Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

I was pinning my 700 hundred on a pre-SDSR release statement of 700 (which was then referenced when expressing disappointment with the 400 announced). Still does not solve the mystery.

However, from that linked front page there is a further link to a specialist piece on the manning situation, including these:

" illustrated by figures for the escorts; the minimum trained crew requirement for the Type 23 Frigates is 2,060, with 180 vacant positions. The Type 45 destroyers require at least 1,010 but are 80 people short. On average these ships are putting to sea missing about 8% of their required crew, putting additional stress on their ships companies and undermining their resilience. ations, lack of reliefs can result in severe tiredness affecting performance."
- for the foreseeable future the T23 fleet will at all times have one in dock, for refit

Whereas this next piece came as a surprise to me:

"Supposedly reserves can be called up to fill gaps or, ideally provide extra hands in an emergency situation but the RN is already having to call on an increasing number of reserves just to meet its normal obligations. 540 Full Time Reserve Service personnel (FTRS) were active in April 2014."

So whatever the increase will be, there are already 540+80 gapped or stop-gapped positions, before any new ships start to be operated
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.
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marktigger
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by marktigger »

i wonder if they should return Brecon to service and see if the Greeks & Lithuanians will swop hunts for sandowns and have a single class in service?

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shark bait
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by shark bait »

That does sound nice. Should always peruse commonality points.

However I have my doubts the Greeks & Lithuanians will have kept their hulls to the same standard as ours. I may be wrong though.
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GibMariner
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by GibMariner »

That's an interesting idea, not sure if it's possible, but like Shark Bait said, a fleet of 12 Hunts would be better from a commonality standpoint and the Hunts would be more useful in evolving MCM technology.

Will the reduction to 12 MCM vessels have any effect on keeping 4 of them forward deployed in Bahrain? I believe it's usually 2 Hunts and 2 Sandowns that are kept there. Could those 4 "leftover" Sandowns be kept in Bahrain instead?

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GibMariner
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

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HMS Ramsey joins NATO force
Royal Navy minehunter HMS Ramsey has joined her NATO counterparts in Kiel to practise working together in times of conflict.

The Sandown-class minehunter, usually based in Faslane, arrived in Kiel after first negotiating the famous 98-kilometre canal.

It took nine hours of careful seamanship to complete the canal passage, passing huge container ships such as the Nordic Bremen – three times as long and twice as wide as the Sandown-class minehunter - and carrying more than 1,000 containers.

The transit gave the two young officers embarked on HMS Ramsey for training – Sub Lieutenants Conor Loudon and Chris Fraser-Shaw – the chance to test their seaman’s eye and ship-handling abilities. Chris described the nine hour transit as "the highlight of his Naval career so far.”

Once in Kiel, the sailors attended the ceremony which saw the German Navy and Commander Martin Schwarz of flagship FGS Donau take charge of the minehunter group – one of two operated by NATO in European waters.
Read more: http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-la ... nato-force

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GibMariner
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by GibMariner »

Dhabi meeting as British and UAE minehunters train in Gulf
A seafox robot submersible disappears into the waters of the Gulf as two Royal Navy minehunters demonstrate their prowess at hunting ‘what lies below’ with allies in the region.

HMS Middleton and Bangor left their base in Bahrain for the 300-mile hop to Mina Zayed – Abu Dhabi’s main port – to practise alongside comrades from the United Arab Emirates.

Both navies will be taking part in the world’s biggest test of mine warfare forces, International Mine Countermeasures Exercise, later this year, when warships, divers, underwater vehicles and anti-mine helicopters converge on the region to see how they can collectively respond to the threat of underwater explosive devices.

The UK stations four minehunters in Bahrain 24/7: two suited to finding mines in shallow waters (Middleton and her sister Chiddingfold), and two designed for deeper seas (Bangor and Penzance).
Read more: http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-la ... in-in-gulf

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GibMariner
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

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SKB
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

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Re: Hunt Class Mine Countermeasures Vessel (MCMV) (RN)

Post by NickC »

The Sandown class HMS Grimsby is the first of seven to be fitted with the improved Sonar 2093 under a five year contract awarded in 2015 to Thales for Capability Sustainment Programme (CSP) to the 2093 sonar.

