donald_of_tokyo wrote: ↑28 Aug 2022, 12:47
A small correction...
wargame_insomniac wrote: ↑27 Aug 2022, 18:50
... The RN bought the XV Patrick Blackett recently which is 720t and length 42m.
Damen FSC Patrol 4008 is not so heavy, it is a 300-400t ship.
FCS ships are designed to be "more comfortable" (less acceleration/shock) when steaming at rougher sea hitting the waves with so-so speed, but not sure how better their sea-keeping is. I guess they are better than normal hull there.
We also need ships to undertake general policing of UK's and BOT's maritime Exclusive Economic Zone, including fisheries inspection, anti-smuggling / illegal immigration / anti-piracy patrols and assisating with HADR. We are reposnible for six territories in Caribbean, five in South Atlantic, two in Med, and two in Indo-Pacific. At the moment these are covered by River B2's. But for most of the routine low-intensity missions I believe we don't need ships as large or with as many crew -I think we need more smaller ships to cover the huge geographical areas involved.
Understand your point, but world trend is the other way, going for (smaller number of) larger patrol vessels.
Damen FCS and 1000-2000t class OPVs will see very different operation profile. If there are number of safe ports/bases in the area, a few Patrol crafts (40-50m long) with ~18 crew will be a nice option, to provide relatively short range prompt response. If there are not so many such ports/bases, a 1000-2000t OPV steaming around will be better.
But the point is if we had a programme of various sized ships to carry out the above and other missions, and crucially the purchase and running costs (incl crew) of the respective ships were picked up by the various deprtments, then all departments including the RN would benefit from the program savings - it should be cheaper to spread costs over say 24 hulls than just 5-6.
Not sure. RN standard is in all cases too high = expensive for other agencies. Buying different classes for individual tasks might be cheaper. Used-ship market provides very cheap and capable hulls. Coordinating ship purchase is good, but it shall be not so strict.
Apologies - those stats for XV Patrick Blackett were what I found online.
To clarify - I don't have a fixed size in mind for proposed Patrol Vessels. I had commnted that Damen had a whole portfolio of such ships up to I beleive 72m. You might be right that a 70m vessel might meet RN's needs more closely than 40m vessel. As you mentioned seakeeping in rough seas would be a key item of those needs. But it is building upon the familiar. The RN would have already had practical experience of such Damen FCS / FSV from running the XV Patrick Blackett and this would benefit them even if we selected a larger version.
The reason that I mentioned that I feel that RN (and other government departments need something smaller than River OPV's are:
1) Need for vessels that are less clearly a warship to fullfill more of the tier 3 low intensity policing and patrolling tasks
2) Smaller vessels should require less crew
3) When River B1's were used (incorrectly IMO) to assist in dealing with Channel refugees, they were found to be too big to cope.
I take on board your comment about ports. For example the Falkland Islands might suit better having the one larger vessel rather than two smaller ones - i.e. sticking with what we have in River B2 until one of the F31's is available to replace.
And when I am wanting for RN to look into smaller PV, by 2026 we should start seeing T31 Frigates coming into service. Now we currently have 4 T23 GP Frigates but that would reduce to 3 once Montrose is retired next year. So the first priority for T31's I beleive is to replace the remaining T23 GP's and then to replace the River B2's.
So for example in the Carribean and Mediterranean we might well have (in each area) one T31 Frigate to cover the higher profle RN missions in each region, and then a couple of these smaller PV's to cover the lower profile, more mundane patrolling and policing missions.
That would free up some of the River B2's to cover the higher risk policing and patrolling in areas such as the eastern Med, Gulf of Aden and Persian Gulf. This is nt for UK acting alone to patrol it' BOT's - rather working with international allies to ensure the freedom of shipping in crucial chokepoints and areas of increasing tension that might be in (localised) fighting. I have said before that I would lik the B2's to have SLIGHT uparming if required to do such riskier missions. (e.g. upgrade main gun to 40mm non-deck penetrating mount and add a couple of secondary gun mounts of either 12.7mm or 20mm - i.e. to give them greater lethality against small fast boats, helicopters and drones which are likely to be main threats in such missions).
The point is have the appropriate spread of levels of RN asset available to cover each mission.
1) Smaller (less well-armed) PV's to cover the lowest priority mundane patrol and policing missions
2) Slightly up-armed River B2's to cover the mid priority, slightly riskier patrol and policing missions in more dangerous regions
3) Escorts to focus on higher priority RN missions