd carrier that was never supposed to be in service so why are they considered manpower heavy all off a sudden. Hangers is a problem if you want them to operate on their own, they were never meant to. They were supposed to operate with HMS ocean or one of the invincibles as a group.

A single CVF can provide more air support than any single historical task group would have required, more than an Invincible class and Ocean combined. The whole idea that you can get away with only crewing one, and it solves things is for the birds. Crewing requirements for a CVF is significantly less than an Invincible and Ocean.

Navy hierarchy aren’t interested in the marines we’ve seen that with the choices the last few sea loads have made but there too popular for them to get rid off entirely.

Don’t quite think it’s that simple, the Navy haven’t prioritised brigade level ops, with kit to support a large amphibious assault capability, because the government doesn’t prioritise it, because they do not believe it’s needed. I agree.

[SW1]

A single CVF can provide more air support than any single historical task group would have required, more than an Invincible class and Ocean combined. The whole idea that you can get away with only crewing one, and it solves things is for the birds. Crewing requirements for a CVF is significantly less than an Invincible and Ocean.

Which was the excuse for having the 1 big ship. Lucky everyone’s talking about dispersed operations now not concentrating all your eggs in one big basket…. There was no plan ever for 2 big ships in service none. The 2nd ship was a spare in case the 1st ship broke or was in deep refit.

Ocean had a crew requirement of about 280 and was by a country mile the best cost capably blend ship the navy has operated probably in the last 40 years.

If you think freeing up 800 billets would not significantly improve things across the current surface fleet you haven’t been paying attention.

[Repulse]

A single CVF can provide more air support than any single historical task group would have required, more than an Invincible class and Ocean combined. The whole idea that you can get away with only crewing one, and it solves things is for the birds. Crewing requirements for a CVF is significantly less than an Invincible and Ocean.

Which was the excuse for having the 1 big ship. Lucky everyone’s talking about dispersed operations now not concentrating all your eggs in one big basket…. There was no plan ever for 2 big ships in service none. The 2nd ship was a spare in case the 1st ship broke or was in deep refit.

Ocean had a crew requirement of about 280 and was by a country mile the best cost capably blend ship the navy has operated probably in the last 40 years.

If you think freeing up 800 billets would not significantly improve things across the current surface fleet you haven’t been paying attention.

Plans change, priorities change and if the decision is that carriers are more important than frigates or crewing amphibious ships then I support it. The worse case is that we end up with a large number of irrelevant platforms. The RN provides 2/3rds of the large flat tops in Europe with both at readiness not rusting alongside, this is more important than duplicating light frigates that are plentiful.

[Fr0sty125]

The top priority is the first design so both Albions and Argus can be retired ASAP. This is because the Albions are old, require too many crew to propery man, and lack hangars.

We have options for the second design for RFA including variety of Enforcer and BMT designs.

The Albion vessels are about the same age as the type 45s they commissioned around 2004. So about middle aged but not old. As for crew you could man both and probably a type 23 head count wise for what we are using for the 2nd carrier that was never supposed to be in service so why are they considered manpower heavy all off a sudden. Hangers is a problem if you want them to operate on their own, they were never meant to. They were supposed to operate with HMS ocean or one of the invincibles as a group.

Navy hierarchy aren’t interested in the marines we’ve seen that with the choices the last few sea loads have made but there too popular for them to get rid off entirely.

Albion and Bays are not old but there is only one Argus. Can’t get away from that, you also can’t get away from the fact that Albion requires more crew than Ocean did. They really all need to be sold off and replacements ordered probably instead or ahead of the Type 32 order.

[new guy]

Which was the excuse for having the 1 big ship. Lucky everyone’s talking about dispersed operations now not concentrating all your eggs in one big basket…. There was no plan ever for 2 big ships in service none. The 2nd ship was a spare in case the 1st ship broke or was in deep refit.

More baloney. The CVF's were very deliberately designed so their out of service periods e.g. for refits, were minimised to increase the amount of time both were in service together. Surely no one has forgotten about one ship being configured as a strike carrier and the other as a huge LPH? It was all over the QE launch booklet given to invitees.

I so hate it when folks rewrite history to support a weak argument

[Tempest414]

HMS Albion R07 in 1958 with 42 Cdo on board



Albion R07 was 224 by 37 meters shows that flight decks add linear meters if wanted

[new guy]

Hard to tell if the BAE LPX model has a conventional well-deck.



What is that 'Door' at the rear?

Why are the landing craft at the front?

Are those boats lifted out of water?

Steel beach?

Image issue fixed.

[jedibeeftrix]

looks like a steel beach rather than a dock from the image.

[new guy]

looks like a steel beach rather than a dock from the image.

Yeah

[shark bait]

Steel beach is ok as long as a LCAC can fly up one.

[Poiuytrewq]

Steel beach is ok as long as a LCAC can fly up one.

How exactly is that LPX concept an upgrade from a Bay?

It’s a retrograde step in virtually every regard.

[Jackstar]

New raiding craft promises to make Commandos more agile and more lethal

https://www.forces.net/services/royal-m ... ore-lethal

[Fr0sty125]

Steel beach is ok as long as a LCAC can fly up one.

A dock would be a far more flexible option with greater utility.

LCAC would be an expensive route to take.

[jedibeeftrix]

Welcome to Wyvern, the UK's newly announced LCAC ...



https://www.griffonwyvern.com/

[shark bait]

Best of luck to Griffon!

The need to get further from shore and the need to go faster make a hovercraft look appealing. A exciting use case is operating a hovercraft from a lightly modified RORO so in the future the Point Class could offload stores without fixed infrastructure. If practical, it's much cheaper than an LPD.

(Plus it's so much cooler than LCU, and a British invention)

[Caribbean]

Now - what was I saying about a UK Dokdo look-alike?

[new guy]

Now - what was I saying about a UK Dokdo look-alike?

A LPH with a door and a low deck is very different to augmenting a Ro-Ro

[Repulse]

Now - what was I saying about a UK Dokdo look-alike?

Ōsumi-class or San Giorgio more like

[donald_of_tokyo]

Replacing 12 LCU with 3 or 4 LCAC? (costwise).

Procurement cost differs a lot, but operational cost will vastly differ. It is a matter of choice.

[Repulse]

Replacing 12 LCU with 3 or 4 LCAC? (costwise).

Procurement cost differs a lot, but operational cost will vastly differ. It is a matter of choice.

Go down this route then it’s criminal we’re leaving the 2400TDs to rot.

[Repulse]

The quoted cost for the Kalaat Beni Abbes amphibious vessel was 400mn Euros in 2015.

Three of these would work well, as they can replace Argus also, and come with a level of self defence (would say CAMM VLS + 57mm for the RN).

Sell three T31s to pay and free up crew for them.

Would free up 300 odd RFA crew also to properly man the FSSs.

[Tempest414]

Now - what was I saying about a UK Dokdo look-alike?

Ōsumi-class or San Giorgio more like

I would say 4 x 200 by 30 meter Osumi class and 6 new RORO class ships would cover everything

Add to this 7 x LCLC , 20 CIC plus make NMH with folding rotor

[Caribbean]

Ōsumi-class or San Giorgio more like

Both are good candidates, though the San Giorgio is possibly a tad too small, but the 3 classes span cover a range of potential dimensions and displacements - IMHO the sweet spot is somewhere in that range.

My point was more about designing for/ utilising an LCAC capability, rather than an LCU (which still has a logistics role).

[Ron5]

Now - what was I saying about a UK Dokdo look-alike?

Would it be called HMS Fukno?