The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

[AegisFC]

I don't think you're using "raft" the way I understand it...care to dumb it down?

It means having the noisy power/propulsion engine being acoustically isolated from the rest of the hull via rubber bushings or other materials or methods and making sure there are no "sound shorts" to the hull.
There is nothing inherently difficult or overly expensive about it since the USN has been doing it since the Spru-cans.

 

[swerve]

...Type 45 hullform was made mostly for seakeeping, space and to accomodate the propulsion system, which is made up of purely gas turbine powerplants (no idling diesels for slow speeds). The electrical turning motors are quiet, of course, but the GT's more than overcome this.....

No idling diesels except for the two Wärtsilä 12V200s. Only a couple of megawatts each, & mainly for hotel loads, but they're connected to the propulsion.

 

[CB90]

It means having the noisy power/propulsion engine being acoustically isolated from the rest of the hull via rubber bushings or other materials or methods and making sure there are no "sound shorts" to the hull.
There is nothing inherently difficult or overly expensive about it since the USN has been doing it since the Spru-cans.

Gotcha. Last time I heard "raft" in a RN context, it was about putting MHCs up against a RFA L ship.

 

[RobWilliams]

Aft island in place and some hefty painting going on, great progress considering the aft island was delivered 5 weeks ahead of shedule. Not long until the floating out (relatively speaking)

Control tower lowered on to carrier

Flickr: QEClassCarriers' Photostream

 

[1805]

Aft island in place and some hefty painting going on, great progress considering the aft island was delivered 5 weeks ahead of shedule. Not long until the floating out (relatively speaking)

Control tower lowered on to carrier

Flickr: QEClassCarriers' Photostream

The paint seems to make so much difference, it really looks the business.

One another point, you mentioned earlier the Type 26 will have MT30s, which I thought was likely.

I wonder where that leaves the LR21 in RN service or for that matter elsewhere. I assume the rational is that the MT30 is cheaper and more powerful, but the LR21 appeared to offer greater efficiency (range/running costs).

I hope that some of the advances in the LR21, could be incorporated in the MT30 at a later stage.

 

[RobWilliams]

Agreed, the paint really makes a difference. We've got the traditional level of battleship grey to go ontop of that too.

A big difference is the WR-21 has an intercooling and recupration* arrangement on the top, this increases the height of the turbine to be greater than a deck. I've attached a pic of the WR-21 and that hump in the back end (compared to the roughly cuboid shape of the MT30) comes from the Int/Rec gear being attached.

Here's a very good piece by Beedall about it, but it's more in a CVF context.

Early studies showed that four WR-21's in an IFEP configuration could propel a 30-40,000 tonnes CVF at a maximum speed of 30 knots. However as CVF grew in size, speed inevitably dropped. During 2002, with the BAE and Thales teams now considering CVF concepts of 60,000 tonnes or more, the new Rolls-Royce Marine Trent MT30 became increasingly favoured over the WR21. Because of it's significantly greater power output (36MW compared with 25MW), fewer GTA packages are required for achieving the required generating power.

Indeed despite being 45% more powerful than the WR21, the MT30 unit actually requires far less volume and weighs much less than the WR21 when the latter's complex intercooled and recuperating system is included. Also, although no figures are published, it is likely that the MT30 costs less to procure, although over a 20+ year life cycle the higher fuel efficiency of the WR21 starts to tell in terms of saving on fuel cost and overall through life costs

Navy Matters | CVF Propulsion

Considering the Type 26 needs to have a cheap unit cost first and foremost, it's understandable why it was picked. Once you add in the fact it's got a greater power generating capacity but is lighter and smaller, it's not that bad of a package deal.

But i'd still like the idea of having a common GTA arrangement, we're definitely going to have a mixed pool and it's generally believed that the Type 26's will have the MT30 but who knows, could be the WR21.

*the intercooler and recuperation package greatly increases fuel efficiency, this is torn straight from RR

The intercooler, located between the compressor sections, cools the intermediate-pressure compressor (IPC) air before it enters the high-pressure compressor (HPC). This reduces the HPC inlet temperature and therefore HPC work to deliver a significant boost in engine power. The intercooler also enhances recuperator effectiveness, as the inlet temperature is reduced thereby increasing exhaust heat recovery.

