A GUEST POST FROM LONG TIME TD CONTRIBUTOR, JED
There has been a lot written in recent threads about the Chief of the Defence Staff’s speech and his comments about more vessels for the RN. Much of the commentary on this site has interpreted these comments as “less expensive ‘warships’ e.g. T26 and more patrol vessels for ‘peace time’ tasking”.
This may or may not be what the CDS meant, replacing some T26 Frigates with other, “low end” types of vessels, or it may not. However a lot of the conversation in the comment threads has been on what the UK could do to build up the number of hulls by buying smaller, cheaper, simpler vessels such as River Class / Clyde Class, the Spanish BAM or the Dutch Holland classes.
However what would we require such vessels to do, what could they manage to do based on their capabilities ?
The current tasking of the existing “patrol squadron”
Much has been written on TD over the last few years that echoes the sensationalist press, you know the comments, the ones about what a waste it is to use multi-billion dollar warships to chase pirates……….
What do the current OPV fleet do in the RN ? Well the River class page of the RN website sums it up like this (http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/The-Fleet/Ships/Patrol-and-Minehunters/River-Class) :
“HMS Tyne, Mersey and Severn…….. working at least 275 days a year at sea enforcing British and European fisheries law. The ships send two-person teams to inspect fishing vessels to make sure they have the right nets, the right log books and the right licences.”
So, that’s the old Fisheries Protection Squadron then. Only 3 of them, 4 if you include the FI patrol ship HMS Clyde, but still, hardly surprising we don’t use them for Caribbean anti-drug tasking etc, we just don’t have enough of them.
The tasking – strategic concerns: the Defence planning assumptions
The seven Military Tasks from the 2010 SDSR are:
- defending the UK and its Overseas Territories
- providing strategic intelligence
- providing nuclear deterrence
- supporting civil emergency organisations in times of crisis
- defending our interests by projecting power strategically and through expeditionary interventions
- providing a defence contribution to UK influence
- providing security for stabilisation.
I would say the obvious ones for OPV’s are the last two, plus supporting UK civil emergency organizations, and maybe, just a maybe mind you, playing a role in the broadly scoped “defending the UK and its Overseas Territories” – although personally I struggle to see what the role might be exactly.
So, if we buy extra OPV’s instead of Frigates (because lets be honest, it’s not going to be extra OPV’s as well as Frigates is it), what exactly is it we expect them to do ?
Please note, I am focusing on what I consider to be a reasonable label i.e. Ocean Patrol Vessel. You could call it a “Patrol Ship” if you want, but I really don’t understand the “small ships mafia” use of terms like:
Corvette: Wikipedia says up to 100m and 2,750 tonnes defines a “modern” Corvette, but it also notes heavy armament. To me this is a type of ship utilized by coastal navies that don’t need ocean going Frigates, but what to put 8 or more SSM on a small hull, with a small helo, and point defence missile system, i.e. in TD nomenclature it’s more “fighty” than an OPV. Lets use the German Braunschweig class as an example, built for use primarily in the Baltic, they have a range of 4,000 NM at 15Kts, but an endurance of only 7 days.
Sloop: Boy do I hate this particular label, but the great Wiki tells us in “modern” usage (e.g. RN pre-WWII) it referred to a vessel in between a Corvette and a Frigate. I cant really think of a real world modern, current example, however regular TD commentor’s sometimes even use the more bizarre “Sloop-of-war” – whatever that means !
The requirements
What exactly then, do we want our OPV to be able to do ? Well based on historical usage in the RN, and the sort of things that often get mentioned here in the comments threads, the bread and butter work for such a vessel would be “constabulary operations” also known as MSO, or Maritime Security Operations.
The great Wiki even has a definition for MSO: “Maritime security operations (MSO) are the actions of modern naval forces to “combat sea–based terrorism and other illegal activities, such as hijacking, piracy, and slavery, also known as human trafficking.”[1] Ships assigned to such operations may also assist seafaring vessels in distress. These activities are part of an overall category of activities which fall short of open warfare called military operations other than war (MOOTW).”
To this list we could add, general anti-smuggling (such as arms, prohibited technology etc) and the EEZ patrol and fisheries protection type missions.
