shark bait wrote:- That's not proof, that is the cost of a single LPD with no comparison.
- CVF costs £40,000 per tonne, designed and built in the UK.
- Using that as a rough indicator an Albion replacement of 20,000 tonnes would cost around £800 million +/- 20% .
- Not a significant difference to your Canberra example.
What an optimisitic calculation. You say you need 27,000t hull for LHD. So it is at lest 35% much costy. AND you also are proposing to add significant helicopter support facility, FOR FREE? No you cannot do it for sure. At least, it shall be 50% more.
In addition, your "£800 million" is much much exceeding the Albions multiplied with inflations. So. MORE THAN 50% more. The added high cost is, as I understand,
- to handle modern standard
- to implement automation, which is pretty expensive. (in this case, we cannot enjoy "less crew", because RN is already operating only 1 LPD, only additional cost arises here).
2: It is achievable without a significant increase in resources
- Crew is 1/3 of life time costs. 2 modern LPH's could be manned with the crew of a single Albion LPD so no change here.
- Maintenance and upgrades is another 1/3 of life time costs. 2 modern LPH's will cost roughly the same as maintaint the 2 LPD's we have now.
- Procurement is the other 1/3 which will likley only cost marginally more
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Item-1 YES. No decrease (no increase) here.
Item-2, no. You are proposing significantly automated ship, 35% larger, and with significant helicopter support facility. No, "same cost" is surely impossible.
Item-3. If you say 50% is marginal, yes. But it is enough to eat all the resources left for LPD(A)-replacement (because the latter is cheap).
And what is more, as your hull cost based on CVF has shown, modern lean-manned ship IS expensive.
So, from where you are going to find those resources? I am really thinking about reduction in F35B number. It looks like it is the only place we can find something (simply because F35B is VERY expensive).