I think that technically, she wouldn't need it, as the government can grant its own vessels an exemption to MARPOL, but I presume that like our government, this has been deemed politically unacceptable. I don't know if double-skinning would have been economically worthwhile for her remaining life. Possibly a lost opportunity . Too late now anyway, with everything useful being stripped out.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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Todjaeger
Potstirrer
AND
Being a Naval vessel, yes Gov't could grant a MARPOL exception to the double-hull requirement for tankers/oilers. Alexsa has actually already confirmed that somewhere earlier in this thread IIRC. For political, diplomatic and practical reasons though, gov't does not seem interested in granting such an exception.
This IMO does actually make sense (the not granting an exemption bit) since foreign ports could then decide to bar entry to RAN replenishment vessels which are not MARPOL compliant, regardless of whether the particular vessel has to be MARPOL compliant or not.
Gov't IMO was rather wise for once and opted to start with getting the oilers to be double-hulled and MARPOL compliant, rather than grant an exemption and then suddenly find an AOR far from home and shut out of ports/national waters.
-Cheers
While the Govt. can provide exemptions to its own vessels this doesn't mean other countries will provide an exemption. So you could find yourself very limited to the number of ports you can visit.
There just really isn't anyway around buying new ships unless you want compromised capability like the Sirius. Even then all you are doing is reducing the sticker price shock. The cost of Sirius amortised over its 15 year life is $9.5m per annum. A new build Lewis and Clark ship alternative with oddles more capability costs $11.25m per annum amortised over a 40 year life. That’s a 15% saving per annum for something as incapable as a Sirius compared to something as capable as a Lewis and Clark. Brilliant.
There just really isn't anyway around buying new ships unless you want compromised capability like the Sirius. Even then all you are doing is reducing the sticker price shock. The cost of Sirius amortised over its 15 year life is $9.5m per annum. A new build Lewis and Clark ship alternative with oddles more capability costs $11.25m per annum amortised over a 40 year life. That’s a 15% saving per annum for something as incapable as a Sirius compared to something as capable as a Lewis and Clark. Brilliant.
the govt won't grant an exemption, they've been down this road before and a military vessel excluded from the provisions still has to assume that the port of visit will be tolerant. some countries clearly will not and we wouln't risk the adverse publicity.
edit: just saw abes reply!
That depends on the risk profile as well. For instance double hulling an oiler is a no brainer but pushing the same for a DDG or FFG just doesn't make sence when you compare the cost and difficulty of doing it vs the volume of fuel you could possibly spill from holing a tank.
That said I really have to wonder at the expense of converting Success when she has an effective service life of about 15 minutes and 22 seconds left although that may in its self be an indication of just how useless Sirius is.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Cheaper, sure it would be. It would also be significantly less capable, like Sirius is now...
I would need Alexsa or one of the other naval DefPros (or anyone who actually knows...) to chime in here, but the type of fuel used by a naval vessel is different from that used by a civilian vessel. What this means in the case of HMAS Sirius is that the tanks carrying fuel for other RAN vessels cannot be used to power Sirius, and the fuel that Sirius is using cannot be used by other RAN vessels. That sort of disparity in fuel means that there could be times when Sirius has less fuel available for offloading than desired, or less range to reach a location. Also because Sirius is a converted commercial tanker, there are no facilities to conduct dry stores replenishment like could be done in a proper, dedicated naval replenishment vessel.
On the surface a civilian/commercial and naval oiler have the same requirements. Looking more closely however shows the differences. Then it becomes a trade off, increased cost for more appropriate capability.
-Cheers
Tee_Centre_10
Member
I don't want to be a spreader of conspiracy theories, but is it a co-incidence that the ADF Image Library over the last 3 or 4 days has had photos of Navy activity that refute the claims of newspaper articles that have been discussed in this thread? Lets review the case.
- After articles about how not a single Collins sub is sea worthy, we have photos of Dechaineux arriving at Station Pier, Port Melbourne.
- After articles about how broken Tobruk is and the RAN has no amphib capability, we have Tobruk on the move Tuesday (under her own power, no knacker's tow!) and leaving Sydney Harbour for certification trials following refit, while at the same time we have a couple of perky shots of Choules gadding about conducting her own manoeuvres in northern waters.
- After articles about how the MHCs don't go around doing what mine hunters are supposed to do (removing all those rogue mine fields that plague Australian ports) there are images of Gascoyne conducting operations with an ROV in PNG to locate and destroy UXO from WW2.