The major commonalities of all these roles are based around the need to board suspect vessels, in order to do this we must be able to:
- Receive Intel, detect and identify the suspect vessel(s)
- Intercept it (or them)
- Stop it (or them)
- Visit (peaceful) / Board (against resistance)
- Subdue resistance and Search
- Arrest and detain crew or others
- Dispose (sink / tow / put onboard a prize crew)
This is what the USN calls Visit Board Search and Seizure or VBSS operations (again Wiki has a page on this too ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visit,_board,_search,_and_seizure)
From this list of functional requirements, we can build anther list of what capabilities we need in order to meet those requirements
- Communications to receive and disseminate intel
- Sensors to detect and identify surface vessels
- Capability to force a vessel to stop (weapons systems ?)
- Ability to catch “go fast” suspects ( by going fast yourself, carrying fast small boats, or helicopters)
- Ability to board suspects vessels
We now have potential tasking, the functional requirements, and capabilities required in order to specify the size and shape of vessel required. However we must look at additional factors too:
- What kind of sea keeping capabilities do we require ?
- What range and endurance capabilities ?
- What are the cost constraints ?
- Are there other design factors (e.g. the desire to use the same hull for hydrographic survey ships, or MCM Vessels ?)
Also, we might ask ourselves what kind of vessels we want to intercept ? Modern merchant dashes around the oceans with quite a pace, modern Very Large Container Ships and Very Large Crude Carriers (big tankers) can have “cruise” speeds of over 20kts, so if your OPV is to have a large patrol area, it must have a pretty quick sprint speed in order to get an intercept on a fast moving merchant vessel.
Of course it will never be able to go fast enough to catch a drug runner in his “go fast” speed boat (think Miami Vice), so our OPV will also need to carry and deploy it’s own “go fasts” e.g. 11m RHIBs.
As for stopping a suspect vessel, well that opens a whole other dimension for argument. Personally I have to admit the RN actually seems to have got it right with sticking with the old 40mm Bofors on the Island and Castle Class OPV’s of yester-year, and the 30mm on the modern Rivers. I know the rest of the world, and it’s dog seems to have universally adopted the OTO Melara 76mm Super Rapid in one form or another, but I can’t really see how it’s of any use on an ocean going patrol vessel for MSO type tasks, as opposed to a coastal Corvette. The shells from a 76mm Super Rapid are NOT going to punch enough holes in a mahooosive container ship to sink it, nor are they going to stop a big tanker before terrorists smash it into an oil terminal or something. Sure you can shoot at the bridge and even the engineering spaces, but to be honest you can do that with a 30mm too.
Now some will answer that we can add all the bells and whistles, and use the ubiquitous 76mm in its most modern form, with guided ammo for both anti-missile and even NGS roles. Well we could, but that requires a command system, much better radar for the anti-air/anti-missile mode, maybe a fire control radar, at least a good Electro Optical “director” for target tracking etc so we are pushing up the costs on our OPV here, but for what purpose ? To give our OPV a “war role” – seriously?
Actually, what might make our OPV at least a little bit “fighty” is its aviation capability. If it has a hangar and flight deck big enough for a Lynx Wildcat, AND a big old “air weapons magazine” then it could carry Stingray ASW torpedoes, depth charges, and eventually Son-of-SeaSkua etc. But to be honest, Wildcat delivered Stingray’s are no use with out a good bow mounted active / passive sonar capability, and adding this pushes up the cost again……….
So what else can we use it for ?
Well there is all the obvious stuff, all the non-core war fighting stuff that I got involved in on just about every RN vessel I served on, like search and rescue, assisting merchant shipping in trouble (including fire fighting, and marine engineering assistance), disaster response. Except of course on a 2,500 tonne broad-beamed Leander Class Frigate there were around 250 of us from which to find shore parties to help in disaster response, whereas a River Class has a crew of 30 (and berths for 20 more).
