Fantasy T31 and Fantasy Fleet Builder [New]

[andrew98]

Hmm, maybe good job I'm not in charge of procurement (Maybe if I was in charge of MOD budget at Treasury, things would be a lot easier!)

http://landshark.esy.es/fantasyt31/t31. ... 6,26,2,3,2,#

[~UNiOnJaCk~]

Couldn't get mine to drop below 470 million a pop: http://landshark.esy.es/fantasyt31/t31. ... 8,22,1,2,3,#

[R686]

UPDATE

Made an app where you can 'design' your own T31

Find it here http://landshark.esy.es

Share your design on twitter or on the UK Defence Forum

Its easy share, you will generate a URL that is unique to your specifications, paste that here and we can see your choices. You can also generate a report and paste that, or copy the image and post that.

Looks good pity I can't seem to get it to work on the iphone

[donald_of_tokyo]

http://landshark.esy.es/fantasyt31/t31. ... 8,23,1,1,2,#

308M GBP.

Comments:
- fun! thanks a lot!
- length is not clear for me. I had 18m combined hangar/missionbay and 23m flight deck for Merlin, which is 1-2m addition to the current Venator 110 GPFF = 120m. But, in the report it says 130m.
- cost is not clear for me. For example if I select no sonar, the whole ASW system shall go away, which will make significant cost reduction. The same for Mk.41. I do not know the reality but the cost per subsystem will be 4-5 times of this value, while the base ship cost shall be balanced down, as system fitting out is the most cost consuming... (I know this is for fun, and I am saying something nasty. So this is just a comment, and might to ignored...).

[ArmChairCivvy]

SB took our crayons away!

Well done (in two different respects).

[shark bait]

Donald, I attempted to keep the prices reasonable basing them on historical contracts.

The cost for CAPTAS-4 is down as £20m, based off this where the price is listed as £9 million a set, adjusted for inflation and then the price doubled to account for the control systems.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 0143000618

The cost for the VLS is £7m for the physical Mk41 modules, and then an additional £16 million for the control systems. Those figures, along with many more come from a cost break down for DDG-113.



So I hope you can see there is some method behind the madness.

Where do you find the cost of the current Venator 110 GPFF = 120m?

[ArmChairCivvy]

current Venator 110 GPFF = 120m. But, in the report it says 130m.

SB, length (not cost). Funnily, Venator 110 is close to 120m long... just goes to show how many iterations they must have run on refining the design.

[Pseudo]

Great bit of work Shark Bait!

I've gone with as proper an ASW frigate as I could with a bit of room for growth.

http://landshark.esy.es/fantasyt31/t31. ... 29,2,3,2,#

[Ron5]

"units pissible from budget"

Yup, MoD is pretty good at pissing money away

[shark bait]

Ha! They surely are. If only I could claim that was done on purpose.....

[PAUL MARSAY]

Do you have anything similar to this for the Type 26 ?

[Clive F]

Options for Wildcat or Merlin or Chinook flight deck and options for 1 or 2 Wildcat or Merlin hangar would be good

[Spinflight]

Any chance of adding a manpower budget? It is after all the biggest constraint the RN faces at the moment.

[shark bait]

I haven't done one for the T26.

You can change flight deck and hangar size.

Manpower budget is very important, but I get the distinct feeling the T31 is being designed to fit the equipment budget only.

[Clive F]

I'm not well enough informed to know min dims for flight deck / hanger for various options. Adding man power would also be interesting.

[Spinflight]

Was thinking more for the fantasy RN fleet regarding manpower.

Also £350m for a Type 26 and £150m for a Venator seem like 50% discounts!

[shark bait]

@Clive F,
A Chinook deck is 30m
A Merlin deck is is 23m
A folded Merlin is 17m

All off the top of my head though, maybe others can chip in? I suppose I could have added that feature in, but personally I was more interested in playing around with the graphics. I do background coding all day..... like I'm suppose to be doing now

@Spinflight,
Oh, for the fantasy fleet the operational cost is calculated using only the manpower requirement for each platform,

That's because the only data that's of consistent quality between platforms was manpower, and when plotting annual operational costs against complement for the Royal Navy you get a very nice trend. (attached)

so on that game the budget is entirely based on manpower, albeit indirectly.

I suppose QE is going to warp the graph.

[Spinflight]

Interesting....

Though the Vanguards should be double cost as they are double crewed. Also the air ops component of all of the amphibs and carriers is missing.

The best thing about the new builds is their reduced crewing, would be interesting to see what effect the currently 200+ Type 23s have when replaced.

[shark bait]

Correct, I didn't include Port and Starboard crews or the air component.

The reduced crewing should release the pressure from the service, but that's a long time to come.

[shark bait]

A graphic of my fantasy fleet.

I'm certain we need to fill the existing gaps before expanding, but when the time comes to expand a modest increase to the surface fleet should enable the Royal Navy to do great things, maintain a carrier group, and its global reach.

