The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

[1805]

Probably going to need to add at least 500 tonnes to that for the mission modules and the hanger, also I suspect the range is a bit limited.



That's because you're not thinking it through, just to repeat it's not CAMM that is the problem it's the MFR it needs to work, you can't make this modular without a great deal of work and an MFR is way beyond what we would expect to put on an MHCP vessel, it adds to displacement and cost, in answer to your earlier point RAM also needs a decent MFR to work, although SeaRam doesn't.

I did say the engine fit on them would need to be simpler, but I doubt range is an issue for them, if standard deplacement is 2000t v full load of 2550t. As repluse said above these are example of what can be achieved not recomendations, there are plenty of ships that could fit reasonable mission modules and a hangar on less than 2500t. The KD lekiu is another example at 2,200t as SASwanabe has pointed out the Sa'ar 5 is half the displacement and a far heavier/more expensive fit than proposed.

Sea Ram still needs a radar just they have integrated it into the system as per the Phalanx. It demonstrates you don't need a massively expensive radar. They are cheaper options you are just so focused on the can't do approach you don't want to consider them.

 

[kev 99]

I don't think any particular one vessel in service anywhere is what we want. What quite a few people on this forum are saying is that we cannot make the C3 into a more useful warship without making it into a C2 and somehow bankrupting the country, with a bit of thought using technologies like volcano ammo or VL micro launcher I believe we can.

Also, I don't personally think that range has to be a key requirement especially if for significant operations they were with a JSS.

The MHCP requirement looks to me to be a perfect fit for the BAM or the BMT Venator, although I suspect that would be rather expensive, personally I think turning 3 minor warship/survey ship classes into 1 would be of great benefit to the Rn, trying to add a 4th role of convey escort seems excessive, and needlessly expensive to me, there are plenty of other areas the RN could use them money.

 

[1805]

The MHCP requirement looks to me to be a perfect fit for the BAM or the BMT Venator, although I suspect that would be rather expensive, personally I think turning 3 minor warship/survey ship classes into 1 would be of great benefit to the Rn, trying to add a 4th role of convey escort seems excessive, and needlessly expensive to me, there are plenty of other areas the RN could use them money.

You are missing the point, for a moderate spend, (say max £100m a ship marginal increase x 8 ships) you could nearly double the ASW escort fleet in a crisis.

 

[kev 99]

I did say the engine fit on them would need to be simpler, but I doubt range is an issue for them, if standard deplacement is 2000t v full load of 2550t. As repluse said above these are example of what can be achieved not recomendations, there are plenty of ships that could fit reasonable mission modules and a hangar on less than 2500t. The KD lekiu is another example at 2,200t as SASwanabe has pointed out the Sa'ar 5 is half the displacement and a far heavier/more expensive fit than proposed.

This is getting laughable now, none of the ships you have suggested are suitable for the MHCP role, none of them have mission bays, all of them would need heavy modification adding probably around 500 tonnes for a flex deck, crane for lowering Mine coutner measures ROVs and survey equipment, and many of them don't have a hanger. They all require a lot more crew than we'd want as well. Sa'ar 5 is a geat little heavily armed corvette, probably perfect for what the Isrealis want it for, but it can't do the MHCP role as the only requirement for it that it ticks is that it's a ship.

The Al Kharaf class that Repulse mentions is 2500 metric tonnes, the version VT offered the MOD for it's C3 role was 3000 tonnes.

The RN requirement is for Mine Counter Measures, Hydrographic Survey and Patrol ships, buying a cheap GP Frigate/corvette and trying to modify it for the requirements is stupid. All you are doing is repeating your same old argument for the RN having a big fleet of small GP frigates/corvettes, despite the simple fact the RN doesn't want them, can't afford to buy them and certainly can't afford to operate them without a pretty hefty increase in the MOD budget which isn't going to happen.

There are options off the shelf for the MHCP role which are more or less a perfect fit, unless you try and turn it into some gold-plated swiss army knife.

Sea Ram still needs a radar just they have integrated it into the system as per the Phalanx. It demonstrates you don't need a massively expensive radar. They are cheaper options you are just so focused on the can't do approach you don't want to consider them.

It doesn't need an external MFR, RAM does, Sea Ram is virtually plug and play, RAM isn't.

It's not a can't do approach, it's a "why are you trying to spend money we haven't got on trying to make something we don't need approach?"