However, playing devils advocate, lets say we have a stretched River / Clyde of 90m, say 2000 tonnes, flight deck and Wildcat capable hanger, 2 x 11m RHIBS, capable of “sprinting” at 21Kts and slightly greater range than the Clyde, say 8,500NM at 12 Kts; with 3 x 30mm (Fwd, and Port and Stbd mid-ships) plus min-guns etc. Comms and sensors same as Clyde. Lets also say BAE Systems Surface Ships can build them at reasonable cost in Portsmouth.
Great :)
Now can someone please tell me what use these ships are for those military tasks from the Defence Planning Assumptions:
- Defending the UK and its Overseas Territories
- providing a defence contribution to UK influence
- providing security for stabilisation.
Good enough for Caribbean anti-drug ops, Mediterranean anti-people smuggling, and Somali piracy ops. Good enough for EEZ patrol. I get that. Basically its a Coast Guard vessel, doing Coast Guard roles, but on a global scale, deploying where needed rather than working in the home waters, 200NM EEZ.
However who do we think we are going to “impress” as part of providing a defence contribution to UK influence, if we turn up in one of these ? Sure there are other elements to influence, like working alongside and training with local navies, but we don’t need this class of vessel to do that, we could use something even cheaper and simpler, deployed and supported by a “mothership” – oh yes, I went there !
Our OPV can stop and search, but what other tasking can it undertake in a security stabilization role ? It might be able to carry full platoon of Marines, but with say 8 each in the two RHIBS, and 4 squashed into the back of the Wildcat, it can’t deploy them all in one wave.
For those who want to make it more fighty, stretch it a bit more, and turn into an RN version of the Omani Khareef with 76mm, 8 x Harpoon and 8 x SeaCeptor in place of the VL Mica, do you really think we would get enough of them to make it worth while instead of 5 General Purpose T26 ?
I remain unconvinced about the worth of these vessels.
I will do a part 2 with some ideas for “thinking big” but in the meanwhile, I want the “small ship mafia”, the Black Swan and Khareef advocates to come up with some well thought out and logical arguments as to how these vessels would actually add capability to the RN in the context of their interpretation of the CDS recent comments.
I thought the idea was to use a Khareef type ship to do the petty tasks of dealing with pirates and drug traffickers while leaving the ‘proper’ ships to do the real work?
With fewer and fewer ships in the Royal Navy can we really afford to be sending frigates to chase 6 men in a rowing boat?
First I would say, using frigates and destroyers to do counter-piracy makes perfect sense if the ships had nothing better to do. Warships and their crews need to operate to learn their craft and operating in a multinational task force is good experience, even if the OP FOR is Somoli teenagers in a crudely made skiff.
I also agree that the 76 mm is little more effective at forcibly stopping a ship than the 30 mm. I talked about that here: http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2011/03/14/what-does-it-take-to-sink-a-ship/
Having been in the Coast Guard I do see some wartime uses for OPVs. From my perspective the proposed MHPC sounds like an OPV with wartime utility. I put some thought into what OPVs (in this case USCG cutters) might do in wartime in a two part series
http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2012/01/01/what-might-coast-guard-cutters-do-in-wartime-part-1-navy-shortfalls-2/
http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2012/02/10/what-might-coast-guard-cutters-do-in-wartime-part-2-coast-guard-roles/
Our cutters tend to be much more “fighty” than the River class, more lightly armed than the Khareef but with better endurance and seakeeping.
Thoughts on how OPVs might be “fitted for but not with”: http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2012/06/27/opc-design-for-wartime-build-for-peacetime/
Some thoughts on weapons for our cutters here:
http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2012/05/04/alternate-weapons-for-new-large-cutters/
Jed,
Thanks for the post. I am not a member of any “small ship mafia” but I do belive that we need to examine all options.
I will pick you up on a few points though.
The vessel you end up describing is certainly not what I have been looking at. it would be cheap, probably about 60 million but not really useful.
The whole issue is dependent upon tasking.
You talk about intercepting and stopping merchant vessels. Well you track them with AIS, a small UAV like scan eagle or organic helo for IS and boarding by helo or Rhib. perhaps you could tell me when and where we are stopping large container ships and tankers in open Ocean?
You cannot search these type of vessels at sea and you need a diversion Port (a lesson learnt from Libya).
