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Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 09:38
by SW1
Fort Victoria was built in Harland and Wolff good lineage
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 10:24
by RichardIC
SW1 wrote:Fort Victoria was built in Harland and Wolff good lineage
It was also bombed and nearly sunk at Harland and Wolff.
I wish them well, but giving FSS to Harland and Wolff would be giving it to Navantia, simple as.
InfraStrata has neither the workforce nor the finances to give their bid anything but a thin veneer of Britishness. I think the forthcoming conversion of one of the Bays is probably the leg-up H&W needs.
The only real alternative is Cammell Laird and they were badly burned by Sir DA. They have also openly admitted they would need to be in partnership with one of the giants in order to underwrite any future big bid.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 10:28
by ArmChairCivvy
RichardIC wrote:. I think the forthcoming conversion of one of the Bays is probably the leg-up H&W needs.
You would make a good politician! Give & take, but everyone gets something
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 10:40
by SW1
RichardIC wrote:It was also bombed and nearly sunk at Harland and Wolff.
As was the Brighton hotel what’s your point
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 10:41
by RichardIC
SW1 wrote:As was the Brighton hotel what’s your point
Not really got one TBH.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 10:58
by xav
Is it still two "with an option for a third one" ships ?
Or is it 3 ships "for sure" now ?
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 11:06
by ArmChairCivvy
Sources are scarce, but it could be either (or just two ships)
- the best guide is to assume that the budget is fixed
... but is the size of the ships fixed? There might be a lot of air in the quoted 40k tons and the steel may not be the same as required for escorts. But the inners - as in the internal cargo handling system - don't come cheap. Such constraints pre-empted the Heavy RAS from being installed on Ft Vic. And now, tellingly, it seems that Heavy RAS has been canned altogether
Or, they might use the kit, for bits in excess of the current 2 tons, but nowhere near the specced 5 tons. And not because the RAS kit couldn't transfer it.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 11:12
by RichardIC
xav wrote:Is it still two "with an option for a third one" ships ?
Or is it 3 ships "for sure" now ?
It's three for sure, for now.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/flee ... n-launched
It was also three in the Defence Command Paper.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 11:42
by Tempest414
And we are off see what happens this time
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 12:29
by bobp
Two years before the winner is announced, so we are not likely to see them for some years yet.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 12:59
by Ron5
ArmChairCivvy wrote:jonas wrote:UKDJ's take
quite rightly focusses on what 'integrate' means. The (minor) military fitting out done at British yards for the fleet oilers certainly would not pass that threshold, or would count as window dressing anyway.
'a significant proportion of the build and assembly work' makes for an interesting parallel with the Hobart Class: rather than blocks, take a hull across the sea(s) to be finished in-situ. That led to
1. Navantia having to send a 'surveyor team' that established that productivity early on was running at a third of what would have been expected at an established yard/ a work force with good experience from similar vessels, and then
2. sent a 'technical assistance' team to right the above problem
Were the 'integration' to be done, a similar 'priming the pump' could easily add another year to the schedule - already fairly drawn out
@NaB says that Team UK (whoever that might be) hasn't got a design. That will take a long while.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 13:30
by ArmChairCivvy
Ron5 wrote:@NaB says that Team UK (whoever that might be) hasn't got a design. That will take a long while.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 13:34
by ArmChairCivvy
So there is nothing deterministic about this:
RAS? What kind
Ship size? Well, you can't go under a critical threshold, in order to get the job done... so what is that cut-off then?
Once you know that, then: Will the budget buy two or three
Outcomes and constraints are clearly two different things. We know v little at this stage... how many years into MARS? (looking up the posts on TD archives
)
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 13:49
by jonas
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 13:56
by ArmChairCivvy
Typical: get the Q in so that sort of pre-empts anyone (too soon) asking a more pointed question
... like assuming that 3 will be procured, within
the budget now set, will the aims of the MARS prgrm be delivered; or, would there, thus, be gaps that will need 'consideration'
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 14:14
by Lord Jim
With the revised requirements, we could or should be basically getting vessels with almost identical capabilities as Fort Victoria, or at least I hope so. But why the Two years to hold a competition? Surely both consortia already have designs that will cover the new requirements? Or is it the case that there is no money until 2023?