 

[kev 99]

You are missing the point, for a moderate spend, (say max £100m a ship marginal increase x 8 ships) you could nearly double the ASW escort fleet in a crisis.

No I'm not missing anything, you're moderate spend is nearly £800m on the ships alone, and that's for only 8 which isn't nearly enough and personally I think you're figures are very conservative. Then of course you need to buy a load more Towed Arrays, how many of these are you buying? Didn't you say only 3 earlier? That's not nearly doubling the ASW escort at all? Then of course you have to fund the operating costs for all these extra staff and greater fuel consumption for these up spec'd ships, where is all this extra money coming from? You are living in la la land.

 

[StevoJH]

Hmm...I've always liked the idea of an even bigger Clyde/River derivative with a helicopter hanger. Fit a crane behind the hanger that swings up against the wall of the hanger, use the hanger to store mine hunting ROV's in lieu of Helicopters when needed.

Not sure what you'd do about the Survey gear, possibly build it into bolt-on sections of hull that can be added/removed during refit.

Add a couple of mini typhoon (or provision for) on each side of the superstructure, and possibly put a Phalanx/SeaRAM base plate including wiring (but not neccessarily the control panel on the bridge) above the hanger. If possible wire in the minityphoons and whatever maingun is selected into the CMS so they can be slaved to radar, otherwise can always use the radar to give the toplite a rough direction to look in for AA work.

 

[1805]

This is getting laughable now, none of the ships you have suggested are suitable for the MHCP role, none of them have mission bays, all of them would need heavy modification adding probably around 500 tonnes for a flex deck, crane for lowering Mine coutner measures ROVs and survey equipment, and many of them don't have a hanger. They all require a lot more crew than we'd want as well. Sa'ar 5 is a geat little heavily armed corvette, probably perfect for what the Isrealis want it for, but it can't do the MHCP role as the only requirement for it that it ticks is that it's a ship.

The Al Kharaf class that Repulse mentions is 2500 metric tonnes, the version VT offered the MOD for it's C3 role was 3000 tonnes.

The RN requirement is for Mine Counter Measures, Hydrographic Survey and Patrol ships, buying a cheap GP Frigate/corvette and trying to modify it for the requirements is stupid. All you are doing is repeating your same old argument for the RN having a big fleet of small GP frigates/corvettes, despite the simple fact the RN doesn't want them, can't afford to buy them and certainly can't afford to operate them without a pretty hefty increase in the MOD budget which isn't going to happen.

There are options off the shelf for the MHCP role which are more or less a perfect fit, unless you try and turn it into some gold-plated swiss army knife.



It doesn't need an external MFR, RAM does, Sea Ram is virtually plug and play, RAM isn't.

It's not a can't do approach, it's a "why are you trying to spend money we haven't got on trying to make something we don't need approach?"

You really haven't read the posts, no one is suggesting we buy any of these designs or modify any of them, most are at least 10 years old and we are talking about ships that will not come into service for 10 years+ They are merely quoted as examples of what can be achieved, I would expect with 20 years progress much more could be done on the displacement quoted.

The Saar 5 is very high spec, which is why I didn't quote originally and half the displacement (quoted a second time in the vain hope you might take note).

I am not going to talk about SAMs anymore as I said I could live without them, if it had a 57mm & CIWS, however the 57mm would also need a radar....

The RN has always opposed fitting any meaningful weapons to patrol craft this debate goes back a long way beyond the Castle class. They say it detracts from the 1st tier fleet. I fully understand the argument I don't agree with them and few other Navies do. Once you carry a £20m helicopter you are investing a lot. The days when anyone watched what the RN does have long sinced gone....since the B team took over they have become follows unable to think for themselves only able to copy what everyone else is doing.

I hope the current crisis is a wake up call to them, because I can see a future with a handful of expensive escorts and a few SSN and nothing else. Able to do less and less usefully and gradually losing funding accordingly.

 

[1805]

No I'm not missing anything, you're moderate spend is nearly £800m on the ships alone, and that's for only 8 which isn't nearly enough and personally I think you're figures are very conservative. Then of course you need to buy a load more Towed Arrays, how many of these are you buying? Didn't you say only 3 earlier? That's not nearly doubling the ASW escort at all? Then of course you have to fund the operating costs for all these extra staff and greater fuel consumption for these up spec'd ships, where is all this extra money coming from? You are living in la la land.

What you are not happy with a fully equiped ship cost £200m now?? You could cost a T26 at £250m and a light frigate at £300m !!!!