Now some will answer that we can add all the bells and whistles, and use the ubiquitous 76mm in its most modern form, with guided ammo for both anti-missile and even NGS roles. Well we could, but that requires a command system, much better radar for the anti-air/anti-missile mode, maybe a fire control radar, at least a good Electro Optical “director” for target tracking etc so we are pushing up the costs on our OPV here, but for what purpose ? To give our OPV a “war role” – seriously?
The 76MM super rapid mount takes cueing from a command system and an EOD. I have maintained all along that the OPV/Corvette should have a C3 system and if you look at such vessels around the world they do have for a 76MM. The DART rounds are guided by an additional RF tracker which can be added to existing super rapid mounts as part of the new shield.
An air weapons mag is hardly the biggest space onboard a Ship, certainly not on a T23. I have never suggested carrying or dropping stingray or depth charges but they could. ASW is all about maintaining the “weapons train” once you are in contact. The unit in contact will control the targeting and release of the weapon carrier which in a TG or group of ships is often not their own helo.
So my argument is that if we are going to look at BAE designs then surely the starting point should be the design of HTMS Krabi which allegedly the Thais built for 36 million???
Now she does 24kts has a 76MM, THALES TACTICOS Command system. Hangar and flightdeck are Lynx capable. ( allegedly, hangar looks small to me but plenty of space back aft.)
So amends to design would be to ensure that the hangar can take a Wild Cat and a scan eagle. look at the range, add a citadel, upgrade the 76MM super rapid to STRALES and swap the 2 30MM MSI mounts for 3 SEAHAWK SIGMA.
I now have a vessel that is better suited to Constabulary ops in the NAG, Anti piracy ops in the GOA, chasing drug smugglers in the Caribbean (would send an RFA for hurricane season) and I would suggest could take on non TAPS FRE roles and operate in the FI.
If we built 8 or 9 for the price of 3 GP t26 and they took over 1 of the E of Suez taskings you are immediately FF/DD availability neutral. Every other Deployment they do instead of an FF/DD wins you 6 or 7 months of FF/DD availability.
Jed, interesting post. The CDS comments to me can be summed up as “I do not have enough assets to do everything the Politicians ask for, and when I do I do not have a broad enough array of asset capabilities to assign the appropriate response”. In terms of the RN this results in the worlds most sophisticated AAW ship chasing pirates.
Rather than focusing on how patrol vessels add to the 3 Defence Planning Assumptions highlighted I feel we should be focusing on the impact to these by having our world class assets tied up in this way.
I come to understand that replacing a third of the DD/FF fleet for cheaper and smaller vessels is not the way to go for the RN, but I still firmly believe replacing one T26 for 4 patrol vessels now would give the CDS more options and improve the overall ability to meet the Defence Planning Assumptions by freeing up more expensive assets.
As the technology matures, the platform concepts of the MHPCs (and Black Swans) will become more relevant and the RN should be at forefront of this. As the assets being carried by these platforms become more capable then perhaps the DD/FF vs multi role vessel can be reassessed.
Btw, I have no problem with the stretched River class you describe, though extra hanger space for a Merlin (or Lynx plus UAV) would be nice. :)
I have a RN Warships book from 1987 by Paul Beaver. We stiil had a few Type 12 Rothesey Class frigates then. 2800 ton full displacement, 30 kt, 4.5″ turret, Seacat,2x 20mm, Limbo, Wasp helicopter. A modern version with automation to reduce crew numbers, might be good. So 114mm recycled gun, Seaceptor, 2x 30mm, Stingray Torps,Wildcat helicopter.
Nice part one TD, looking forward to part two.
The comments came thick and fast on this issue and, as usual, we tended to find ourselves arguing (politely of course) at cross purposes, as everyone had their own interpretation of what Gen. Richards was on about, what type of vessel (patrol boats or pocket-frigates), tasks, budgets and so on.
On previous threads I have consistently argued against further cuts in the number of DD/FFs. As APATS and others keep reminding us, it’s all about the tasks.
