Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[alexsa]

I believe the 7,000t often quoted is from increase in draft over the life of the ship.

When first built they may only displace 6,000t but growth weight will increase draft pushing maxium displacement to 7,000t.

Terminology is an issue here as it depends if the 6000 tonne figure is the light ship figure of design loaded displacement. Noting the F100 is quoted as having a loaded displacement in the order of 5900 tonnes I will asume the latter.

For A ship of about 6000 tonnes the TPC will be in the order of 10 tonnes (may be less assuming a very low block coefficient). As such a 150 tonne increase will be a draft increase of about 10 - 15 cm, not a lot.

An increase in displacement by 1000 tonne to 7000 tonnes is a lot as it increases the draft by about 100 cm, which is a lot as it changes the hydrodynamic behavour of the hull.

 

[Jaimito]

Terminology is an issue here as it depends if the 6000 tonne figure is the light ship figure of design loaded displacement. Noting the F100 is quoted as having a loaded displacement in the order of 5900 tonnes I will asume the latter.

For A ship of about 6000 tonnes the TPC will be in the order of 10 tonnes (may be less assuming a very low block coefficient). As such a 150 tonne increase will be a draft increase of about 10 - 15 cm, not a lot.

An increase in displacement by 1000 tonne to 7000 tonnes is a lot as it increases the draft by about 100 cm, which is a lot as it changes the hydrodynamic behavour of the hull.

The F105 design changes the exhaust from engines, the counterfire system, and also the engines are different and it has a fore propeller for manouvring. As you say just the 150 tonnes difference wrt F100 does not changes the affected keel block design, but yes other parts of the design (the fore propeller is retractile). Whatever is Awd, the F105 design has been recently put in practice with :
Navantia botará en Ferrol la F-105 Cristóbal Colón el próximo 4 de noviembre - infodefensa.com - Información Defensa y Seguridad

where there is the photo from one of keel blocks, or near.

 

[alexsa]

The F105 design changes the exhaust from engines, the counterfire system, and also the engines are different and it has a fore propeller for manouvring. As you say just the 150 tonnes difference wrt F100 does not changes the affected keel block design, but yes other parts of the design (the fore propeller is retractile). Whatever is Awd, the F105 design has been recently put in practice with :
Navantia botará en Ferrol la F-105 Cristóbal Colón el próximo 4 de noviembre - infodefensa.com - Información Defensa y Seguridad

where there is the photo from one of keel blocks, or near.

The installation of fwd thrusters does not change the hull form, particularly IWO the keel block. It will result in additional stiffening and a reassessment of the longtitudinal strength.

It is not an excuse for failing to properly check cut plate against plans before farbrication of the the block.

 

[Samoa]

The F100 design is 5900 tonnes at max. displacement, the Fritdorjf Nansen frigates are 5200 tonnes, and F105 design, which is supposed to be used for the Awd is 6050 tonnes, maybe the Awd is supposed to be still bigger (but you say that "it is a build to print"), then any mods to the keel block design needed and so updated the drawings? The F105 has quite a few mods wrt F100, needed to be updated in drawings.
Navantia building blocks are spread out in different sites, so that it is not the same site always building the jigs, they need correct drawings for each building of 10 ships done so far.
If Navantia has done any mistake, then they can claim to Navantia.

I believe the hull blocks between and F100 and F104/F105 are the same. Changes are to equipment fitout, not the hull itself. Build to print, means a set of delivered drawings which details the plate and frame construction, the jigs and the assembly sequence are provide by the OEM and the builder simply assemblies the blocks accordingly.

It is not an excuse for failing to properly check cut plate against plans before farbrication of the the block.

The problem was a distortion issue, during block assembly, as the weld sequence caused the sub-assemblies to "pull" resulting in a block which did not meet dimensional control. It had nothing to do with the plate piece sizing being incorrect. Your simplistic understanding of the issue is giving you the completely wrong idea. The jigs are meant to control the assemblies during welding to ensure dimensional control is maintained, this didn't happen and this is were the problem is.

BTW the block was reworked and will still be used. It is not scrap. The problem with this block has been corrected and the issue is now well understood. The delay is because BAE has to remake the the platform jigs so that further blocks don't suffer the same problem.

