The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

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kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Waylander said:
It's cheaper? At least in Germany we do get away with paying civilian kitchen personal much less than basic grunts.
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For Germany: Given minimum wage and tariff treaties the maximum difference is in the region of 5-10% for general duties that you can shift to contract workers - with a disproportional drop in quality. That quality drop doesn't seem to be a problem for those doing the outsourcing though.
If you hire directly a civilian cook in the Bundeswehr is ranked equivalent to a StUffz (OR-5) by pay, which no, a simple general cook, butcher or baker wouldn't be ranked at as a soldier.

Contracting in this regard was originally used aplenty in deployment theaters though since you'd have to spend deployment pay on a grunt (... tripling his salary). In recent years this has shifted over to professional military cooks being deployed with contract employees as assistants due to massive quality problems leading to e.g. 200 cases of food poisoning in Masar-i-Sharif.
 
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swerve

Super Moderator
Re the cooks thing: one of my cousins was a navy cook for a long time. After spells on frigates, destroyers (e.g. off the coast of Kuwait in early 1991), & aircraft carriers, he ended up at Northwood, cooking for HQ staff.

He hit problems of too few shipboard slots & not enough jobs in his specialism at his rank because of navy cuts, so wasn't able to extend his service when his time was up.

So, guess what his first civilian job was, & where?

Cooking for naval HQ staff at Northwood. :D
 
t68

t68

Well-Known Member
swerve said:
Re the cooks thing: one of my cousins was a navy cook for a long time. After spells on frigates, destroyers (e.g. off the coast of Kuwait in early 1991), & aircraft carriers, he ended up at Northwood, cooking for HQ staff.

He hit problems of too few shipboard slots & not enough jobs in his specialism at his rank because of navy cuts, so wasn't able to extend his service when his time was up.

So, guess what his first civilian job was, & where?

Cooking for naval HQ staff at Northwood. :D
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Was it more or less money that the $64000 question
 
S

swerve

Super Moderator
I can't remember. I have a vague feeling it was more, but I'm not sure.

Wasn't a permanent job, though. He ended up getting a job related to his secondary shipboard role, which IIRC was damage control. He now works in fire safety.
 
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StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
salary might have been more but I suspect the pension arrangements were less well defined and ultimately worth less. I might have sampled his wares, having been to Northwood once - they seemed to have a decent ents budget from the feel of it, or did back in 2008 ish.

(if you want to get on all the fashionable bases, be a roadie!)
 
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PeterCrisp

Member
Sorry if this is s stupid question but do we know if the carriers will look different from each other from the outside.
The second is being set-up for amphibious operations I just thought that may involve some extra's being added so they can get more landing craft aboard or hovercraft.
Maybe a winch on the deck to lift boats out of the water?

I assume it being set for amphibious means it will carry less F-35 overall.
 
V

vonnoobie

Well-Known Member
PeterCrisp said:
Sorry if this is s stupid question but do we know if the carriers will look different from each other from the outside.
The second is being set-up for amphibious operations I just thought that may involve some extra's being added so they can get more landing craft aboard or hovercraft.
Maybe a winch on the deck to lift boats out of the water?

I assume it being set for amphibious means it will carry less F-35 overall.
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Not a stupid question, having an open mind in the persuit of expanding your knowledge is the smartest thing any one could do.

Amphibious doesnt necisarily require the sole use of water based craft. So long as it is launched from a ship wether they land ashore by boat or aircraft it's still an amphibious operation.

In regards with the QE CV's there amphibious operations will be entirely airborne launched but rather then the company capability as they where intitially built with they are being investigated into ability to launch two companies by air.

So can't say for certain but I don't see them having to make any external changes, Any changes would be internal and to do with extra equipment needed by the marines.
 
t68

t68

Well-Known Member
vonnoobie said:
In regards with the QE CV's there amphibious operations will be entirely airborne launched but rather then the company capability as they where intitially built with they are being investigated into ability to launch two companies by air.
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Fairly sure they don't have a loading ramp for for tracked or wheeled equipment unlike Ocean which could make use of her stern doors and mexeflot, considering they knew these would replace Ocean long term.

In someways it was a pity they could not pick up the two ex Russian Mistral for cheap, pretty confident they could have offload the Albions if needed.
 
John Fedup

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
t68 said:
In someways it was a pity they could not pick up the two ex Russian Mistral for cheap, pretty confident they could have offload the Albions if needed.
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I would think the ship building unions would go bonkers on French Mistrals for the RN. It would likely be a stimulus for Scottish separation as well.
 
t68

t68

Well-Known Member
John Fedup said:
I would think the ship building unions would go bonkers on French Mistrals for the RN. It would likely be a stimulus for Scottish separation as well.
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Certantly would have been a ruckus that's for sure, but once ocean goes its a capabilty they are certantly going to miss.
 
