Yes, while they are a gain in capability in amount of aircraft to be stored on board they lose a fair chunk of their amphibious capability to deliver material and manpower thru the landing craft and stern doors.
I know, but that would have meant replacing two fairly lightly used LPDs (ten years old, usually only one in service at a time) with new ships, which we'd have had to spend money to modify.
I didn't know about that. Can you tell us what the extra decks would have had in them? A hangar?Wishes, Dreams, If's But's & maybe's...
We need to remember that ;A' & 'B' were conceived back in the early 90's, steel cut in the late 90's (Circa '99 from memory) & the penny pinchers from Whitehall had the extra decks removed.
SA
Agree it would have cost money(but that's the whole problem with UKDF for some time) to mod to RN standards, but they would have been an opportunity buy which would have the roughly the same capability as A,B & O combined but unfortunately troop accommodation would have been reduced. But its water under the bridge now.
Agree they are very good ships let down by its lack of organic aviation capability, I'm lead to believe that it was proposed in the initial planning stages but was omitted because of funding. Do you know if a portable hanger like those of the Bay class can be set up?
Yes Hangers. It's not the first time I've read about this on forums, I've never seen any concept art/plans though.
I went to the Cammell Laird type 31e workshop on Wednesday, the figure of £250m is the the 5th ship with inflation taken into account, Hull 1 is expected to cost £220m. What was also interesting is the design life of the vessel 25 years, the RN are only expecting to operate the vessels for 10 to 15 years before they are replaced and sold off.
It's entirely in line with the continuous build practice the current Australian government is trying to start. Rather than expend 50% of the cost of a new ship doing a "mid" life extension and then pouring money into an aging hull for the later years, plan the build cycle so that as a ship reaches and of its planned in service life it is replaced by a ship the next cycle of builds. It just needs an approprate drum beat, and the buy in of all sides of politics, because it'll go to hell if anyone decides to slow or stop the beat for whatever reason
Unfortunately the slowing of the drum beat seems to almost invariably happen. The type 23 was only supposed to have a service life of 18 years and now that will be closer to 30.
No Naval ship is "built to last 30 years".
It is that buy in in all sides of politics that is essential and Canada does not have that. It is Australia's big advantage over Canada when it comes to all things militar.
I wish that were so, but we've had a decade or so where changes of governments and changes *within* governments derailed or threatened major projects. I won't be confident of our new continuous build philosophy until it survives a change of government or two and the depredations of cross bench power brokers with a hankering for publicity and an axe or three to grind. More confident than I'd be in Canada mind you, and I'm no more than hopeful that the RN can negotiate their own political perils.
Thanks SA, should of known it would be on the secret proects forum.
The time operators are keeping ships is changing a bit. The current economic environment means that some operators are running some ships out to the second or third special survey (10 to 15 years) to maximise the profit from the hull. It is pertinent to note that beyond 10 years many of the PSC targeting systems add a risk penalty which increases the potential for inspection. Vessel over 15 years are definitely targeted (mind you Australia are looking to add a risk penalty for some ships from certain yards as the ‘finish’ of the vessels has had issues). So keeping the ship over 10 years means more PSC focus. In saying this some targeting systems (Australia being one) do not slavishly consider all alder ships to be ‘high risk’ and operator performance comes into that (Gas carriers have a very good PSC record with an average age of over 20 years but a very effectively operating safety management systems combined with a lot of focus on the build quality ..... and they cost a bomb).
I was in Fremantle a couple of weeks ago and watched a Liberian registered container ship make its way to sea.
Not always as it appears but exterior condition can be an indicator. Many operators are not bothering to keep the side of the ship looking pretty due to cost. They will also conduct the intermediate survey ‘in water’ (most do this) meaning the hull does not get a paint for five years. They can look like crap close to that time.
The thinking appears to be to get something small and relatively cheap that can be exported - hopefully with some being built in UK yards - the issue with Type 26 is that anything that large and complex, the purchasers want to build in their own yards. That keeps the ship design teams employed but does nothing to underwrite some of the costs of keeping yards alive ready for domestic orders.