Sandown Class Minehunter (RN)

[SKB]

^ HMS Bangor (M109)

The Sandown class is a class of fifteen minehunters built primarily for the Royal Navy by Vosper Thornycroft (now part of BAE). The Sandown class also serve with the Royal Saudi Navy and the Estonian Navy. The first vessel was commissioned into Royal Navy service on 9 June 1989 and all the British ships are named after coastal towns and cities. They have a secondary role as offshore patrol vessels.

These small (53 m) fibreglass vessels are single role mine hunters (SRMH) rather than minesweepers. Twelve ships were built for the Royal Navy and three ships were exported to Saudi Arabia. Three Royal Navy vessels were decommissioned following the Strategic Defence Review in 2003; Sandown (January 2005), Inverness (April 2005) and Bridport (July 2004). A further ship, Cromer, was decommissioned and transferred to a training role at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in 2001 as 'Hindostan'.

1. HMS Sandown (M101) Commissioned 1989. (Decommissioned 2005. Sold to Estonia in 2007, recommissioned as 'Admiral Cowan' (M313))
2. HMS Inverness (M102) Commissioned 1991. (Decommissioned 2005. Sold to Estonia in 2008, recommissioned as 'Sakala' (M314))
3. HMS Cromer (M103) Commissioned 1992. (Decommissioned in 2001, now training ship 'Hindostan' at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth)
4. HMS Walney (M104) Commissioned 1992. (Decommissioned in 2010)
5. HMS Bridport (M105) Commissioned 1995. (Decommissioned 2004. Sold to Estonia in 2009m recommissioned as 'Ugandi' (M315))
6. HMS Penzance (M106) Commissioned 1998.
7. HMS Pembroke (M107) Commissioned 1998.
8. HMS Grimsby (M108) Commissioned 1999.
9. HMS Bangor (M109) Commissioned 1999.
10. HMS Ramsey (M110) Commissioned 2000.
11. HMS Blyth (M111) Commissioned 2001.
12. HMS Shoreham (M112) Commissioned 2001.
(Three additional Sandown's were built and exported to the Royal Saudi Navy)

Type: Minehunter
Displacement: 600 t (590 long tons; 660 short tons)
Length: 52.5 m (172 ft 3 in)
Beam: 10.9 m (35 ft 9 in)
Draught: 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in)
Propulsion:
Paxman Valenta 6RP200E diesels 1523 shp, diesel-electric drive, Voith Schneider Propellers, Schottel bow thrusters
Speed: 13 kn (24 km/h; 15 mph)
Crew Complement: 34 (accommodation for up to 40)
Sensors and processing systems:
Radar Type 1007 I-Band
Sonar Type 2093
Electronic warfare and decoys:
SeaFox mine disposal system
Diver-placed explosive charges
Armament:
1 × 30mm DS30B Gun
2 × Miniguns
3 × General purpose machine guns

[SKB]

Thales UK is to upgrade the UK Royal Navy’s (RN’s) seven Sandown-class minehunters with an improved version of its Sonar 2093 variable depth minehunting sonar.
http://www.janes.com/article/54364/upgr ... r-dsei15d2

[ArmChairCivvy]

Great news... does it mean, though, that the MH(P)C is going slower than expected, or for budgetary reasons has been kicked into the long grass?

[shark bait]

Great news... does it mean, though, that the MH(P)C is going slower than expected, or for budgetary reasons has been kicked into the long grass?

MHPC is still happening, I don't think the focus is on building new ships for a while, especially since those new rivers are coming to fulfil the P part.

Hunts are good out until 2028, so it will be along time until we see the cheap multipurpose vessel we are expecting. Right now MHPC or MHC is going stong, 3 different development streams are active and working to develop the ofboard unmanned assets. These first be deployed on board the hunt class which may or may not be modified to better accept the new systems. Gabrielle has a nice ender of aa modified hunt but notes its old.



If all goes well aboard the humt then they will preceed to build a new mother ship, which will likley be a cheap steel support vessel, although a specialist composite hull has not yet been ruled out by the program.

So MHC is very active, but not looking to build new mother ships for 10 years or so .