Now if you go to the Defence Image Library and look for the last two on the list, you may fail to find them because when I just now went to look them up for the details, I found the Tobruk and the MHC photos had disappeared and I couldn't even find them with a database search. You see, the dark forces of Big Media have gotten to them.
And I'm not imagining them because I saved them to my RAID-redundant NAS, so unless the ADF black-helicopter types drop into my back yard, kick in the door and make off with my file server, they aren't disappearing completely. Take that Navy Imagery Unit - East!
Which brings me to another thought...
Does anyone else want to severely hurt whoever decided on Fotoweb for ADF multimedia management? I know that it is used by many organisations, but either it is borked or the ADF implementation is. It has never worked right, and it hasn't gotten any better.
- You can't link to a specific image because the link is different depending on which browser you use (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari).
- Whoever enters images (defence media or outside contractor) into the database isn't consistent with the tags or fields used. It looks like the individual entering the images chooses/invents the appropriate tags according to their own judgement, and not according to a system or policy. The result is often inaccurate or vague or both, and sometimes is incorrect or even misspelt. Don't have Australia and Aust, RAAF Amberley and RAAF Base Amberley, choose one of them and stick to it. How many series of photos are you going to have from Rookwood Necropolis? Do you need such a field? Not that Aerial is going to be of much use either.
- Searches are often wildly inconsistent, with two searches using the exact same parameters returning different results.
- The "Images from last 10 days" link is great, if only the result was a gallery ordered from latest to earliest images entered into the database. You need to look through all 12-18 pages to be sure to see them, because images entered today may be hidden 10 pages back with other images entered a week previously.
- I don't think the ADF media people will find fields like Patient Name, Patient ID, Patient Sex, Date of Birth, Referring Physician, Transfer Syntax (from the context, another medical imagery field) very useful. If I was a DOM I might find the Date of Birth field useful though.
As someone who has done a bit of database work, it is beyond awful. No one should have gotten paid for this.
It is totally useless, but now they seem to be deleting many of the old media galleries or the images they are linked to without transferring the images to the new system. Galleries that I know were there are now gone and links are broken.
:frown
For the purpose of its legal status it is owned and/or operated by navy it is a warship and can behave as such. The commissioning (or lack of) does not alter that.
Noting the previous responses.... the double hull is an option for warships as MARPOL does not apply. How politically acceptable this would be is a different issue.
A country cannot exclude a ship on the the basis of the application of IMO conventions to ships to which they do not apply, however, warships have to seek permission to enter the port of another nation for visits (diplomatic as opposed to IMO compliance) and nations are within their rights to say no for any reason that takes their fancy.
It depends on the type of merchant. But many tankers and bulkers like Sirius use lower speed diesels that burn fuel oil rather than diesel fuel. They have fuel heaters to get the sludge a bit more liquid before pumping it into the donk. Many container ships and ROROs operate at higher speeds so have high speed diesels that burn diesel fuel like Navy ships. One of the proposals for the Westralia replacement was to acquire a container ship and simply drop into their container wells large fuel tanks. Presto a >20 knot double hulled tanker with a stern for helo operations and plenty of space for dry cargo.
Like this:
NVC-Design underway replenishment ships - Rolls-Royce
We all talk about the fantasy of Australia buying an aircraft carrier, LHD's, destroyers etd, what about the idea of purchasing a dedicated hospital ship? How handy would a ship like the Mercy class be to the south pacific & asian countries in times of need? (Haiti, East Timor, Japan etc) Even if it was a jointly funded & operated ship (ANZAC or five powers etc).
Maybe I'm just a space-head.
Maybe I'm just a space-head.
I’ pretty sure you will find that buying LHDs and destroyers is not “fantasy”.
All of the amphibious ships have major hospital facilities onboard and can be configured with troop accommodation as hospital ward space. A ship like the Mercy class requires 1,200 medical and support personnel to staff which is more medical personnel than in all the ADF.
That’s being generous.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
While a hospital ship would be something very good to have in service, as Abe pointed out, they can have enormously large requirements in terms of medical personnel.
A small hospital ship of some type might be possible, but that would still potentially require the ADF to add a number of medical personnel, or concentrate much of the ADF medical response... With the potential of losing the personnel in a sudden event.
Honestly though, the LHD's IMO really fit the bill. A hospital ship, even a small one, would require a fair amount of helipad space to allow rapid helivac to/from the hospital ship, which the LHD's already have. There would need to be space for the medical personnel, the OR, ER, and these and all other required departments. All this takes up weight, space, and costs money. In the case of an LHD, due to their inherent flexibility they can provide medical response, and then move on to other areas/tasks/roles.