Now one thing which struck me particularly clearly about Gen. Richards’ speech was that he was certainly not arguing in favour of a reduction in tasks, either for the RN or the forces generally. Further, a combination of factors leads me to believe that not only are tasks not going to be reduced or merely maintained, they’ll likely increase in the future. A 6/13 DD/FF split looks “bare minimum” to me, but of course I’m no expert. I do know that a system with no redundancy in it will not long survive. Warships are unavailable for all sorts of reasons, and that’s before people start shooting holes in them.
I very much hope that what Gen. Richards was on about was extending the run of T26 or, second best option, ensuring all 13 get built then introducing a new class; smaller, less “fighty” in TD parlance, something which can undertake the constabulary roles you outline above; or, third best, more Rivers.
I’m all in favour of more hulls, just not instead of the ones we’ll need in a shooting match. Or to prevent one starting.
“I remain unconvinced about the worth of these vessels.” – about sums it up for me, too.
Thanks Jed, even though I like all of these vessels at times, like you,I have had trouble seeing which aspect/ use we are discussing.
Two bits from the comments that I particularly agree with:
From Chuck “Our cutters tend to be much more “fighty” than the River class, more lightly armed than the Khareef but with better endurance and seakeeping.”
– excellent design parameters for the first rough copy
– that “virtual” ship could then be matched to existing designs, to better understand the trade-offs
From APATS “If we built 8 or 9 for the price of 3 GP t26 and they took over 1 of the E of Suez taskings you are immediately FF/DD availability neutral. “
The Bertholf National Security Cutters are $641 mn each. If more funds are available then the conversation changes but unless the CDS is proposing to move money from elsewhere in the MOD budget or willing to sacrifice something on the “white board” then something has to give from the equipment budget and to cover the running / manpower costs . Can’t see the overall MOD budget getting an increase for a while…
Seems to me what you really need to make such ships more versatile is good sea keeping (which I believe is relatively cheap to do), a helicopter hanger, 1-2 small boats, a C3 centre and good sensors – not Sampson or anything like that but good decent all weather night and day optics and a basic fire control system to control any gun over 30mm and above. I imagine most of the cost would come from the C3 and the sensors. What bangy things it has seems less important than being able to see whats going on.
Jed,
I’m going to have to disagree with a couple of your points in order to agree wholeheartedly with much of what you’re driving at…
“Wildcat delivered Stingray’s are no use with out a good bow mounted active / passive sonar”
Surely you don’t need a sonar at all if you’re launching a wake homing torp at a ship from the air.
“…full platoon of Marines, but with say 8 each in the two RHIBS, and 4 squashed into the back of the Wildcat, it can’t deploy them all in one wave…”
Squish and squash a bit more and they’ll fit ;-)
Other than that, what your are describing is a 100m trawler with a Wildcat and two RHIBs (I’d still bolt an L118 to the bow ;-)). That’s all that is needed to do the kind of work that is needed. Simply put you have air superiority from the Wildcat which will outgun anything other than a very rich drug runner.
The ship should have absolutely no sensors or guided weapons – they come from the Wildcat (which can be re-used in war on other ships).
The biggest problem with these kinds of vessels is that they’ll need a crew of about 20, an aircrew of 10 and a boarding party of up to 30. If you don’t have the boarding party on board at all times it’s of very little use and certainly not formidable enough to worry a pirate or drug-runner. So that’s 60 souls so about £60m to pay for the duration of the life of the ship. I’d therefore go for a budget of the same for the ship >>> BAM.
Regarding armament for ‘patrol’ vessels. I is fair to say that most shell plating of large merchant vessels is around 12mm/20 mm in thickness. Rounds to the bridge area would probably make steering the vessel impossible. Most if not all commercial ships only have secondary steering from the tiller flat nd I would imagine rounds at sea level to the stern of the vessel would negate manual steering and would probably damage the hydraulic control system, so making the ship none navigable. Small cannon rounds managed to pierce the hull shell plating of a vessel that I sailed on during the Iraq/Iran war.
The ship should have absolutely no sensors or guided weapons – they come from the Wildcat (which can be re-used in war on other ships).
What about flying hours, maintenance, cre rest etc for you Wild Cat? You would be lucky to get a surface seach at dawn and dusk for 2 hours 5 days a week.
