The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

[Bonza]

Robby Wana’be very disappointing calling me a Walt are you? You should see from my earlier posts that I very rarely post on anything outside of my direct experience. Bud? are you an Elmer?

It's actually quite standard that we try to verify people's information when they make claims of military service, and add them to the defence professionals group. I know it might annoy you but what Rob's asking isn't unreasonable, as it's the norm on this forum, and I'm sure you can understand the desire to verify someone's credibility when in the past we've had people claiming to be everything from fighter pilots to special forces to spies come on to the forum. I'm not making judgements about who you are, but I think it's pretty straightforward why we go through a verification process.

Not sure how that makes Rob a wannabe though?

 

[swerve]

Very good speech, thanks for posting the link. He certainly made it clear he thought the £70m would be "pretty good value for money" for the additional capability it would provide.

And since this is Hatchet Hammond, appointed for his budget-cutting & cost-controlling skills rather than enthusiasm for the military, that's a pleasant surprise. Perhaps we really are going to get two operational carriers.

 

[RobWilliams]

Certainly seems promising that's for sure. As it stands the MOD seems better structured and better prepared for cost increases due to proper planning.

My only real worry is that the 2015 SDSR will probably be carried out after the 2015 general election and Hammond isn't around to keep his budget on track and we get Jim Murphy in and I have to say I can't stand the man - when called out on a statement he made like "Labours shadow defence review has indentified billions of pounds of extra savings", he merely repeated what the Coalition had done + binning more Admirals and the like + did the typical politician thing of dodging the quesion. NOT a quality i've seen Hammond do much

 

[deepsixteen]

I know 2 people who got a tour on board HMS Vigilance during her refit when they were doing a Year in Industry (as part of their university course) at Babcock, doesn't mean they're any more well informed

Are you really comparing my knowledge with someone who visited a V boat once and suggesting that what you’ve read makes you more Knowledgeable?

Well, when you were describing what a contact on something like an Ohio would be like I was referring specifically to what I knew about the Vanguards (and then the Successors, considering the situation we're talking about is that boat) in that respect to bring it back towards the UK a bit more. Personally when talk turns to anything remotely like describing what contacts would be like from nuclear submarines i'm highly skeptical of anything because generally if a person makes a call like that they're either telling a lie or breaking the law. and - the internet being the internet - 9/10 times i'm inclined to believe it the former.

Breaking the law? I’ve said nothing, you could learn more from playing 688i than you know so far it’s also very entertaining and a real time killer when your board stupid on patrol.

Wannabe? By no means. Merely not believing every Tom, Dick and Harry when they claim to be servicemen or ex servicemen on the internet otherwise there's a disproportionately high amount of Delta Force operatives on YouTube.

Taking care of that for you Popeye

Either way, this forum has rules about people claming to have served. If you have and can prove it to them then that's fine - no problem- but if you do then you've gotta be prepared to be called out about it (had I served, I would be - it's the logical thing to expect), I could make "Well, when I was in Afghan" or "When I was in CIMIC house in Iraq in '03" comments every so often but that'd do nothing to either prove or disprove service. Just some guy saying something on the internet.

EDIT: I do hope you're not trying to paint me out to be a sourpuss with a "Wah wah wah he served and I haven't so i'll have to go out of my way to get him" attitude, because personally I couldn't give a toss - after I finish University i'm thinking about trying to join the RN as an Air Engineer Officer. Even If I wasn't it wouldn't particularly bother me if someone else has served and I haven't because that'd be pathetic.

You’ll have to get past the AFCO first, look up Engines posts on PRUNE that’s someone who has done what you want to.

As to "are you an Elmer?", that's not a colloquialism i'm particularly familiar with. I meant 'bud' as in the shorter way of saying 'buddy', i.e trying to be friendly.

You do seem to have adopted American terminology I recommend Jack Speak by an acquaintance of mine who you might be fortunate to meat if you get to the medical stage in the recruitment process he sometimes fills in for the resident Doc's.