Didn't we plan to maintain about 16 TAS sets, 8 transfered from T23 and a similar number of new sets? So if that was the case...no more than already planned....cost increase 0!

 

[kev 99]

I've read all of your posts on this subject, unfortunately all they are is a constant rehash of the same old "I've got a hard on for small ships, here's another one I can name", rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

If you're not suggesting we build some of the ships you're naming then why do you keep naming them? All you're doing is naming ship classes in the right displacement range without sparing a thought for what they are used for which is completely pointless to the discussion at hand.

The MHCP programme is an attempt for the RN to at long last have a small fleet of minor warships that can do the very tasks you are cirticising them for not doing in the past, and yet you want to turn them into GP Frigates? you criticise the RN for gold plating eveyrthing and then come up with this, talk about double standards.

 

[StevoJH]

The construction contract for HMS Clyde was 30 million.

The estimated running costs per year for the River class (presumably including Clyde) is 20 million, giving an estimated cost of 5-10 million/year for clyde (given the remote location she'd cost more)

Now, assuming that the C/MC whatever will be purchased outright, it would have a higher initial cost, however it would have a lower running cost since they aren't paying the 'lease' fees they do with the River/Clyde class.

I don't have the exact numbers, but the RNZN Project Protecter OPV's were not expensive ships, though they don't fullfill all the requirements of the C3, they and the River class do show how cheap these ships can be when the requirements are kept sensible.

I'd suggest that: SeaRAM/Phalanx (on initial fitout at least), Artisan, >25knot speed & CAMM would all fit into the 'gold-plating' category rather then what it needs to have to fullfill its design requirements.

References:
House of Lords Written Answers 24 November 2010
Clyde / OPV, OPV(H), River Class Batch Two

 

[kev 99]

What you are not happy with a fully equiped ship cost £200m now?? You could cost a T26 at £250m and a light frigate at £300m !!!!

Didn't we plan to maintain about 16 TAS sets, 8 transfered from T23 and a similar number of new sets? So if that was the case...no more than already planned....cost increase 0!

What nonsense are you on about now? I said you're cost estimates are conservative, when did I ever say a T26 was going to cost £250m, you're just making things up now.

Since when has the MOD been buying another 8 new TAS, got a link?

You still have failed to present a case for where the extra money to cover the operating costs is coming from.

 

[StevoJH]

1805,

The 8 TAS for T26 are the 2087's fitted to eight of the T23's in recent years, recycled equipment in other words.

Stephen

EDIT: I read earlier that the River's have a 25t rated crane aboard, something that big would be way more then sufficient for launching Mine Hunting ROV's.

 

[kev 99]

What you are not happy with a fully equiped ship cost £200m now?? You could cost a T26 at £250m and a light frigate at £300m !!!!

Didn't we plan to maintain about 16 TAS sets, 8 transfered from T23 and a similar number of new sets? So if that was the case...no more than already planned....cost increase 0!

What nonsense are you on about now? I said you're cost estimates are conservative, based upon what you suggested I stand by it. When did I ever say a T26 was going to cost £250m? you're just making things up now.

Since when has the MOD been buying another 8 new TAS, got a link?

You still have failed to present a case for where the extra money to cover the operating costs is coming from.

 

[1805]

I've read all of your posts on this subject, unfortunately all they are is a constant rehash of the same old "I've got a hard on for small ships, here's another one I can name", rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

If you're not suggesting we build some of the ships you're naming then why do you keep naming them? All you're doing is naming ship classes in the right displacement range without sparing a thought for what they are used for which is completely pointless to the discussion at hand.

The MHCP programme is an attempt for the RN to at long last have a small fleet of minor warships that can do the very tasks you are cirticising them for not doing in the past, and yet you want to turn them into GP Frigates? you criticise the RN for gold plating eveyrthing and then come up with this, talk about double standards.

t

I don't want to turn them into GP frigates, I want them to be able to be additional ASW escorts. Why because our numbers of 1st tier escorts are decline to sub critical numbers.

I have not put forward all these ships, but I do think some are relevant. The BAM, Abukama and Khareef are particularly relevant for different reasons quite relevant. One thing to not the RN would oppose the 76mm even on the BAM.

What are we really talking about adding:

All ships:
Additional power for an increase of 3-4 knots to 25knots
Adding a 57mm or 76mm gun fire control and radar
8 bolt on CIWS which could come from a more general pool anyway

The big thing a sonar fit and TAS, is the really an additional cost or are we just fitting them to a smaller hull to reflect a reduced T26 order?