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StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
t68 said:
Fairly sure they don't have a loading ramp for for tracked or wheeled equipment unlike Ocean which could make use of her stern doors and mexeflot, considering they knew these would replace Ocean long term.

In someways it was a pity they could not pick up the two ex Russian Mistral for cheap, pretty confident they could have offload the Albions if needed.
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Not sure what you'd be accomplishing by that - the Albion and Bulwark are both fairly recent (2001 circa) build Amphibs with helo desk, flooding docks etc - they've both had refits in alternation - it'd be nice to have a cheap helo deck like Ocean but I don't think there's the man power to run such a thing and keep the carriers worked up.
 
t68

t68

Well-Known Member
StobieWan said:
Not sure what you'd be accomplishing by that - the Albion and Bulwark are both fairly recent (2001 circa) build Amphibs with helo desk, flooding docks etc - they've both had refits in alternation - it'd be nice to have a cheap helo deck like Ocean but I don't think there's the man power to run such a thing and keep the carriers worked up.
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While its true that Albion and Bulwark are relatively young ships it takes all three to give an overall amphibious warfare capabilty, to get the same using the 2x Mistral will give roughly the same capabilty of Albion, Bulwark and Ocean all the while leaving the QE for other tasking.

As its been rumored for quite some time once the QE are headed down there should only be 1 avalible, with the mistral's you can still operate 2 distinked tasked groups or combine without a lose of capabilty in each group whereas Albion and Bulwark can lift via both vertical and sealift it needs someone to actluy carry the help Mistral has it all out of the box.RN will still have the same amount of shipping just more versatile.
 
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the concerned

Active Member
Surely the most sensible answer for the RN right now would be as they need replacement for Hms Argus as a aviation training ship would be to replace that with Hms Ocean. That then gives you the added capability if you need it whilst not increasing the need for more manpower.
 
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swerve

Super Moderator
The problem we have is that we built a new amphibious fleet which worked nicely together, & with our small STOVL carriers, but we're now replacing key ships with others which are fine in themselves, but don't really fit well with all the others.

Albion, Bulwark & the Bays provided plenty of docks & helicopter decks, but lacked hangars. That didn't matter when we built them because we had the Invincible class & had just built Ocean. With three CVS & Ocean we could always put together one or two carriers & either an LPH or a carrier operating as an LPH, plus at least one LPD and two or three LSDs. The ship in the LPH role could carry troops, & enough helicopters to provide the dock ships with airlift, without interfering with STOVL carrier operations, because they were flying off a different deck.

But with just two flat decks, that breaks down. If we only have one operational & an amphibious operation with carrier air support is needed, that ship has to provide both the fixed wing cover & the vertical lift, simultaneously. That is not optimal.

Ocean is reckoned to be pretty knackered. She was built on the cheap, & if what I've read is true, it shows. She's scheduled to be retired next year. I don't know how long she could last if kept running.
 
V

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
swerve said:
The problem we have is that we built a new amphibious fleet which worked nicely together, & with our small STOVL carriers, but we're now replacing key ships with others which are fine in themselves, but don't really fit well with all the others.

Albion, Bulwark & the Bays provided plenty of docks & helicopter decks, but lacked hangars. That didn't matter when we built them because we had the Invincible class & had just built Ocean. With three CVS & Ocean we could always put together one or two carriers & either an LPH or a carrier operating as an LPH, plus at least one LPD and two or three LSDs. The ship in the LPH role could carry troops, & enough helicopters to provide the dock ships with airlift, without interfering with STOVL carrier operations, because they were flying off a different deck.

But with just two flat decks, that breaks down. If we only have one operational & an amphibious operation with carrier air support is needed, that ship has to provide both the fixed wing cover & the vertical lift, simultaneously. That is not optimal.

Ocean is reckoned to be pretty knackered. She was built on the cheap, & if what I've read is true, it shows. She's scheduled to be retired next year. I don't know how long she could last if kept running.
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I have also read that the Invincibles, while not as lightly built as Ocean had made extensive use of finite element analysis in their design so as to be as light as possible. This means they also had a finite life that they were only able to exceed because they didn't spend as much of their careers in the North Atlantic as expected, when they were designed. The shift post cold war to deploy ships other than the North Atlantic provided a little appreciated "peace dividend" in permitting the UK to life extend a substantial part of their fleet, not just the carriers but the destroyers and frigates too.
 
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swerve

Super Moderator
Yeah, the Type 23s have had their retirement dates considerably delayed because of that. The new radars, missiles, etc. are needed to keep the ships useful for the much longer than originally expected lives of the hills.
 
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