Then about the 'public domain' bit, I completely understand. I'm just using that info alongside following UK RN usage and making a couple of potential outcomes and guessing which I think would be the most likely. Like I said, following Lybia that pool is something like ~30% smaller so would the RN either resupply or stick with it? I'd go with resupply myself, but like I said - potential outcomes.

That’s what happened after previous firings or possibly a short delay if a upgraded version is due.

Well that's perfectly fine, it is your opinion after all. But for me something to remember is that whilst the USN will not be operating any SSGNs when the Ohio converts are decommissioned but their loss will be felt (alongside the predicted dip in SSN numbers) + they will be missed.

Getting back to the point that you missed when you first responded to me, what evidence do you have to support this assertion “that's why TLAM-N was pulled (i.e a nuclear TLAM varient would lead to every TLAM potentially being a nuclear attack.)” apologies for posting a fragment I don’t like doing it.
As I believe that “TLAM(A) and GLCM were removed to comply with the 1987 IRNF Treaty and the fact that they were vulnerable to interception and sometimes got lost; who wants to grant the enemy the possibility of obtaining a W84 or W80 warhead?”

Yup[/QUOTE]
​

Okay

PS How does a student end up chatting to an AW sales person?

 

[Systems Adict]

PS How does a student end up chatting to an AW sales person?

THAT is what happens when the Defence Industry sends in a 'REP' to advertise a particular company, during an Industry open day at universities, in the hope that these bright eyed, bushy tailed Graduates will come & work for one of these companies....


Apart from that, he did reference it in post #8863, a few days ago...



SA

 

[deepsixteen]

THAT is what happens when the Defence Industry sends in a 'REP' to advertise a particular company, during an Industry open day at universities, in the hope that these bright eyed, bushy tailed Graduates will come & work for one of these companies....


Apart from that, he did reference it in post #8863, a few days ago...



SA

Ah I see, had an awful vision of sales reps flogging gear for the next big demo!:soldier

 

[RobWilliams]

Are you really comparing my knowledge with someone who visited a V boat once and suggesting that what you’ve read makes you more Knowledgeable?

Nope, never said that and I can't see how you extrapolated that from "I know 2 people who got a tour on board HMS Vigilance during her refit when they were doing a Year in Industry (as part of their university course) at Babcock, doesn't mean they're any more well informed" because chances are if I quizzed them about it they wouldn't be able to tell me very much, not for OPSEC reasons but just in general it's not an interest.

All i'm saying is that being close to one in dock means exactly nothing in terms of a nuclear submarine as 99% of the interesting stuff is on the inside, surface ships are a bit different. I've seen a Ferarri Enzo before but does that make me any more of an expert about the internals? Nope.

Breaking the law? I’ve said nothing, you could learn more from playing 688i than you know so far it’s also very entertaining and a real time killer when your board stupid on patrol

Again, have I said YOU specifically have broken the law? Nope. All I said was 'Generally people are either lying or breaking the law' and i'm generally inclined to believe the former. That's not to mean i'm calling you an out-and-out liar, I just don't believe much about nuclear subs from internet chatter, at least when we start talking about the dectectability of nuclear submarines.

You get all sorts of people claming about how really high tech technology works and when it gets onto nuclear submarines i'm - in general - very reluctant to believe what they're saying. It's a habit that's built up over the years.

Taking care of that for you Popeye

Good good, although don't get why you've called me "Popeye" - hopefully it's not an insulting jab?

You’ll have to get past the AFCO first, look up Engines posts on PRUNE that’s someone who has done what you want to.

I've been to an AFCO, I live in Cardiff and there's one relatively close to the Millenium Stadium and i've had it all laid out to me. Like I said, it's something i've been thinking about doing so BAE/BMT/MBDA are all still on the cards

You do seem to have adopted American terminology I recommend Jack Speak by an acquaintance of mine who you might be fortunate to meat if you get to the medical stage in the recruitment process he sometimes fills in for the resident Doc's.

That tends to happen, that's the great thing about language it's forever twisting and evolving in pace with modern culture. I've heard about it, but i've still got roughly 3.5 years of my Uni course yet so i'm not too concerned about learning the lingo just yet

That’s what happened after previous firings or possibly a short delay if a upgraded version is due.