As I said in my earlier post, the Navantia platform jigs assembly drawings are where the problems and issues are, not the hull piece parts, or frame assemblies, etc. Navantia identified what caused the issue, when there engineering team came to do an inspection at BAE. They said the jigs were wrong, and when BAE said we built them to your drawings, Navantia said, we don't follow all the drawings !

BAE has identified hundreds of anomalies in Navantia drawings, and ASC has to deal with Navantia to resolve them. I'm just waiting to see how the other yards go, they may not have the same level of problems, as most of the blocks they are assembling are upper hull blocks and top deck blocks which are basically square blocks, ie. dimensional control is much easier as they are much simpler in design.

BAE is not perfect, far from it, but the bagging they received in the media over this issue was very much undeserved.

 

[alexsa]

I


The problem was a distortion issue, during block assembly, as the weld sequence caused the sub-assemblies to "pull" resulting in a block which did not meet dimensional control. It had nothing to do with the plate piece sizing being incorrect. Your simplistic understanding of the issue is giving you the completely wrong idea. The jigs are meant to control the assemblies during welding to ensure dimensional control is maintained, this didn't happen and this is were the problem is.

.

Weld distortion is not an unknown quantity and can be modelled to a degree. The jig issue is noted but I still hold that effective QC and contruction verification should have picked this up before the block was complete tothe point it was unusable. It is often possible that distortioncan be corrected if detected early in the process (not always I accept) and it is certainly evident in measurement.

The fact that this is the only block that appears to have suffered this issue out of the three, and assuming the build to print process provided to all three was the same, would suggest, a QC issue regardless of the the issue with jibs.

I would add that the apparent lack of an inpendent verificaiton by Class or other appropriate body is also a cause for significant concern.

Sorry about the simplicity but, as noted in the begiining of my rant, the whole story has not been provided and I am basing my comments on the limited infomation in the public domain.

 

[alexsa]

To qualify a few issues, I would add that I agree that errors can be built into blocks and the jig isuse would certainly complicate the process. What I am somewhat surprised about is the the suggestion the construction verificaiton and through construction survey (down to weld level) does not appear to include the involvement of an organisation such as class.

I am quite happy to be corrected if this is not the case but some of the material flying about suggested that class are not involved to this depth.

 

[Jaimito]

As I said in my earlier post, the Navantia platform jigs assembly drawings are where the problems and issues are, not the hull piece parts, or frame assemblies, etc. Navantia identified what caused the issue, when there engineering team came to do an inspection at BAE. They said the jigs were wrong, and when BAE said we built them to your drawings, Navantia said, we don't follow all the drawings !

BAE has identified hundreds of anomalies in Navantia drawings, and ASC has to deal with Navantia to resolve them. I'm just waiting to see how the other yards go, they may not have the same level of problems, as most of the blocks they are assembling are upper hull blocks and top deck blocks which are basically square blocks, ie. dimensional control is much easier as they are much simpler in design.

BAE is not perfect, far from it, but the bagging they received in the media over this issue was very much undeserved.

That is one hypothesis, other is that Navantia decided to carry on its own quality control, just in preview of problems, very wisely, and notice the mistake from the block and even welded the jigs ipso facto.

 

[aussienscale]

RAN History

Just a general question for forum members who may know a bit about the RAN history during WWII. I have numerous bank notes collected by my grandfather during his time in the RAN during the war, he was on the Warramunga and also the Australia. I would like to try and track his history during the war, I know there is a way to do it but can't recall who to contact to try and obtain a copy of his service records ? I would like to link the bank notes he collected with his deployments and to the war events during this time.
The notes I have are:
Netherlands dated March 1943 - 1 dollar
Netherlands Mar 1943 - 50 cents
The Government of Sarawak Aug 1940 - 10 cents
Sarawak Feb 1935 - 1 dollar
Malaya July 1941 - 50 cents
Malaya Jul 1941 - 1 dollar
Japanese Government - not dated - 5 dollars
Japanese Government - not dated - 1 dollar
Japanese Government - not dated - 1 cent
British North Borneo Company Jan 1938 - 50 cents
British North Borneo Company Jan 1936 - 1 dollar
Egyptian Government 1940 - 5 piasters

They are all notes, including the Japanese 1 cent ! If anyone would like to see them, let me know I can scan and post them if you like

Thanks in advance

 

[Abraham Gubler]

I would like to try and track his history during the war, I know there is a way to do it but can't recall who to contact to try and obtain a copy of his service records ?