The recuperator recovers and transfers heat energy from the hot exhaust, which is used to preheat combustion air, therefore much less fuel is required to reach the same power turbine entry temperature (PTET). As a result less fuel is used to achieve the same power. Recovering heat energy from the exhaust gas also reduces its temperature giving a reduced infrared (IR) signature.

WR-21 Marine gas turbine - Rolls-Royce

So the intercooler basically makes the recuperator more effective, and it's the recuperator that increases the fuel efficiency. So as is, if you slapped the same sort of packages onto the MT30 you'd get the same results as what you'd get for the WR-21 at a cost of an increased procurement cost (and weight/size) but lower through life cost. It might even have been worked out that the sort of performance benefits of doing such a thing aren't worth the financial investment of implementing it

 

[StobieWan]

WR21's surely ? Looks like they'll be an orphan class - they're technically very advanced but they've not been picked up any place else. MT-30's seem to be doing very well in contrast.

 

[RobWilliams]

That's the thing, either way (in the RN) we're going to have a small package of one type of GTA setup whichever way we go, although like you say the MT-30 will have a larger pool based on the DDG-1000s, Freedom LCS ships & some ROK frigates (?). In 2012 RR begun to tweak the MT30 to fit into smaller warships like frigates.

WR-21 has beneficial performance characteristics for sure and it could well go that way.

 

[1805]

That's the thing, either way (in the RN) we're going to have a small package of one type of GTA setup whichever way we go, although like you say the MT-30 will have a larger pool based on the DDG-1000s, Freedom LCS ships & some ROK frigates (?). In 2012 RR begun to tweak the MT30 to fit into smaller warships like frigates.

WR-21 has beneficial performance characteristics for sure and it could well go that way.

Sorry yes WR-21, interesting concept an MT30 version, it surely makes sense.

 

[1805]

With the US wheel to the East, how might the UK’s own post Afghanistan defence posture wheel efficiently East. I saw an Odin Eyes piece on the build-up of a permanent military base in the Middle East v a maritime based strategy. This got me thinking, could an 3rd CVF/Ocean replacement be based solely in the SE Asia (maybe between Singapore/Australia) and how could this be funded.

I know we have debated the cost of the ship at length, but much was made about aircraft/crew costs. Could we mitigate this by maybe 50%+ of the crews to be offered to multinational crewing of allies. Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and the USN/USMC (ok they don’t need another hull but they are always keen to help). We have strong common course with these countries and this would provide meaningful assets to the safety of the region, at a time when maybe we are loosening those with the EU. They may even help with basing/maintenance costs (as German did)?

There might be challenges with more aircraft types, and Australia will soon have increased naval aviation assets, however the RAAF will operate F35a, I am sure not a straight conversion to UK F35b. The USMC could provide pilots and aircraft?

 

[ASSAIL]

With the US wheel to the East, how might the UK’s own post Afghanistan defence posture wheel efficiently East. I saw an Odin Eyes piece on the build-up of a permanent military base in the Middle East v a maritime based strategy. This got me thinking, could an 3rd CVF/Ocean replacement be based solely in the SE Asia (maybe between Singapore/Australia) and how could this be funded.

I know we have debated the cost of the ship at length, but much was made about aircraft/crew costs. Could we mitigate this by maybe 50%+ of the crews to be offered to multinational crewing of allies. Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and the USN/USMC (ok they don’t need another hull but they are always keen to help). We have strong common course with these countries and this would provide meaningful assets to the safety of the region, at a time when maybe we are loosening those with the EU. They may even help with basing/maintenance costs (as German did)?

There might be challenges with more aircraft types, and Australia will soon have increased naval aviation assets, however the RAAF will operate F35a, I am sure not a straight conversion to UK F35b. The USMC could provide pilots and aircraft?

Your comments are somewhat Churchillian. Under the current financial and strategic circumstance the RN would surely wish to consolidate its position in the NATO region and the Med with an occasional sojourn to the rest of the world. Even that programme will be tested in future with the number of hulls available

The safety of the Indo Pacific region can be well undertaken by regional players with continuing co-operation with the US.