[shark bait]

Thales UK is to upgrade the UK Royal Navy’s (RN’s) seven Sandown-class minehunters with an improved version of its Sonar 2093 variable depth minehunting sonar.
http://www.janes.com/article/54364/upgr ... r-dsei15d2

Good news, there has not been mush released about the Sandown-class lately. I was fully prepared for them to be axed in the SDSR because of all the silence. Hopefully this break of silence and investment of funds committs the Sandown-class out until MHC takes over .

[ArmChairCivvy]

The destroy once detected part is making good progress with the French SLAMF test bed
http://www.naval-technology.com/feature ... els-3.html

The Hunts basically are trialling stuff (for the overall concept) that are already in use in other navies. They got priority over Dandowns as 1. they have more space on the deck, and 2. the likeliest deployments in the near future will benefit from ability to self deploy (Sandowns being a tad small for that).

However, for the detection (or at least classification and identification steps, to decide on how to proceed) part you could seed an area, say a potential landing zone or a pinch point crucial for commercial shipping), with these little guys that are a fraction of the size of a sono buoy... maybe bigger, when they get all the necessary sensors:

[shark bait]

The SDSR says the mine hunter fleet will be cut from 15 to 12, presumably to free up resource's for the extra rivers. Trying to work out which class the cuts will come from is something of a mystery

The hunts are much older but have had new sonar and new engines recently, and as mentioned above, have a greater potential to become a kind of interim MHPC ship.

The sandown class is pretty new, but smaller than the hunts and is just starting an upgrade to its sonar for all the ships in the class.

So to me there their is no indication where the cuts will come from. It seems the navy planned to support all 15 in the long term, with upgrade contract's being awarded in September, it appears the decision to cut the fleet came late when they realised they would have to support extra rivers.

Any thoughts/news and which ships will go ?

[ArmChairCivvy]

It might just be that a buyer was found (late in the day).

If that theory is proven correct, then I would say the Sandowns are more in demand. From the UK point of view their minuses are
- too small to easily self deploy to the most likely scenes of action
- limited deck space, to support the transition to off-board systems

For a littoral navy with no modern capacity they would be absolutely fine

[GibMariner]

The SDSR says the mine hunter fleet will be cut from 15 to 12, presumably to free up resource's for the extra rivers. Trying to work out which class the cuts will come from is something of a mystery
.....
Any thoughts/news and which ships will go ?

Take a look at this courtesy of ThinkDefence: http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2015/12/1 ... -answered/

Mrs Madeleine Moon
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether (a) HMS Brocklesby M33 mine sweeper will be refitted at Portsmouth naval dockyards and (b) that refitting will include new propulsion capability; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Philip Dunne

As part of the Royal Navy’s continual examination of its resources and operational priorities, HMS Brocklesby’s docking period and refitting of her propulsion capability has been deferred.

Might just be until more money is allocated next year, or could be an indication that Brocklesby will be one of the MCM vessels that will be decommissioned.

[Gabriele]

Or perhaps it'll be the first Hunt to be refitted with the open mission space in the back and the A frame for putting the unmanned boats in the water. The Royal Navy has been trying to obtain the conversion of a Hunt for a few years now. It was already planned as part of the old FAST demonstrator adventure...

[Gabriele]

SDSR Factsheet published by government confirms that 3 Sandown of the oldest ones will pay off by 2025 to go down to 12 MCM ships.

[shark bait]

So it does

The correct choice, and unusual the older ship is the one with the bigger margin for growth this time.

Will leave an odd little fleet of 4 sandowns at the end. The 2025 dates does seem a long way off though, not long before the rest will be gone to make way for HMC a few years later.

[Engaging Strategy]

Funny things the Sandowns, extremely expensive for their size and limited in their role. Can't help but feel we could've got a lot more bang for our buck had we built a modernised "Hunt II" instead.

[marktigger]

there has been one on the surplus market so are they that saleable

[ArmChairCivvy]

Funny things the Sandowns, extremely expensive for their size and limited in their role. Can't help but feel we could've got a lot more bang for our buck had we built a modernised "Hunt II" instead.

Let's put that in perspective:
- Hunts were sweepers
- the nxt-gen (then) was mine hunting, along came the Sandowns
- 3rd gen is still mine hunting, but this time with off-board systems
... still being proved; and the Hunts with their bigger decks can accommodate the transition and trials

Not everyone (hardly anybody) are on the third wave yet; hence (as Mark says) there is a market for Sandowns

[donald_of_tokyo]

Will leave an odd little fleet of 4 sandowns at the end.