Australian War Memorial has all the web links to how to obtain a service record. Of course for what you want to do you could just track the war service of the ships in question. I'm sure there are many books or even web pages that detail where 'Stralia and 'Munga sailed to and fro.

 

[alexsa]

That is one hypothesis, other is that Navantia decided to carry on its own quality control, just in preview of problems, very wisely, and notice the mistake from the block and even welded the jigs ipso facto.

To be fair to Samoa, I suspect his answer relates to his organisation as a sub-contractor and he could not be expected to have in depth knowledge of how Navnatia did this.

 

[Volkodav]

To be fair to Samoa, I suspect his answer relates to his organisation as a sub-contractor and he could not be expected to have in depth knowledge of how Navnatia did this.

Navantia has an extremely competent production engineering capability which produces production ready drawings from the design data. In all likely hood they have assumed that any competent ship builder would have the same or similar capability.

The current situation has convinced me that we dodged a bullet by not selecting the Gibbs and Cox evolved solution, if an experianced builder can't fabricate a keel block to an existing design what hope would they have had with the first of class on a new design.

 

[JoeMcFriday]

Aussienscale,
As said above about the AWM.gov.au is a great start and there are many extra sources for the ships movements.
However to sure when he was on them, as you said, you need the records. Direct link below.
World War Two Nominal Roll
Search from the sidebar called 'Explore' on the AWM homepage and you can also get there but also to the official histories and much more.
RAN vols 1 & 2 are a great read, with pics, but from memory there are about 30-40 pdf files. I downloaded them all by the old 'right click and save as' method. Time consuming but worth it.
Both ships figure in them.
Cheers.
Mac

 

[Ozymandias]

That is one hypothesis, other is that Navantia decided to carry on its own quality control, just in preview of problems, very wisely, and notice the mistake from the block and even welded the jigs ipso facto.

The policy at the Williamstown shipyard is that tradesmen build exactly to the drawings; even if they know it's wrong, stupid, and would never work in a million years.If the drawing is completely cactus, they should ask for a new drawing. In this case BAE was contracted to build what Navantia engineers came up with, and not the local structural engineers. This method gives engineering total control, and all stuff-ups are on them.

Ferrol and Fene; on the other hand, have a long proud history of production workers doing what they think is right, even if the naval architects and structurals think otherwise. Which results in lots of configuration management problems (product not matching the drawings), and sometimes they stuff it up because they think they know better than the engineers; but often problems are fixed before it's too late to prevent rework.

Two different ways of shipbuilding, both with positives and negatives.

 

[gf0012-aust]

I would like to try and track his history during the war, I know there is a way to do it but can't recall who to contact to try and obtain a copy of his service records ? I would like to link the bank notes he collected with his deployments and to the war events during this time.

I don't have it handy, but I can give it to you once I get to work tomorrow. PM your email address and give me 24.

I used it recently to check on my own grandfathers military history - WW1 though.

gf

 

[Abraham Gubler]

The current situation has convinced me that we dodged a bullet by not selecting the Gibbs and Cox evolved solution, if an experianced builder can't fabricate a keel block to an existing design what hope would they have had with the first of class on a new design.

Actually an off the shelf solution can have a higher risk of delivery for license production than a new design – assuming that the new design actually works. The reason being many potential license providers have no experience in technology transfer and working outside their own industrial mechanisms. Also one has torealise that an off the shelf design is just as new for a licensee as an all new design.

This was the case with Steyr and their AUG built as the F88 by Lithgow. Steyr were great at building rifles in Steyr, Austria but had no idea how to help someone else to build it. So hundreds of millions and many years had to be spent to modify the design and enable Lithgow to build it. It would have been much cheaper and easier to build an M16 – a company (Colt) and design with a lot of experience in technology transfer – or to develop a domestic, new rifle.

