The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

ASSAIL said:
The MoD cost cutters also pulled CEC from the T45s. I can't remember seeing that it has finally been fitted but there seems to be a lack of appreciation in Whitehall as to the critical enabler function that combat data links play.
If I had the cheque book I'd be cutting many other costs before the data links.
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if that's the case, then pulling tadl and cec tools to save money has to go down as one of the dumbest things ever done
 
John Fedup said:
This link provides addtional information about the UK's hunter-killer SSN shortage. It appears the Trafalgar class reactors have reached a point where it may be too dangerous to continue operating them.
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If you have a look at the shipping movements register for Plymouth (QHMDailyMovements | Royal Navy) you'll see that one of the "too dangerous" boats, HMS Trafalgar in fact, is heading out to sea today (20th Feb).

I'm pretty sure that I saw another one of the Ts listed as heading for sea last week. There are clearly problems resulting from the gap between the Trafalgars and the Astutes but the article was an exaggeration.

At least it wasn't as bad as The Daily Star's "5 inch gun" fiasco.

WillS
 
One can only hope the article was an exaggeration. Hopefully this means there was in fact no reactor crack as this would be extremely serious.
 
PeterCrisp said:
Do we have any indication on when the type 45's are going in for the refit so they can have the engine issue sorted?
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Knowing the Navy / the Whitehall bean counters, these issues will be 'addressed' when each ship goes in for major work / mini-refit, roughly after 5 years of 'work'.

Based on the ships, I'd say that DARING will be 1st, as she was the worst affected, the latter 5 are less affected, but with DAUNTLESS acting as 'Harbour Training Ship', it'll probably be last.


SA
 
John Newman said:
According to the report, none of the seven RN subs are operational.(with the sort of exception that Astute is undergoing work up after maintenance).

Not good (if true), any thoughts from our UK DT members?
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This could well be the same as situations where, say, the Australian Blackhawk fleet is grounded after a defect is detected in one aircraft.

It's not that they can't be flown if they must be, more that there is a preference for not taking the risk unnecessarily.

Regards,

Massive
 
John Fedup said:
One can only hope the article was an exaggeration. Hopefully this means there was in fact no reactor crack as this would be extremely serious.
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This is the same set of tabloids reporting that the QE has a badly distorted hull and can't leave the dock (spoiler, no, not true)
 
John Fedup said:
Damn, this fake news disease is really turning into a pandemic.
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Yep it goes round and round firing uninformed people up then some populist POS sacks the individual / group / company who were brought in to fix the problem months before the story broke and had successfully implemented a fix. It happens everywhere but especially when there are "snapshot" managers with MBAs and no technical experience calling the shots.
 
Volkodav said:
It happens everywhere but especially when there are "snapshot" managers with MBAs and no technical experience calling the shots.
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WHERE is the LIKE button ??

Never a truer word spoken !

(...& as a mid 40's bloke with a 'young team' below me & an old team keeping seats above me warm, I know the feeling only too well !)
 
Systems Adict said:
WHERE is the LIKE button ??

Never a truer word spoken !

(...& as a mid 40's bloke with a 'young team' below me & an old team keeping seats above me warm, I know the feeling only too well !)
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The age old conflict in management, dazzle with brilliance or baffle with BS. The latter wins out far more often than it should.:(
 
John Fedup said:
The age old conflict in management, dazzle with brilliance or baffle with BS. The latter wins out far more often than it should.:(
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AWD Alliance literally put a couple of hundred people through Lean Six Sigma training and started clearing out operational problems back in 2011/12. They targeted the big stuff, the things causing pain and the easy fix "low hanging fruit" clearing up a stack of problems and turning the project around. Even though there had been a couple of reviews showing the improvements and that the rejigged management team were doing well when the government changed Johnston had been caning ASC in particular for so long he was almost obligated to keep bashing them, besides if they were shut down his home state would be in prime position to get all the resulting work.

Once johnston was sacked Abbott apparently still wanted to make BAE prime and give them operational control of ASC but the defence staff on the project made it clear that would be letting the fox in the hen house as Baes Australian management team were the ones who caused most of the projects build quality, schedule and cost issues in the first place. ASC had the best plan going forward but sticking with the status quo was unacceptable after all the noise they made so they put Navanri in charge of implementing ASCs existing and working plan.

End result most of the ASC staff and management who fixed things were shunted sideways, sent to other projects, made redundant or retired while navantia personnel replaced them and claimed credit. The real irony is that by the time Navantia got the job, BAE head office, who had been seriously embarrassed by their Australian team had gone through the place with a machete and completely tired things around there too. Long story short, BAE, Forgacs and ASC all worked their backsides off, ended up doing great work and delivered a higher quality, better performing ship to the RAN then any of the half sisters operated by the Armada or Norway, but all ended up being shafted because of the mistakes of individuals who moved on years earlier.
 
gf0012-aust said:
if that's the case, then pulling tadl and cec tools to save money has to go down as one of the dumbest things ever done
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The question is what should have been sacrificed instead?

The Darings are not bristling with extra capabilities beyond their main task. And even there 48 sylver cells with no quad pack capability before CAMM comes online seems rather low.

No torps, no AShMs ( later rectified with old harpoons running out of shelf life in no time), no LACMs, an obsolete gun and just a hangar for 1 Merlin or 1-2 Wildcats.

It already is a bare bones air warfare destroyer. And roughly 25% more expensive than a Sachsen or De Zeven Provincen class IIRC...
 
Waylander said:
The question is what should have been sacrificed instead?

The Darings are not bristling with extra capabilities beyond their main task. And even there 48 sylver cells with no quad pack capability before CAMM comes online seems rather low.

No torps, no AShMs ( later rectified with old harpoons running out of shelf life in no time), no LACMs, an obsolete gun and just a hangar for 1 Merlin or 1-2 Wildcats.

It already is a bare bones air warfare destroyer. And roughly 25% more expensive than a Sachsen or De Zeven Provincen class IIRC...
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at some point you have to wonder whether there should be greater consideration to killing things like outsourced garrison support and giving that back to uniforms as the "salary" is already spent. use that money to fit out the fleet properly

hobsons choice rearing its head.

I don't envy them
 
gf0012-aust said:
at some point you have to wonder whether there should be greater consideration to killing things like outsourced garrison support and giving that back to uniforms as the "salary" is already spent. use that money to fit out the fleet properly

hobsons choice rearing its head.

I don't envy them
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Yep I have never liked the idea of third party support for the basic support to defence like catering and transport, it's something that can be acheived at a cheaper rate without the need of the vendor factoring profits something defence does not have to do.
 
It's cheaper? At least in Germany we do get away with paying civilian kitchen personal much less than basic grunts.

The same goes for your standard security guys. Past conscription warm bodies are scarce and shouldn't be wasted on such tasks. The problem comes when one reduces stuff like kitchen personal so much that you are not able to support your force in the field anymore.

Anyway, the return on investment in the case of the Type 45s seems rather poor considering the pricetag. The Horizons were just as expensive but at least got 2-3 modern 76mm OTO Strales guns, torps and modern versions of their Exocet/Teseo AShMs right from the beginning.
 
Waylander said:
It's cheaper? At least in Germany we do get away with paying civilian kitchen personal much less than basic grunts.
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there would be elements where using suits would be cheaper and vice versa

A few years back I was contracted to assist in transitioning a base into a garrison support contract.

the quality of the personnel involved was (at the time) nothing to get excited about and it would have been better to keep them in their jobs than outsource.

but to be fair, I think the quality of uniforms at that lower tasking level has gone up since then
 
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