Yeah, AFAIK i'm not sure if there's a new block of TLAM is due out any time soon, so I expect - at least - the stock to be replenished to their original level. Don't expect an increase just yet considering the ambiguity of the Type 26 VLS.

Getting back to the point that you missed when you first responded to me, what evidence do you have to support this assertion “that's why TLAM-N was pulled (i.e a nuclear TLAM varient would lead to every TLAM potentially being a nuclear attack.)” apologies for posting a fragment I don’t like doing it.

As I believe that “TLAM(A) and GLCM were removed to comply with the 1987 IRNF Treaty and the fact that they were vulnerable to interception and sometimes got lost; who wants to grant the enemy the possibility of obtaining a W84 or W80 warhead?”

Didn't see that request mate.

I believe it was Stobie some time ago that pointed me to that theory (not 100%) however IMO it does seem like an accurate and ligitmate concern that could be an issue - it fits the 'blurring the line between nuclear and conventional deterrent' feeling you voiced earlier.

There's a report by Jeffrey Lewis - can't remember anything controversial bout him off the top of my head - about TLAM-N and about why the Navy should remove it's stocks (One interesting point is that Japan supposedly raised objections because of the potential incase TLAM-N crashed in ROK or Japan en route to North Korea), i'll link it as it's a good read.

Jeffrey Lewis • Why The Navy Should Retire TLAM-N

Should point out this was written in '09 and even the author says "It is still very much a draft" and (to my untrained eye) it looks like a well researched and written piece.

The biggest issue it seems (from this report - doesn't mention START at all) is the risk of it crashing in friendly - rather than hostile - countries citing the number of TLAM crashing in Saudi Arabia and Turkey in '03 I think is the date and about how much of a political + PR nightmare if a 'nuclear missile crashed in a friendly country'. Not to mention the potential KE damage and loss of life that could arise.

That's not to say I disregard you reason either, it too - to me - seems like a perfectly logical and reasonable reason

PS How does a student end up chatting to an AW sales person?

See SA for that one

 

[gf0012-aust]

stuff

a gentle reminder to all...

parts of the prev chat should probably end now.

write it off to a loss in translation or to cultural disconnects on internet chat /smile on

I don't see much profit in it continuing....

and I suggest that it get parked before it turns into a möbius strip of mutual indignation

/smile still on

 

[Bonza]

Hear, hear.

 

[RobWilliams]

In that video posted earlier, I really liked a point Hammond made about CASD, the fact that we have the missiles, the warheads and the infrastucture and the fact that the current contracts are only for replacing the SSBN means that it'd be highly unlikely that a new deterrent in which everything would have to be redesigned would be cheaper at all.

Good piece of info - "Trident submarine deterrent costs 6% of the defence budget to operate over it's lifetime".

Also quite like the part about where 'given notice and in a period of real tension' could possibly surge to 2 carriers. Although that really comes into a definition on what is and isn't "real tension" and the key word - possibly.

EDIT: [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_XfmcETqo4&feature=g-u-u"]Philip Hammond on Air Power - YouTube[/nomedia]


EDIT #2: Can anyone explain to me why the UK decided to use 2 seperate islands rather than one big one when every other navy in the world (i think) operates 1? I've tried googling but all I found was flame wars about why each particular layout was superior and completely disregarding the other layout out of hand for no particular reason, so I figure you guys will provide a better answer

My understanding for the CVF is that the fore island is for regular ship running like speed and navigation etc whilst the aft island is for aircraft operations and controlling the flight deck (locations based on QE graphics - aft island looks like it houses flight deck control IMO), is it a strategic reason like if the ship takes a hit then chances are one of the islands will still function? Or is it something to do with moving the weight around on the starboard side of the deck?

 

[StobieWan]

I *think* there were two approximate reasons for the separation of the two islands - one is to support the trunking for each GT as they require a chuffing amount of air to operate - and I don't think there's another carrier that size that runs with GT's, which is unique. The other reason was damage control/damage resilience - each of the two islands can provide basic failover for the other and I *believe* they're fed power individually.