Back to ships and Navantia clearly have little experience in technology transfer. The F100 was basically designed for them by Gibbs & Cox in the first place 15 years ago so one would assume with their history they would have been better placed to help ASC build a new ship than Navantia. Also during the detailed design phase before down select the Gibbs & Cox team had a lot more resources designing from a clean sheet for Australian build than the smaller team “Australianising” the F100. Much of their work was in modifying the F100 to meet the Australian spec rather than redesigning it for a domestic build.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Actually an off the shelf solution can have a higher risk of delivery for license production than a new design – assuming that the new design actually works. The reason being many potential license providers have no experience in technology transfer and working outside their own industrial mechanisms. Also one has torealise that an off the shelf design is just as new for a licensee as an all new design..

from a build model defined by Govt that may be so - but from a capability level, not in my opinion.

I've seen some of the output on selection and it cranks me up that we have another decision made in absentia of a few critical warfighting suggestions.

we went cheap again, and we will pay the price as we always change the design enough to make it more expensive than the tactically preferred solution.

we always do this.
we don't bloody learn
we allow political process to intervene beyond acceptable levels
we pretend that we made the right choice to keep the govt of the day looking good

a bad baseline decision decided by money - and which will laughably end up costing more than the more capable option and a vessel with less development flexibility.

all this despite some coherent and persistent concerns about local industry competency and the contracting model - and not just from within.

all IMO of course.

sadly it won't be the last time we buy the wrong box to fit in the designated hole.

 

[riksavage]

The price of democracy I suspect, Western Governments make political decisions looking no further than four years hence. They look to win votes over the short term even if it costs an arm and leg over the long term.

Dictatorships do have some advantages, you can plan for the long game without worrying about re-election or public opinion.

 

[Volkodav]

from a build model defined by Govt that may be so - but from a capability level, not in my opinion.

I've seen some of the output on selection and it cranks me up that we have another decision made in absentia of a few critical warfighting suggestions.

we went cheap again, and we will pay the price as we always change the design enough to make it more expensive than the tactically preferred solution.

we always do this.
we don't bloody learn
we allow political process to intervene beyond acceptable levels
we pretend that we made the right choice to keep the govt of the day looking good

a bad baseline decision decided by money - and which will laughably end up costing more than the more capable option and a vessel with less development flexibility.

all this despite some coherent and persistent concerns about local industry competency and the contracting model - and not just from within.

all IMO of course.

sadly it won't be the last time we buy the wrong box to fit in the designated hole.

The detail design requirements for the evolved design were massive, BIW personnel warned that it would cause serious cost and schedule issues. That said it truly would have been a nation building project if we pulled it off. The evolved team had the resources to do the job priced into its bid and the perceived increased risk would have been managed with much greater diligence.

I still would have liked to have seen the TKMS AEGIS option, they have an extensive track record of transferring technology and tailoring designs for customers requirements.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

I still would have liked to have seen the TKMS AEGIS option, they have an extensive track record of transferring technology and tailoring designs for customers requirements.

It wasn't anything special. A lengthened F124 with a DDG 51 style bidge and antenna combo stuck on top. The problem zie Germans had was the evolved designs had to be based on exsisting in service tech. So they couldn't offer a MEKO Alpha or Delta AWD. They were stuck with an AEGIS version of the F124. Gibbs & Cox and BIW would have been excellent partners for SEA 4000.

 

[Blas de Lezo]

I always thought the F100 was a Navantia design adapting the NFr 90 and then the Trilateral frigate agreement to the requirement of the Spanish Navy for a tested and proven combat system at the time (AEGIS) .

The F100 has (other than AEGIS) more in common with the Sachsen and De Zeven Provincien class than with the Burkes and Gibbs & Cox did not design the F100 for them 15 years ago anymore than they design the above mention classes.

The Trilateral frigate agrement involved the ship's hull and structure but not the systems. In that sense a Sachsen Aegis version would have not been very dissimilar to a F100.

Navantia has quite a bit of experience working with other yards and sharing drawings and designs.... AOR´s and Galicia/Rotterdam , Scorpenes.. all of them being quite successful realities.
The list of civilian cooperations is not small neither.