Cannot these "4" Sandowns be replace with "4" River B.1s, with plenty of space in their stern...?

my self-answer is, "Maybe no".

It will cost "huge" to equip River B.1s with UUV/USV based MCM assets. Because River B.1 is purely an OPV, only a "vessel", no CMS no good com-link and no hi-level navigation.

sorry, turned out to be just talking myself....

[shark bait]

I think the sandows are going so we can man the new river's. There is no way the navy could increase hull numbers, so something had to give.

This leaves no crew for the B1 rivers so it does seem higly unlikely they could be used for MCM. If we did need to replace the sandows, perhaps the echos could be used.

The echos could be useful for picking up some MCM work, they already come with boat launching facilities, and could be a good platform to develop off board MCM. Echos are clearly not busy surveying at the moment

[ArmChairCivvy]

I think the sandows are going so we can man the new river's. There is no way the navy could increase hull numbers, so something had to give.

There will soon be two elephants in the room (when we talk about manning).

[shark bait]

There will soon be two elephants in the room (when we talk about manning).

Are you referring to the carrier's ? I believe they have allowances to be properly crewed now.

[ArmChairCivvy]

I believe they have allowances to be properly crewed now.

Now being the operative word... or rather, when Ocean and the 3 Sandowns go. Very tight. We might see a few OPVs tied up and waiting for a buyer... just like what happened with the corvettes for Brunei (for how many years was that - before BAE got some German company as a middleman to sell them).

[shark bait]

I Don't think anything shall be tied up waiting for a buyer, although an Albion will remain tied up. I especially dont think we will see the rivers tide up. Replacing Sandowns for new rivers, plus the 1st sea lords comments, suggest they plan to operate all of the new more capable rivers, and deploy them abroad more.

Man power will of course be tight, but I think it is feasible, leadership will need to be a little creative and particularly efficient though.

Available resources will soon look something like this;

• 300 coming from ocean, plus embarked aircraft operators
• 400 extra from the SDSR
• 300 extra coming from the plan to swap 300 officers for 600 ratings.

Now we have some reshuffling with the Rivers and Sandowns;

• 358 were required for these classes pre SDSR
• 316 are now required post SDSR (280 if Clyde also goes)

With that, around 1070 sailors are should be available soon, so in theory I believe the current ambitions for the fleet can be met.

[ArmChairCivvy]

operate all of the new more capable rivers, and deploy them abroad more. (A)

Man power will of course be tight, but I think it is feasible, leadership will need to be a little creative and particularly efficient though. (B)

Available resources will soon look something like this;
300 coming from ocean, plus embarked aircraft operators
400 extra from the SDSR
300 extra coming from the plan to swap 300 officers for 600 ratings

Good stuff, just a couple of comments/ questions:
A. I meant the old Rivers (why would you otherwise buy something that has been on an operating lease, and start to own it outright when it/ they are nearing the end of their (RN) life?)
B. Would that be Topmast and longer tours? Anything else?
C. From what I read, at the time, in the bolded part there might be some double counting... would it be more like a package, with 400+300, rather than what you have done, taken a cost line and translated it into cheaper units?
- there may have been sources on this that I have missed, just checking

[shark bait]

(A) That makes sense then. They have a few years to find a buyer. I guess it was never the plan to replace them so soon otherwise they would never have bough out the lease.

(B) I don't really know, it will be tight though.

(C) I hoped there wold be some discussion on this part, again I am unsure. There has been a plan for a while now to swap 300 officers into 600 ratings.

Post SDSR I don't know weather that plan has been superseded by, included in, or on top of, the 400 extra sailors stated in the SDSR.

This link seems to suggest it on top of the extras from the SDSR
http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/the-state-of-the-rn/

can anyone clarify?

[marktigger]

@armchair civvy

the hunts were always muliti role mine hunters. they were equipped to both hunt and sweep. unlike the sandowns who were single role mine hunters.

[ArmChairCivvy]

that's probably right, now sweeping has been officially discontinued so they are both hunters, but the Hunts better at self-deploying and fitting in all the offboard stuff (both on the small side for remote boat ops)