 

[RobWilliams]

With the US wheel to the East, how might the UK’s own post Afghanistan defence posture wheel efficiently East. I saw an Odin Eyes piece on the build-up of a permanent military base in the Middle East v a maritime based strategy. This got me thinking, could an 3rd CVF/Ocean replacement be based solely in the SE Asia (maybe between Singapore/Australia) and how could this be funded.

A smart deployment in the ME is strategically vital to the UK because of the high proportion of our energy needs pass through the region so it's economically and politically cruical we have a foot in the door to maintain a certain amount of stability in the region, I can't say we would have the same effect basing in SE Asia considering the strength of the parties involved.

We'd be far more helpful if - when the sh*t hits the fan - we offered our RFTG to take up duties of a US CBG in the Med/Gulf to free it up for deployment further East. At least, to me that seems like the more helpful thing we could do but I don't really know the technicalities that would arise from it.

I know we have debated the cost of the ship at length, but much was made about aircraft/crew costs. Could we mitigate this by maybe 50%+ of the crews to be offered to multinational crewing of allies. Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and the USN/USMC (ok they don’t need another hull but they are always keen to help). We have strong common course with these countries and this would provide meaningful assets to the safety of the region, at a time when maybe we are loosening those with the EU. They may even help with basing/maintenance costs (as German did)?

There might be challenges with more aircraft types, and Australia will soon have increased naval aviation assets, however the RAAF will operate F35a, I am sure not a straight conversion to UK F35b. The USMC could provide pilots and aircraft?

I have to say the idea of basing a hypothetical 3rd CVF in SE Asia seems like such a waste, much rather keep it in sync with the other two to get the usual refit/working up/deployment cycle.

Anyway, the idea of a multinational F35 crew seems unneccesarily complicated, I can't imagine the whole thing being particularly efficient.

But still, this is all moot as I can't think of a justifiable reason of a permanent base in SE Asia being of any use to the UK which the current countries involved do not have in hand already.

 

[1805]

A smart deployment in the ME is strategically vital to the UK because of the high proportion of our energy needs pass through the region so it's economically and politically cruical we have a foot in the door to maintain a certain amount of stability in the region, I can't say we would have the same effect basing in SE Asia considering the strength of the parties involved.

We'd be far more helpful if - when the sh*t hits the fan - we offered our RFTG to take up duties of a US CBG in the Med/Gulf to free it up for deployment further East. At least, to me that seems like the more helpful thing we could do but I don't really know the technicalities that would arise from it.



I have to say the idea of basing a hypothetical 3rd CVF in SE Asia seems like such a waste, much rather keep it in sync with the other two to get the usual refit/working up/deployment cycle.

Anyway, the idea of a multinational F35 crew seems unneccesarily complicated, I can't imagine the whole thing being particularly efficient.

But still, this is all moot as I can't think of a justifiable reason of a permanent base in SE Asia being of any use to the UK which the current countries involved do not have in hand already.

Well to be honest it could be more justification for maintaining the 2 CVFs active. Although I would love it to be a 3rd/Ocean replacement, in the current financial position that might be hoping for to much.

I don't see a permanent base with significant boots on the ground in an Islamic country as a smart deployment; I tend to agree with Odin Eye, a magnate for resentment and a target for hostile action. In the 60/70s we successfully support a number of allies states in the region, with small groups of special forces and the threat of a maritime presence.

The Gulf & Med are only really easily linked with assumed access to Suez, this has and could easily be lost again. Permanent stationing a CVF east of Suez could be a much smarter deployment and probably cheaper than a fairly inflexible land base.

Politically the UKs stance could change radically in the next 7-10 years, we could have a in/out referendum EU membership. An out vote cannot be ruled out, and it would make sense to strengthen/rebuild links with older friends.

I don't think a multi national crewing arrangement is that far fetched, the cultural and language issues would be less challenge than working with most NATO allies. It obviously depends on the degree of sharing of assets, but politically I could see more alignment between Australia than France.

 

[RobWilliams]

Well to be honest it could be more justification for maintaining the 2 CVFs active. Although I would love it to be a 3rd/Ocean replacement in the current financial position that might be hoping for to much. B

Indeed, i'd love to see it happen but it isn't going too, so any sort of discussion about what to do with a third is purely academic.