Effectively you could either have one island with a chock load of trunking in it or two islands separated by a bit of distance and trunking. I may be horribly wrong in this one but the DC benefits have definitely been cited.

 

[RobWilliams]

Looking at the videos of the QE class being built the 2 islands are pretty much directly above each respective GT so that does seem to substantiate the idea they're powered independently.

Flicking through my BMT brochure (same company open day thing) and it says

The innovative, twin island platform design developed by BMT offers advantages including vulnerability reduction and improved aircraft sortie rates

How would it improve sortie rates? Would it be simply because in that dedicated island it's not as completely packed with people + coincidentally being smaller face-to-face communication is faster? Pretty basic ideas I know but it's all I can think of at the moment.

 

[StobieWan]

Looking at the videos of the QE class being built the 2 islands are pretty much directly above each respective GT so that does seem to substantiate the idea they're powered independently.

Ah - good - I was sure I'd seen something similar but couldn't recall where from - if your GT's are separated by a fair distance, then ducting and trunking the pair of 'em separately, using the most direct route saves on materials, top weight, but I guess it makes your air flow around the islands a bit more interesting.

I don't know why sortie rates would be better using a twin island system - pretty much I'm sure it's simply been arrived at by the fact that the CVF is the only big carrier out there with two widely separated GT's - the CVN's just need to ditch their heat output, and that's all coming from a common source, so a single island carrying the trunking for that makes sense from an engineering point of view. The Conte De Cavour carries four LM2500's but it's a much smaller ship so I'm guessing they're all located in the same proximate space - so once again, a common trunking arrangement attached to one island is the natural decision.

 

[Volkodav]

I believe the further aft the better for flight deck control and the further forward the better for ship navigation and control. Every other carrier is a compromise in island location, although I supose the RN has gotten around it in the past by having long, rather than seperate islands.

On the GT's, they are mounted in the sponsons below each of the islands rather than buried in the hull aren't they?

 

[RobWilliams]

Yup the GTs are mounted in side sponsons of the ship directly below the islands rather than in the hull.

This is based from the following video showing how it's being built (from ~7:50)

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctkY391dEYQ"]How to assemble the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers - YouTube[/nomedia]


Ahhh I see, I remember watching a video in which Rear Admiral Cunningham pretty much said it was bad because himself + others had deep scepticism but seeming as we're controlled by financial constraints then data is valued more than the scepticism of an old officer like me, or something very similar.

 

[aussienscale]

Yup the GTs are mounted in side sponsons of the ship directly below the islands rather than in the hull.

This is based from the following video showing how it's being built (from ~7:50)

How to assemble the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers - YouTube


Ahhh I see, I remember watching a video in which Rear Admiral Cunningham pretty much said it was bad because himself + others had deep scepticism but seeming as we're controlled by financial constraints then data is valued more than the scepticism of an old officer like me, or something very similar.

Thanks for the vid, I see what you mean about the GT's, was interesting to watch, makes sence, easy to replace or repair it/when needed.

It will be nice to see her in the water, you can send a couple to the RAN I am sure the UK will do a good deal for us

Cheers

 

[RobWilliams]

I'm sure if you asked a few months ago the UK could've given you quite a nice deal on one of them, but we've grown rather attached to them now so afraid not besides, you've got those nice shiny Canberra class LHDs you can drool over.

It definitely seems the case, but that'd be some seriously heavy work to replace one of those GT's wouldn't it? Far as I can see if they did need to do that they'd have to remove the island + that side sponson again wouldn't they? Doesn't appear to be any other ways of going about it.

I suppose that's why we need 2 though, so if one does need some really heavy work doing then there's another on tap to take up the slack.

