Firstly by just adding a hangar you will lose the ability to operate USV's from the ship this is shown on the Khareef class 99m ships we need to not think of it as a hangar but a full width mission space with three openings one each side 12.5m wide and one on to the flight deck this space needs to be capable of holding and operating 1 wildcat and 2 x 11m MCM / ASW USV or 4 x 9.5m USV / ORC and a Camcopterwargame_insomniac wrote: ↑06 Jan 2022, 21:24Understand the first point. On the second it is a shame that it would take 20m extension to fit in the enclosed hangar - I would thought that could have done this by some redsign and thus need less extra length and thus cheaper price, but never mind.Tempest414 wrote: ↑06 Jan 2022, 17:53 The reason for picking 110 meters is two fold first BMT carried out study that concluded that a ship needed to be 107 meters or above to conduct meaningful helicopter operation. Second is we are going to need the mission bay to be 20 meters so that it can carry a helicopter plus 2 USV's otherwise we lose the flexibility of the B2 which could carry 2 x 7m ribs , 3 x 9m ribs and a UAV at the same time
Also the reason for having 4 T-31 and 4 RB-3 is to allow 3 of each to be at sea or readiness and 1 of each to be in maintenance meaning the six ships could cover East Africa , Gulf and Indo - Pacific
I would agree that the RB-3 I laid out would be Sloops but that is not a bad thing
These proposed River B3's would have more firepower than B2's, and more utility with enclosed hangar for operating helicopters and UAV/USV/USuV. But other than easily adding LMM's to help with anti-horde boat/drone/USV attacks, this 110m vessel would still lack missiles for AAW/ASW/ASuW.
We have discussed on River thread the possible upgrading of River B2's or building new B3's to the OPV+ and/or the OPV Max level, and I do like the idea of an ugraded B3. And I like the idea of either using smaller UK shipyards such as Appledore (and maybe Belfast) to build these smaller, less complicated warships, leaving Clyde and Rosyth to concentrate on T26/T31.
But I worry your proposed 110m River B3 costing £180m apiece, without ANY real AAW/ASW/ASuW, would be past a tipping point of cost versus utility.....
Second as said a ship under 107m make helicopter operations limited and the hole idea of the B3 is adding a Helicopter why go to the trouble of building a ship to operate a helicopter and then limit that very capability for the want of a extra 10m
Third a RB-3 armed with 1 x 57mm , 1 x 40mm , 4 x 12.7mm would have very good anti air and anti swam for it task add to this the Wildcat which can carry 20 LMM , 4 Sea-Venom or 2 torpedoes and it would have good OTH capability as well meaning for its size and cost and crew it would have very good AAW , ASW , MCM , ASuW