I don't see a permanent base with significant boots on the ground in an Islamic country as a smart deployment; I tend to agree with Odin Eye, a magnate for resentment and a target for hostile action. In the 60/70s we successfully support a number of allies states in the region, with small groups of special forces and the threat of a maritime presence.

Agreed, which is why I didn't propose such a development, not to mention that it's financially unsustainable at least for a new development considering we have enough naval bases in the Gulf and the Al Minhad air base in the UAE and probably the Al Dhafra air base (currently have US/French aircraft based there) too if we needed it.

The Gulf & Med are only really easily linked with assumed access to Suez, this has and could easily be lost again. Permanent stationing a CVF east of Suez could be a much smarter deployment and probably cheaper than a fairly inflexible land base.

Again, which is why I didn't propose it (although how inflexible is an air base in the Gulf or Cyprus in reality if the goal is to protect an equally static asset such as the Suez canal) . Personally I'd say a UK manned RFTG occasionally deployed to the region - either in response to increased tension or in conjunction with USN operations - is a smarter presence than building and maintaining a third carrier + escorts/assets with a multinational crew and air crew.

Cheaper how? How the hell out building a third carrier, maintaining said aircraft carrier and associated escorts and support assets and training an international crew and aircrew be "cheap"? Or are the suggested countries involved willing to pay for their crew to be trained? Sounds like billions of pounds poured down the drain for a capability which would have a debatable increase in what we currently have, all this based on the assumption that nations like Singapore, NZ and Aus would think this capability so important to their own national security they would pay their crew for the service AND be willing to lose X amount of their crew for the period.

I don't like it one bit, I don't think it has much to offer which currently isn't at least on the cards to be done in the near future and seems like a hideous drain on tight funds which could be better spend elsewhere.

 

[1805]

Indeed, i'd love to see it happen but it isn't going too, so any sort of discussion about what to do with a third is purely academic.



Agreed, which is why I didn't propose such a development, not to mention that it's financially unsustainable at least for a new development considering we have enough naval bases in the Gulf and the Al Minhad air base in the UAE and probably the Al Dhafra air base (currently have US/French aircraft based there) too if we needed it.



Again, which is why I didn't propose it (although how inflexible is an air base in the Gulf or Cyprus in reality if the goal is to protect an equally static asset such as the Suez canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden?) . Personally I'd say a UK manned RFTG occasionally deployed to the region - either in response to increased tension or in conjunction with USN operations - is a smarter presence than building and maintaining a third carrier + escorts/assets with a multinational crew and air crew.

Cheaper how? How the hell out building a third carrier, maintaining said aircraft carrier and associated escorts and support assets and training an international crew and aircrew be "cheap"? Or are the suggested countries involved willing to pay for their crew to be trained? Sounds like billions of pounds poured down the drain for a capability which would have a debatable increase in what we currently have, all this based on the assumption that nations like Singapore, NZ and Aus would think this capability so important to their own national security they would pay their crew for the service AND be willing to lose X amount of their crew for the period.

I don't like it one bit, I don't think it has much to offer which currently isn't at least on the cards to be done in the near future and seems like a hideous drain on tight funds which could be better spend elsewhere.

I did say the concept was more about maintaining 2 CVFs active, rather than realistically expecting a 3rd/Ocean replacement. It would have to be more than just allied nations crewing/escorting a RN ship, more of a shared asset that they could task as well. But we did talk of similar with the French.

I understood from the Odin Eye piece the Army was proposing permanently stationing a battalion in Minhad with force strength periodically up to Brigade. That is quite a lot of boots on the ground. Does that stabilise or destabilise the host country?

 

[RobWilliams]

We talked about it with the French and time will tell if it will/will not work out, but the French/UK have more closely aligned strategic requirements to us than SE Asian nations which allow us to be able to conduct joint operations.

The idea of a group of nations clubbing together on a single ship and escorts and then squabbling about where it gets deployed (so I assume you want them all to either pay/donate support assets?) sounds atrocious. What happens if there's a disagreement about how/when a ship is deployed? A nation could refuse to release the crew and ships that form their component, what happens then?

Don't like it, hate the idea of the RN paying for it too. If they want a joint asset then they can develop their joint asset (like what Germany/Netherlands/Poland - albeit not in the same agreement have been doing recently). Apologies to any Singaporean/Aus/NZ members here if I sound unreasonable, but we just don't have the budget to maintain big expensive toys and support assets when other nations can ditcate where/when/if it deploys.