Looking at NavyMatters, it appears that there is (or was) the idea of putting 2 Wärtsilä diesel under each island (most likely spread out so that there's a 16 cylinder + 12 cylinder generator a pop)

In September 2007, Wärtsilä announced that it had - as long expected - been nominated as preferred supplier for the prime movers of the generator sets for CVF. These will comprise two 16-cyclinder (11.6MW) and two 12-cylinder (8.7MW) Wärtsilä 38 diesel engines for each CVF, the diesel generating sets will supply a total of 40MW and be distributed in two engine rooms below the islands. Each carrier will also be fitted with a 12-cylinder Wärtsilä 200 engine as a 2MW emergency generator

On 11 December 2007 the MOD confirmed that it had ordered eight diesel engines and electricity generators - four for each ship - at a cost of about £18.5 million. The contract for the diesel generators had been awarded to Wartsila Defence SAS, based in Nantes France, with the engines to be manufactured in Trieste, Italy. The alternators, which transform the diesel's power into electricity, are built at Converteam, in Rugby, Warwikshire.

Navy Matters | Future Aircraft Carrier Part 18

Those 16's look awesome (and they're huuuuge), but they're mounted in the hull - presumably considering as the sets for PoW were installed in October - and not in the sponsons like the gas turbines. I've attached a couple of nice pictures + linked the ACA flickr page.

Flickr: QEClassCarriers' Photostream

 

[StobieWan]

As far as I know, access to swap either GT out is provided by hatches and fairly simple -it'd have to be as they're probably going to be swapped out fairly often for maintenance and so forth.

 

[RobWilliams]

As far as I know, access to swap either GT out is provided by hatches and fairly simple -it'd have to be as they're probably going to be swapped out fairly often for maintenance and so forth.

Your 1000th post

Anyway, I thought so too but the video I linked below when you get to ~0:50 you can see fairly substantial hatches beneath both of the islands but they don't look nearly big enough to facilitate easy removal of the turbines, I assume they'd be pulled out the side of the hull though?

I know these types of videos aren't the be all and end all so I will troll through the ACA flickr pages to see if there's a snap of the corresponding block for comparison but they do seem to show a fair amount of hatches.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUbTA3lVyU0"]QE Blocks - YouTube[/nomedia]


You're probably right as it's the sensible way to have designed it, guess we'll just have to wait for pictures of the blocks to make sure

EDIT: Looking at the earlier construction video, the fore GTA is due to be installed ~09/11/12 so in the not too distance future or so the sponson could be mounted in position + could have some pretty nice pictures of it soon.

EDIT #2: I've been thinking about those Phalanx units tagged for the RFA, could they be down for RFA tankers and then get moved on to the MARS FT when they arrive?

 

[Systems Adict]

EDIT #2: Can anyone explain to me why the UK decided to use 2 seperate islands rather than one big one when every other navy in the world (i think) operates 1? I've tried googling but all I found was flame wars about why each particular layout was superior and completely disregarding the other layout out of hand for no particular reason, so I figure you guys will provide a better answer

My understanding for the CVF is that the fore island is for regular ship running like speed and navigation etc whilst the aft island is for aircraft operations and controlling the flight deck (locations based on QE graphics - aft island looks like it houses flight deck control IMO), is it a strategic reason like if the ship takes a hit then chances are one of the islands will still function? Or is it something to do with moving the weight around on the starboard side of the deck?

IIRC, I thought that in one of the briefings I'd read online, there were x2 islands for a number of logical reasons (most of which you've alluded to in your comments).

One that you haven't mentioned, was to allow for specific airflow patterns across the deck / reduction in buffeting from crosswinds.

The downside for me it was before they cut steel / had arrived at main gate during design, so it is some considerable time ago !

I dragged this from the ACA website...

The Queen Elizabeth Class - Aircraft Carrier Alliance

Design

The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will have increased survivability as a result of the separation and distribution of power generation machinery throughout each ship. The class has been designed with twin islands, which separates the running of the ship from the flying operations resulting in greater visibility of flying operations.

BTW here's a link to some pictures of the block leaving the River Clyde for Rosyth.

Flickr: QEClassCarriers' Photostream

Due to impending weather conditions the block will head south, thru the English channel, then up the East coast of the UK.

SA