Tod,i know you're right about 1 common design be far away and also of europe becomming(maybe said wrong "one" nation)but one has got to dream
as for the need of green water vessels i'm not convinced(i actually think that more navies need them,but again my thoughts)the threads needed f.e. in Aruba ,i think that's why the "Holland class" ships where designed/made as for support well we have ships who can do that(not enough,but they're there)The Zeven Provincien class can also work in a bleu water envirement(not enough again,i know)and the 2 M-Classes aswell(they're looking into a replacement actually/design,future combatant)support ships well we've got f.i Karel Doorman(the guy i was talking about in my last post
),but you're right in saying to little and there would be not much left of the "fleet"(notice the fleet part,since again i agree that the nethelands have way too few ships)to do that capably.
ideally i would like to see;
-8 sevens or more
-8 hollands or more
-4future combatants or more
-at least an extra Karel Doorman
-6 new "walrusses,etc
and then we have a navy(well a start)
Since we're the 17th economical "power " in the world i'm actually ashamed of the ships(numbers,not designs)that we have in service today.
If this(cuts) continues we better start a rowing club or something like it,pessimistic mode on(again not talking about designs,but just sheer numbers)but that's not only the case with the navy,airforce(flightclub) and army(boyscouts) aswell(again being pessimistic.)there's a glitter of hope the mbt may well be comming back in service(but that's another thread somewher else
)
and the defence budget(from what i've heard will finally go up a bit,structually 100 million per year,o.1 bnp)i hope we reach the needed 2% bnp(but to reach that we need about 4 billion more)
Walter I've been reading this thread and well... you're wrong! You just are. The people on this forum are for a large part very experienced and very knowledgeable in defense matters. A lot of them (and especially those graciously enough to respond to this thread) are either defense professionals or bonified experts. So just stop it already and start reading the forum. I can assure you it's very VERY interesting and you'll learn a lot. But stop regurgitating the same arguments already, it's tiring and a bit irritating as it concerns the Dutch navy which I'm actually very interested in being Dutch myself.
Now on to your debate. Europe isn't going to let their powers combine, they won't (for the large part) design ships together. It's been tried, it didn't work and we didn't like it. It's a pipe dream and it won't work because we all want/need different things. What people have been trying to tell you is that there is no unified European foreign policy to speak of, there are only limited shared interests so there are no advantages to cooperate like that. There have been projects where there was cooperation, for instance the hulls for the M-klasse was designed in cooperation with Germany. But it won't go much further than that because each country has it's own circumstances.
This (apparently) needs some explanation. Each country (in Europe) building naval vessels has it's own industry. This extends beyond shipbuilding to design of the platforms (i.e. ships) to the systems that are carried by this platform. For the Netherlands ship design and shipbuilding are important, Damen is an important player on the world stage and it just won't do to cede any authority or responsibility for it's designs to a third party. Especially in the naval sphere. The Dutch navy has become little more than a store window in latter years, which ofcoarse is shameful but a reality. The same is true for other European country's. This reality is economic and political and much much to broad to overcome without many things shifting within the EU. Not in the least a shift of sovereignty, which with the way things are going now is never going to happen.
Also, as other members have pointed out. Cooperation between nations will produce at the very best only negligible cost savings. Some reasons for this are differences in the customers wishes. But maybe even more so in operational doctrines and organizations. The way the French operate ships is just different from how the British or the Dutch do things, so are the goals we wish to achieve. Examples of this are indeed the FREMMS which have large differences between users in equipment and design. Part of this is due to requirements, but it also has to do with differences in organization and doctrine. This in turn extends to differences in supply trains and maintenance. A navy is more than just the ships it sails and everything is guided by an overarching doctrine, which again is determined by politics, economics but also culture (which runs deep in Europe).
Now I hope this suffices as an explanation, so lets move on. You speak of the Holland klasse being green water vessels and they where supposedly designed to defend the Caribbean islands from foreign aggression... This kind of baffled me because in the defense whitepaper that announced them (de marinestudie uit 2005, je kan het googlen) they are described as being patrol vessels unable to be used in anything but the lowest spectrum of violence. Meaning they are next to useless for anything other than patrolling and maybe some humanitarian aid. It also states that they are designed to fulfill coastguard duties. These ships are an abomination! They where bought to keep the Koninklijke Schelde in business and promote Thales radars. They are glorified pleasure yachts with a radar that reportedly (srry no link) outperformed a T45 destroyer recently. It has not weapons other than a (rediculous) 79mm cannon, some 20mm automated mounts and a couple of .50 cal's. The navy didn't want them, but they where forced to sell 6 M-klasse ships to pay for them.
As to the wishlist you posted, it holds no water. Because 1 we would never be able to pay for it and 2 the ships you list are not even useful. 8 LCF's? We planned 6 and 2 where cancelled, never gonna happen. They're great ships, but even now the navy doesn't have the equipment to fit out all four of them. Also the gas turbines are having trouble with maintenance, and by the time we'd get them they'd be outdated designs as they'll need to be replaced somewhere in the early 2030's. 8 Holland klasse... What the hell for? We didn't want the ones we have, they're not good ships, they're too slow to do anything and they have no significant armaments (nor can they be equipped with them). 4 future combattants: well actually you have a point there! Studies have actually begun into a replacement for the M-klasse ships for the mid 20's, let's hope we get four (but I'm doubtful our politicians would have such insight). Another JSS?!? What for? It's a nice ship, but if we were to expand our supply capabilities it could and should be done with a much cheaper more purposeful design imho. Six new subs? Never gonna happen bro. We'd be lucky to replace the four we have, there isn't even a place to build them (the RDM company was squandered in the 90's) so that's going to be an expensive joke seeing that it's important to build them at home.
I don't know where you get all this stuff from, but it's very veeeery far removed from anything realistic. The 100mil you speak of, isn't actually a 100 million because it's turned into 50 already. And it's to be seen how structural it'll be. Furthermore it's not extra money for defense, it's an amount they'll cut less. They are still going to cut defense spending in the coming years. And this money won't really do anything it is as we say in Dutch 'een druppel op een hete plaat'. If you read defensieforum.nl you can see in what kind of dire state the Dutch defense apparatus actually finds itself. The buffers are gone and shit's gonna get dangerous in the coming years. The f-16's are in bad shape and almost impossible to maintain. The army's in bad shape with old (cold war era) equipment and the navy... well we don't have enough radars for the LCF's, they are being overused and the M-klasse ships are having problems with both their gas turbines and their diesels. Most of the ordnance is out of date and stocks are dangerously low. And the logistic organization of all defense branches is a badly organized mess!
Believe me the MoD wasn't jumping with joy about a measly 100 million. We need 700 structurally just to fix the supply problems and that's only if there's no more cuts. The replacement for the subs is grossly underfunded even before they are being built, so we'd be lucky to get two. We don't need some pan European supership (think of the political nightmare that'd be), we can't even sort out our own shit! And we're not going to reach 2% of GDP, not by a long shot!
Srry to be a pessimist Walter, but that's reality. Maybe do some research, it's more interesting that fantasies.
