The Armchair Soldier wrote:A nice photo of Tidespring:
Looking good, shouldn't be too long until we are seeing photos of these in UK waters, and gold rover going out of UK waters for the last time.
On a side note, with the build seemingly going so well I'd advocate selling the waves to one of the navies in search of a new oiler and get two more tides, I would love that commonality!
That would be Canada (but they already contracted for their interim solution).
Norway is getting their similar-to-ours from Korea in 2016. One was in the two finalists for Australia in 2014; wonder if they or the usual suspects (a certain yard in Spain) won?
There would be a rationale for a self-funding deal (??) to swap the two Waves for more Tides:
1. Even though both are called Fleet Tankers, Waves are appreciably slower (to keep up with the Task Force, ie. the Fleet in these days). I suspect they will be doing the "roving" duty, meeting up with individually deployed ships
2. Better aviation facilities
I sort of lost interest (in 2012?) when the contract became a fact, so sorry for the stupid H-RAS question. The 20 containers of solid support stuff onboard the Tides will still have to be "palletised" before the transfer.
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.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)
It was the Canadians I had in mind. I was unaware they have a contract now.
It would be interesting to work out if it would be cheaper to replace the waves with tide's. Crew is less, I assume newer ship's are more efficient and operating one class will be cheaper when I comes to refit. It might take a while to pay off, but we will undoubtedly have them for a long time. Unfortunately no data to work it out.
1st para: they are still in a pickle (it is only an interim conversion from a commercial vessel - mind you, a container ship for an oiler?)
2nd para: cash management... the MoD is not out of the woods (no pun to any location active in managing these things intended) and therefore a normal investment analysis over, say, 20 years does not apply
- considering the longevity of equipment, high unit prices and nowadays with more attention being paid to upgradeability/ growth potential it is unlikely to ever apply
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.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)
I know the Kiwis bought from Korea and their tanker will need replacing soon its got no avation now since the wasp retired. So something like this might suit them. But given the Canadian experience 2 thoughts spring to mind.
1. A NATO pool fleet of maybe 3-4 standard vessels that could support nato deployments
2. Civilian contractor like the companies like Omega who do inflight refueling under contract
marktigger wrote:I know the Kiwis bought from Korea and their tanker will need replacing soon its got no avation now since the wasp retired.
HMNZS Endeavour should have been decommissioned a few years ago. Built to commercial standards she suffers from a small crew to maintain her.
Aviation is still happening, and has never stopped, but with the Kaman SeaSprite helicopters.
A replacement tanker is currently being sought. Hopefully quickly!
I'd been lead to believe Endeavour was to small to support the Seasprite.
I'd say just as HMNZS Endeavour would have been a good replacement for the rover class. The Tide would be a good one for the Kiwis and the Australians maybe given the current debacle the Canadians will expand their RAS capability and get some additional capicity.
Gabriele wrote:Tidespring is supposedly traveling towards the UK already, but i can't find her on AIS.
RFA Association website also doesn't say it has definitely left South Korea:
Tidespring, should be heading for home, via the Panama Canal so my spies tell me, around about now, so it might be worth a shufti at the Panama Canal webcams and of course AIS to monitor her progress. (Just looked, she is not on AIS yet)