-Cheers
Actually most merchant vessels use slow speed two stroke diesels. Even the E class box boats. However in the latter case the upper limit of current technology is such that the existing engines cannot provide the power so they use a hybrid system with a very large 80MW slow speed engine (Wartsila 14RT with a running range of about 90 to 100 rpm) combined with coupled electic drive driven by gensets with another 30MW. This gives sufficnet power to drive the 330m long vessel at a service speed of 25.5 knots. This does required a really big prop.
Even the new triple E class will use two slow speed long stroke engines. However, smaller short haul liner box boats may use medium speeds engines as this lends itself to a greater sustained variation in rev range. Slow speeds do not like continued low speed running and ther are critical rev issues, however, their maintenance costs (if you run them at 85%MER) tend to be better.
With the progressive adoption of MARPOL annex VI ships will move to lighter fuels and gasoil (basically almost your warship standard diesel) in restricted emmission areas to comply with SOX and NOX limitations.
On a seperate issue the hull form of any ship can be used for any purpose but its framing is a seperate issue as is the configuration. Many box boats carry fuel in side tanks as this is not subject to annex I of MARPOL. To use a container hull would require considerable redesign as the stresses and moments (no that is not an error .... I meant moments) assocated with liquids is different to weight distribution in a box boat.
A hull form on the other hand can be utilised and if you have tank tested a RO-RO or container hull from and found it to be sound it should perform the same way with different internal configuration. You could drop tanks in a container ship (noting wash plates and dividers for free surface will detract from tonnage) but a pump room would need to be added and the main deck modified for the hazardous area requirements (provided you are following commerical rulls). It is not an easy job and may be very expensive. I like the RR concept as it uses a proven hull form and propulsion system with the interanls designed from inception for the task.
It would be a useful excercise to run this proposal to a European yard (noting they are struggling at the moment but the quality is good) to see what they would offer. It would cost a bit more that the RO-RO but a good outcome in term so value could be expected.
I saw a Croatian yard bid on a livestock ship based on a Car carrier and was very impressed with the engineering competence. These are complex and expensive ships (actually in systtems more complex that PAX vessels but less expensive) yet the delivered cost was pretty good.
Tee_Centre_10
Member
A hospital ship on the order of the USN Mercy-class would be prohibitively expensive and suck up valuable resources, and I am dubious as to its effectiveness and value for money in anything less than combat or regional disaster zones (Haiti, tsunami, etc.). However, there is merit in thinking a bit smaller at a semi-permanent Pacific Partnership type mission.
The concept would be a smaller vessel of about 8000t to a commercial design (it isn't a warship after all, perhaps a modified expedition cruise ship type) incorporating a flight-deck and single hanger, the ability to carry, launch and recover small LCVPs and launches, as well as the their patients. It would be interesting to see how a small LPD like the Endurance-class might be well suited to this role, with a sheltered area for the transfer of patients.
With such a size it needn't cost a fortune to run or crew, in fact it doesn't need to be heavy on RAN personnel if an RFA approach is taken. For some roles you could use reservists; "How would you like to do your two weeks on a South Pacific cruise? Oh, you would?"
On the medical side, there would be some ADF medical personnel (a large number of whom are reservists) but it doesn't all have to be ADF. As a white-hulled hospital ship instead of a gray-hulled warship there might be scope for a partnership with medical NGOs such as the Aust Red Cross or MSF, a link up with other military medical corps from NZ or US or regional allies such as France, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan (who are trying to gain influence in the Asia-Pacific region) or Japan.
At this point, I would like to mention China (PRC that is). It would be an ideal way to work together with the PLA on a project that is politically positive. I am of the opinion that increasing tensions and a military build-up is neither desirable nor inevitable. I think that the Chinese have shown themselves to be pragmatists in their economic and social reform, and a Soviet style military stand off may not be necessary if it is possible to engage the Chinese and include them more. Unlike the Cold War, the interests of the West and China coincide much more, and this is likely to continue despite a competition for resources and power.
An ongoing partnership in giving medical aid would help with a country that is reticent about participating in peace-keeping or other interventionist roles.