With the French, we had previously proposed things like this but it mainly stretched to either small packets of crew exchange & a mixed carrier air group/BG if only one was available. Considering the C was too heavy to land on the decks of CdG then only the UK could host Rafale squadrons. Now that's not happening either so effectively the only real effort of cooperation comes from operational training and integration (and a whole host of other buzzwords) of each countries assets, like UK AWDs becoming part of French battlegroups and so on so that if they had to deploy together as part of a CJEF that they would work more efficiently. We're not going to be manning eachothers ships on any serious scale, certainly not close to any level which we can ditcate their operations.

That Army plan is all about using the area how the Army uses BATUK for desert warfare training and to forge closer links with the host nation, but i'm not going into that as this is a RN thread, not a British Army thread.

 

[Bonza]

Apologies to any Singaporean/Aus/NZ members here if I sound unreasonable, but we just don't have the budget to maintain big expensive toys and support assets when other nations can ditcate where/when/if it deploys.

No offence taken at all, in fact I was just thinking the same thing about any supporting costs and assets expected to be provided by an Australian component. We're hard up paying for what we want/need as it is. A joint military asset of this kind is simply a terrible idea.

 

[1805]

We talked about it with the French and time will tell if it will/will not work out, but the French/UK have more closely aligned strategic requirements to us than SE Asian nations which allow us to be able to conduct joint operations.

The idea of a group of nations clubbing together on a single ship and escorts and then squabbling about where it gets deployed (so I assume you want them all to either pay/donate support assets?) sounds atrocious. What happens if there's a disagreement about how/when a ship is deployed? A nation could refuse to release the crew and ships that form their component, what happens then?

Don't like it, hate the idea of the RN paying for it too. If they want a joint asset then they can develop their joint asset (like what Germany/Netherlands/Poland - albeit not in the same agreement have been doing recently). Apologies to any Singaporean/Aus/NZ members here if I sound unreasonable, but we just don't have the budget to maintain big expensive toys and support assets when other nations can ditcate where/when/if it deploys.

With the French, we had previously proposed things like this but it mainly stretched to either small packets of crew exchange & a mixed carrier air group/BG if only one was available. Considering the C was too heavy to land on the decks of CdG then only the UK could host Rafale squadrons. Now that's not happening either so effectively the only real effort of cooperation comes from operational training and integration (and a whole host of other buzzwords) of each countries assets, like UK AWDs becoming part of French battlegroups and so on so that if they had to deploy together as part of a CJEF that they would work more efficiently. We're not going to be manning eachothers ships on any serious scale, certainly not close to any level which we can ditcate their operations.

That Army plan is all about using the area how the Army uses BATUK for desert warfare training and to forge closer links with the host nation, but i'm not going into that as this is a RN thread, not a British Army thread.

I would take issue with you that we have closer links with France than Australia/NZ/US (and for that matter Singapore). Although we generally agree with the French.

Providing allied task groups is hardly radical, it happens all the time, formalising around a joint capability is only a fairly modest step?

NATO pools some assets.

Agreed it would not work, if no one wanted to participate.

 

[RobWilliams]

I'd agree, in terms of historical links we are more common with NZ/Aus, but France has closer strategic needs to us. Which is what I did say

Indeed, it's not radical, but when you're talking about 4 countries crewing a ship with 1400 people, if one ducks out thats 25% of the crew unavailable be it as a stoker, deck handler or what. THAT is what I have issue with, NOT the concept of joint task groups.

Well judging by Bonzas comment, you can cound Aus out of any hypothetical arrangement. NZ probably too. So that's 2 countries who're unavailable in your plan.

 

[StobieWan]

Yup...if you've a joint task force that has to go someplace, and one of the proposed elements can't come out to play because the originating country can't support the action proposed, you can back fill from other countries. Quite often you can persuade the other country who aren't coming along to cover a tasking for you in exchange (okay, you don't fancy helping blockading Orangania, not a problem, please go do anti piracy work in off Somalia and we'll pull a frigate off that..)

If you've got 10% of the ships crew under orders to depart as the proposed action is unsupportable politically, that's a whole different kettle of fish.