 

[StevoJH]

Forget TAS, it can always be added to the remaining T26's anyway. A helicopter would be more useful anyway, and a TAS would probably cost as much.

Any of these ships fitted out for survey work will have some sort of sonar anyway, whether its useful for ASW might be another matter. It would have to depend on how much a 'cheap' basic sonar system would cost, but if you designed parts of the hull so they could be modified later on at little cost it *might* be worth it, but only if it doesnt add much to the price.

At the moment the RN need numbers, they need quantity over quality, at least in that category of ship.

 

[1805]

What nonsense are you on about now? I said you're cost estimates are conservative, when did I ever say a T26 was going to cost £250m, you're just making things up now.

Since when has the MOD been buying another 8 new TAS, got a link?

You still have failed to present a case for where the extra money to cover the operating costs is coming from.

The marginal cost of lets stick with 8 ships, having £100m lavished on them (I will go with but don't accept they would be £200m each) are so at the bottom end of defence procurement that the costs over 30 year life cycle of purchase and operation is going to be tiny...surely you can see that? £30m/pa capex. Increased operational costs is mainly people and as this is a crisis capability they don't have to be regulars...so unless you can find a way to inflate fairly small aswell.

 

[StevoJH]

100 million is a lot of money for what will basically be an OPV with the capability of accepting a couple of modular systems.

Remember, didn't the last few T23's only cost a bit over 100 million?

 

[kev 99]

The marginal cost of lets stick with 8 ships, having £100m lavished on them (I will go with but don't accept they would be £200m each) are so at the bottom end of defence procurement that the costs over 30 year life cycle of purchase and operation is going to be tiny...surely you can see that? £30m/pa capex. Operational costs is mainly people and as this is a crisis capability they don't have to be regulars...so unless you can find a way to inflate fairly small aswell.

BAM costs around £90 each and built in low cost shipyards in Spain with lower labour costs than ours, and they lack a lot of the equiment you want.

The equipment fit that you want all costs more money, the machinery costs more fuel and more weapons means more maintenance, all these things cost money. They also require a greater number of crew members and more shore based support.

MHCP is supposed to be a cheap patrol ship with lean manning so that its running costs are low, your ships aren't cheap and they won't be cheap to run either.

Crisis capability crew members? this is just nonsense, try telling anyone from the MOD that the cost of staff is small and they will laugh in your face, where are you getting you're irregulars from? they don't actually exist now unless you want to significantly upgrade the role of the Royal Naval Reserve which costs money too.

:lol3

100 million is a lot of money for what will basically be an OPV with the capability of accepting a couple of modular systems.

Remember, didn't the last few T23's only cost a bit over 100 million?

That was a while ago Steve and the UK shipyards were in better nick then and the cold war cuts hadn't really began to bite, I'd love to see those sort of unit costs in the future but I can't really see it.

 

[deepsixteen]

Hi

It seems to me that unless the present government wise up and devote a little extra cash to introduce a steady rate of production of a new class of minor war vessel in a deprived area to reap some political capital from the economic regeneration it would bring this design is way off in the future. I can think of a number of areas that would be suitable for such developments in the north east of the country but dont think they are smart enough.

I suspect something along the lines of the Grandson of a river on shipbucket would be a suitable adaptable candidate but would suggest that artisan and the VLS should be deleted for less costly items. For instance the Goalkeeper systems that have recently become available could slot into the VLS space and selecting an off the shelf Otto 76mm with all the advanced munitions that it brings to the table for the main gun would be a cost effective versatile choice. I would like to see the vessel with a speed of around 25 knots the hull size seems to be around the optimum 100m by 14m which would give good economy and sea keeping.

As an evolutionary rather than revolutionary design it should provide a relatively simple cheap adaptable solution recycling some systems we already have. What else do members think might be recycled into such a vessel from the disposal list without increasing costs perhaps even bringing savings?

 

[kev 99]

The deprived area is along the Clyde, that's going to be getting the lion's share of any shipbuilding work for the navy in the future.

If I'm honest I can't think of too much equipment that the RN could have lying around right now that would be suitable:
4.5" mark 8s, but would you want them on a OPV?
30mm and 7.62mm gun mounts
Torpedo launchers taken from T42s, again would you want these on an OPV?
Harpoon launchers from the T22 - in the not to distant future.