The 2093 is a multi-frequency VDS designed to counter the threat of mines in both deep and shallow water. The upgrade includes wideband capability that allows the sonar to perform the same extensive deep water performance previously only possible in shallow water. The pulse compression technology allows long range detection and classification of new generation low target strength mines, by optimising performance against reverberation and noise simultaneously. Wideband transducer arrays also allow maximum performance from the use of the highest bandwidth-time product available, presumably minimizing signal degradation resulting from doppler distortion effects. The optimum frequency-modulation law is a the linear period modulation, sometimes called hyperbolic frequency modulation or logarithmic phase modulation, certain kinds of bats use this type of signal with their sonar.

https://defpost.com/royal-navy-hms-grim ... -2093-csp/
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SKB
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

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Click to enlarge:
Image
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(@HMSBangor) 4th August 2020
We're back! Yesterday saw us back in the water where we belong! The complicated process of moving a ship from dry dock into the water is a culmination of months of hard work by both Babcock and the ships company.

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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by Caribbean »

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abc123
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by abc123 »

Is the RN getting rid of all of them?
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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RichardIC
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by RichardIC »

abc123 wrote:Is the RN getting rid of all of them?
Yes, by the end of 2031.

https://www.navylookout.com/autonomous- ... e-warfare/

No known plans for motherships for autonomous replacements.

abc123
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by abc123 »

RichardIC wrote:
abc123 wrote:Is the RN getting rid of all of them?
Yes, by the end of 2031.

https://www.navylookout.com/autonomous- ... e-warfare/

No known plans for motherships for autonomous replacements.

I think that a RNs decision to fully transfer to autonomous MCM is a bit premature.
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

donald_of_tokyo
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

abc123 wrote:I think that a RNs decision to fully transfer to autonomous MCM is a bit premature.
I also felt the same, but on what point is not clear (for myself). So, I tried to break them down to items:

1: autonomous MCM system itself
- it is extensively tested in both France and UK (makes it look slowly moving)
- it is already adopted for Belgium/Dutch MCM fleets.
So, autonomous MCM system itself looks mature enough to start, or UK/RN will "stay behind" the state of art. (there shall be many updates/improvements in coming days, but this is another story).

2: "autonomous MCM system" mother ship
What type and size will be the best suited is not clear, I agree. RN is using it from a few candidates:
- ashore : no problem, for coastal tasks
- Bay class : no problem with large capacity. might be too large = too expensive? Also, not enough number? But, Per
These two are named and can be easily foreseen.

vessels with crane/davits : they demonstrated River B2 carrying the control system, but not yet operation it self. This could be STUFT vessel (PSV or deepwater engineering vessels, or specialist vessel like Venari-85, or River B1/B2 OPV themselves. Surely need tests here. I think here is the only major "premature" things.

Note that Hunt-class will remain there until ~2030. I think it is slow enough (or even, too slow).

abc123
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by abc123 »

donald_of_tokyo wrote:
abc123 wrote:I think that a RNs decision to fully transfer to autonomous MCM is a bit premature.
I also felt the same, but on what point is not clear (for myself). So, I tried to break them down to items:

1: autonomous MCM system itself
- it is extensively tested in both France and UK (makes it look slowly moving)
- it is already adopted for Belgium/Dutch MCM fleets.
So, autonomous MCM system itself looks mature enough to start, or UK/RN will "stay behind" the state of art. (there shall be many updates/improvements in coming days, but this is another story).

2: "autonomous MCM system" mother ship
What type and size will be the best suited is not clear, I agree. RN is using it from a few candidates:
- ashore : no problem, for coastal tasks
- Bay class : no problem with large capacity. might be too large = too expensive? Also, not enough number? But, Per
These two are named and can be easily foreseen.

vessels with crane/davits : they demonstrated River B2 carrying the control system, but not yet operation it self. This could be STUFT vessel (PSV or deepwater engineering vessels, or specialist vessel like Venari-85, or River B1/B2 OPV themselves. Surely need tests here. I think here is the only major "premature" things.

Note that Hunt-class will remain there until ~2030. I think it is slow enough (or even, too slow).
Yes, maybe I expressed myself wrongly, the problem are supporting vessels for autonomous systems, because I think that they still do need something more specialised than ordinary T26/31/River.
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

abc123
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by abc123 »

Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

wargame_insomniac
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by wargame_insomniac »

https://www.navylookout.com/hms-shoreha ... ommission/

Another ship gone. Still waiting for autonomous systems to be fully operational so further capability lost at a dangerous time....
:(

wargame_insomniac
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Re: Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

Post by wargame_insomniac »

At least Shoreham and Grimsby went to a good cause, gifted to Ukraine.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/two-ukr ... ish-coast/

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