My proposal would be for 21 escorts, split into 3 watches; 4 with the carrier group in the gulf, 1 for APTn, 1 for APTs, and 1 for an indo-pacific tasking.

[ArmChairCivvy]

split into 3 watches

A good concept, but what are your underlying assumptions as for availability (%) to meet these goals?

As for details, is the logistics barge some sort of transfer station between commercial shipping (SSS & Points broadly included) and ship to shore connectors...or what?

[shark bait]

Assumption is 33% availability, which is way off the current mark, but it is achievable, which is why I made reference to filling current gaps before moving on. I think its also worth exploring forward staging and crew swapping to make that figure more achievable.

That is broadly what I mean by a logistics barge yes, similar to the Marines mobile landing platform, useful for both our marines, and possibly the strike brigades depending on how they shape up.

[dmereifield]

A graphic of my fantasy fleet.

I'm certain we need to fill the existing gaps before expanding, but when the time comes to expand a modest increase to the surface fleet should enable the Royal Navy to do great things, maintain a carrier group, and its global reach.

My proposal would be for 21 escorts, split into 3 watches; 4 with the carrier group in the gulf, 1 for APTn, 1 for APTs, and 1 for an indo-pacific tasking.

Nice, thanks for sharing. You seem to make the assumption (or you are hoping, like me) that the T31 will be a capable ASW asset, hence paring it with a T26 in your task groups. You also suggest that we will get an increase in T31 numbers from 5 to 7.

I would suggest that the first assumption is likely to be optimistic from the little that we have seen and know so far. I am also quite pessimistic given what I've read regarding MoD procurement (current and recent history). Certainly, I imagine that your second assumption (increased numbers) will be incorrect if the T31 does end up maturing into a credible (i.e. Expensive) escort. I imagine that it's more likely to be one of the lower end BAE derivative's if it is to be cheap enough for us to expand the surface fleet numbers, and if it is to have any chance at all in the export market. Even then it might be that we end up with 5, unless we see an announcement for increased defence spending when the NSS is released. Perhaps if we are lucky we might get 6, so that HMG can announce that they are, for the first time in decades, increasing the size of the "escort" fleet.

I would also suggest that you are being optimisitic in putting 2 T45s in each of your task groups.

Based on my more pessimistic assumptions (and my a much less well informed knowledge of the topic), I suggest that it is more likely that each carrier task group would comprise a carrier, 1 T45 and 2 T26. Add in the Astute (hopefully) and support vessels and it looks like a formidable task group. Even more so if any allied vessels tag along.

Judging by recent deployments, I suggest your third task group will in fact just be an Albion (or whatever replaces Albion), and if we are lucky maybe a T31, occasionally.

This would leave 4 T45 and 4 T26 for East of Suez, protecting CASD.

I guess everything else would be conducted by the 5 (maybe 6/7) T31 and 5 River B2.

I acknowledge, again, that I don't really know what I'm talking about, but it sound pretty good to me, on paper. But I do worry that we would be short in a war situation if we are acting alone without allies.

[donald_of_tokyo]

A graphic of my fantasy fleet.
...
My proposal would be for 21 escorts, split into 3 watches; 4 with the carrier group in the gulf, 1 for APTn, 1 for APTs, and 1 for an indo-pacific tasking.

Thanks, it looks very nice. But, as dmereifield-san says, I am also not optimistic for getting 7 "ASW-capable T31s". We need significant budget boost to enable it. A simple compromise will be to let APT-N + APT-S covered with a single frigate (either T26 pr 31) and a River.

I also think the 33% rotation is too tight. There shall be "4th watch", even with reduced "punch", to enable the 3 primary watches to have time for training.
-1W: CVF + 1 T45 + 2 T26
-2W: CVF + 1 T45 + 2 T26
-3W: LPH/D + 1 T45 + 1 T26
-4W: 1T45 + 1 T26
-TAPS: 2 T26s, in rotation (not always standing)
-Kipion: 2 T45 + 2 T31, in rotation to always keep 1 on station. They will couple with 1-4Ws.
-APT-N+S: 3 T31 + 2.5 River B2s, in rotation to always keep, 1 FIGS, 1 WIGS, and 1 APT frigate.
-No FRE (the APT frigate stands for global FRE)
-new Fleet Ready Vessel: 2.5 Rivers, in rotation to always keep 2 "ready" for local tasks (can be in fishery tasks if free).

I understand SB-san's aim to keep T26 as a global cruiser. But, I do not think it is so important. Many of the global standing tasks can be done with more simple ships, T31 or even Rivers, because RN will have the "powerful punch" for critical "revenge", if some enemy hurts these minor assets, i.e. "deterrence of CVTF".

[marktigger]

I don't get the medical/log/engineer barge concept........the Cdo Log regt will have to move ashore in order to follow the brigade. the barges fix them to one location.