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 21 May 2021, 14:22
by ArmChairCivvy
Lord Jim wrote: But why the Two years to hold a competition?
In the Olympics, the qualifying rounds take longer than the finals (semi-finals included).
But @Ron comment is quite intriguing. BMT is a power house for designs. On the other hand, the competing coalition comes from a base design much smaller
=> both will have home work to do?
- so what the F@CK did the previous round achieve?
If they went slavishly with the 40k t rqrmnt... and then the MoD told them (all) that 'that's too expensive'???
Who knows - I don't.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 22 May 2021, 13:53
by Ron5
Lord Jim wrote:Surely both consortia already have designs that will cover the new requirements?
Unlikely.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 22 May 2021, 17:34
by SD67
RichardIC wrote:SW1 wrote:Fort Victoria was built in Harland and Wolff good lineage
The only real alternative is Cammell Laird and they were badly burned by Sir DA. They have also openly admitted they would need to be in partnership with one of the giants in order to underwrite any future big bid.
I take it that's what Team UK is, basically BAE prime + design, Cammells as the Integration point. IMHO the government should use this as project as an opportunity to a big construction hall in Merseyside as an Indyref2 insurance policy.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 22 May 2021, 18:45
by tomuk
SD67 wrote:RichardIC wrote:SW1 wrote:Fort Victoria was built in Harland and Wolff good lineage
The only real alternative is Cammell Laird and they were badly burned by Sir DA. They have also openly admitted they would need to be in partnership with one of the giants in order to underwrite any future big bid.
I take it that's what Team UK is, basically BAE prime + design, Cammells as the Integration point. IMHO the government should use this as project as an opportunity to a big construction hall in Merseyside as an Indyref2 insurance policy.
40,000t will be a big ask for Cammell Laird the last ships of a similar size were the 38,000t Leaf class tankers built throughout the 70s.
What was to become RFA Bayleaf was launched in 1981 after languishing on the slips since 1975.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 23 May 2021, 13:39
by SD67
Do we know it's still 40k t? I was under the impression it had been cut back significantly
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 23 May 2021, 14:55
by ArmChairCivvy
2 x 40 =80/3=??
Selling England by the pound (ton)
The expensive bits are the specifics (cargo handling and RAS... the latter already paid for as for design & testing)
- the savings from elsewhere in unit price, from building 3 rather than two, would they be enough to compensate for the above, fairly constant per piece cost?
... or can we
decipher the size from the 80k t divided by three. The word is free (and steel itself is cheap). That formula would be equally valid as working the answer from this image:
https://www.naval-technology.com/wp-con ... 230240.jpg
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 24 May 2021, 10:34
by Old RN
What is interesting is that the commitment to three FSSS must be linked to the commitment to have two CVF deployed. That is surely linked to the to the need to go beyond 48 F35B (which would allow 24 normally on the single deployed CVF) to 60-80 which would allow two CVFs with 24 each?
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 24 May 2021, 11:49
by Lord Jim
It probably meant the three would allow one to be available whenever one of the two Carriers deployed rather than both simultaneously.
Re: Future Solid Support Ship
Posted: 24 May 2021, 12:32
by Ron5
Old RN wrote:What is interesting is that the commitment to three FSSS must be linked to the commitment to have two CVF deployed. That is surely linked to the to the need to go beyond 48 F35B (which would allow 24 normally on the single deployed CVF) to 60-80 which would allow two CVFs with 24 each?
FSL said he expects at least 80 F-35. Head RAF procurement man went along with that in his remarks about probably needing 4 squadrons plus OCU.
So 2 carriers concurrently deployed seems to be a real thing.