The problem that I have had with the Pacific Partnership is that it comes in and expends resources quickly in a targeted area and then departs with no guarantee they will be back the next year or even the year after. It is difficult to have a lasting and meaningful effect under such circumstances. But what if a medical mission is ongoing, with annual visits by the same medical team who has access to treatment records from previous doctors/health professionals and is able to check up on outcomes and continue to sustain community health programs?
It would also be a valuable teaching tool, not just for Australian medical/health services students but also those from the Pacific Islands nations as well, who could go on to sustain community health programs between visits. If there was interest and capacity you could expand services offered beyond medical ones and offer others of community benefit, such as engineering and education.
Such a vessel could become an agent of stability and support for isolated island communities whose national governments may not have the resources to provide even basic services, or a much need capability boost to existing services. It would also be a powerful political tool of the Australian government and its people, a benevolent and welcome help in a region where many Australian aid efforts are treated suspiciously. It would also establish a non-threatening Australian "presence", one that is ongoing and on the spot.
There is another argument that you could scale down the ship to 3000t, a bit larger than the Leeuwin-class survey vessels, with a corresponding smaller medical/health team that can still undertake clinics and medical procedures. But you could have three smaller vessels over one larger one and visit more places with greater frequency. Australia would be three times as visible, and with three times the eyes.
I would never advocate that such a vessel and its officers and crew become agents of Australian intelligence because if it ever came out it would be incredibly damaging, but by meeting regional leaders and the people, it is inevitable that they would have an excellent understanding of what was happening in these communities.
Such a vessel/s would be on hand and already equipped to be tasked to emergencies and disasters, and they needn't cost a fortune to run (even if the ADF had to go alone on costs and crew).
It is important for the ship in the role to be an Australian ship, and not just government chartered like the Aurora Australis and the capability contracted to private enterprise (like RAAF SAR). Although the primary purpose is to provide an altruistic medical service, much of the return value to Australia is in the seeing that it is Australian. But the potential pay back could be enormous in just goodwill alone generated by regular visits by an Australian medical ship, let alone the political, social and health benefits.
t68
Well-Known Member
I had thought of this some time ago and still think it is in Australian interest to have the flexibility to deploy a vessel under the Hague Convection of 1907, not only in the Pacific area but we might want to send a vessel to conflict in a more humanitarian view, unlike the RN RFA Argus which has the dual role of Aviation Training Ship and Casualty Receiving Ship which does not come under the Hague Convention. As stated it does not have to have a permanent medical detachment from the ADF but it could also be a training ship for future doctors and nurses.
With some of the Pacific nations a little nervous about the impending arrival of the LHD, port visits by a RAN hospital ship might seem a little less intrusive about what the AusGov is trying to achieve. The idea of using an Endurance class could also provide transportation for the 1st Health Support Battalion with rapid insertion of a field hospital or a unit styled on US Forward Surgical Team (FST) but I am not sure how this affects the classification of the hospital ship with possible members being armed for self defence, I think their was some sort of trouble when loading AHS Centaur having armed men aboard from the field ambulance drivers, can someone confirm what the ruling is with this.
But whist having a AHS in-service with the RAN, one of the major justification of acquiring the LHD was their immense capability in providing humanitarian aid in the region not only is the platform a offence weapon for the ADF but their humanitarian capability, you only have to look at how important the HMNZS Canterbury become in moving heavy equipment after the earthquake in NZ and how useful RFA Largs Bay was in moving aid to Haiti. With the ADF facing budget shortages an AHS will be a very low priority for the ADF.
With some of the Pacific nations a little nervous about the impending arrival of the LHD, port visits by a RAN hospital ship might seem a little less intrusive about what the AusGov is trying to achieve. The idea of using an Endurance class could also provide transportation for the 1st Health Support Battalion with rapid insertion of a field hospital or a unit styled on US Forward Surgical Team (FST) but I am not sure how this affects the classification of the hospital ship with possible members being armed for self defence, I think their was some sort of trouble when loading AHS Centaur having armed men aboard from the field ambulance drivers, can someone confirm what the ruling is with this.
But whist having a AHS in-service with the RAN, one of the major justification of acquiring the LHD was their immense capability in providing humanitarian aid in the region not only is the platform a offence weapon for the ADF but their humanitarian capability, you only have to look at how important the HMNZS Canterbury become in moving heavy equipment after the earthquake in NZ and how useful RFA Largs Bay was in moving aid to Haiti. With the ADF facing budget shortages an AHS will be a very low priority for the ADF.
Maybe something like this: [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanza_Del_Mar"]Esperanza Del Mar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
She is about 5000t, and has hangar and 2 RHIBs...
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