@Jed – Apologies, just noticed this is your post not one of TD’s. Still agree though.
Never blog before your first coffee :-)
This a knot or two quicker with Typhoon RWS 30mm (backup by a mandraulic mount in the same calibre or at least something bigger than 12.7),
http://en.mercopress.com/data/cache/noticias/27086/0x0/d-castle.jpg
It is more a question of what OPV’s can’t do…
Um. Ice strengthening and a big monitor too would be nice.
I like the Rivers just think they should all have had flight decks. Even if you can’t land on gives a nice clear area to winch from to.
I think the main pupose of a Khareef or Holland class would be as follows: 1) To allow additional hulls so that seamanship skills, officer skills and a promotion path can still happen in what is too small a navy. 2) To free high end escourts for proper training and routine so that the crews and ships are sharper. 3)To provide training. 4)war role, my guess would be mcmv with remotes, and general close to shore protection, and narrow seas combat. Peace time just 4 area UK, Gibralter/caribbean/anti piracy/sea training
I would use the same argument to justify 4 -6 ssks bought of the shelf from Sweeden or Germany.
Numbers: I think to loose one type 26 for 4 -6 Holland/Khareefs would be acceptable.
Better still, justify additional spending not just to give the RN extra hulls, but to boost jobs in the engineering sector (steel etc.). I think the threat to shipbuilding at Portsmouth can be used as a leaver for additional hulls for the RN.
or order an extra 2 type 26s and bring that order forward to a) keep Portsmouth open and b)2 actual ships (1GP and 1 ASW) in the water doing things will make the Type 26 more sellable then nice cgi pictures.
” I think to loose one type 26 for 4 -6 Holland/Khareefs would be acceptable” – So do I but you’d be lucky to get 3 at most. The hulls may be cheap but the systems you put in it aren’t. E.G. a Wildcat costs about £26million, so 6 = £156million. Want a radar? Fire control? All adds up doesn’t it?
Jed,
Thank you for writing this piece, its both an interesting and exciting issue. First some quotes from former RN analyts
A quote to begin with on the why (from Defencemanagement.com – http://www.defencemanagement.com/feature_story.asp?id=19646)
“Even though we continue to sit on the UN Security Council and rely upon Italian national debt to keep us in the G8, the diplomatic future of the UK is not encouraging. We all now accept Great Britain and today’s Royal Navy no longer rule the waves but too few realise our growing weakness in defence and, in particular, maritime defence costs and will cost this nation dearly. For many decades we have been a country of diplomatic influence and clout; a transatlantic power broker, who when words failed was not afraid to use force to intervene around the world. From the South Atlantic, West Africa, the Middle East to the mountains of Central Asia we have possessed a Royal Navy which could respond effectively across the full spectrum of defence and diplomatic missions. That hard-won ability and focused, operational excellence has been squandered on the altar of CVF, and for what? At best a hollow platform we cannot afford to operate effectively for a perfidious Royal Air Force which continues to out-manoeuvre the Naval Staff at every turn on the issue of carrier based air power or for a vulnerable platform which we cannot defend without additional escorts from other countries.
Power projection without a robust landing force is an empty threat. Shock and Awe did not win the Iraq war. In its wake it left a bloody counter-insurgency campaign which the coalition lost. One operational carrier can only achieve so much defence diplomacy or regional engagement. Only having one operational carrier means you have to be incredibly risk-averse in its employment or be prepared to create a political storm of epic proportions if it is lost to enemy action. The CVF decision was wrong in 1998 and, because of Whitehall incompetence and Portsmouth ego, continues to distort the recovery of Britain’s armed forces in the wake of SDSR. Enough of trading ill-conceived tabloid headlines, can we please sort out the future Royal Navy and Britain’s maritime security needs with some careful consideration and realistic planning? After all, those who threaten our national maritime security will not be countered by a single show-boat on exercise in the Wash, but they will be by a gunboat, deployed to their back yard, and some fighting spirit.”
and the what (from back in 2010)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/30/frigates_wag_the_dog/print.html
The Royal Navy has decided to spend £127m to answer the question: “What should the next generation of frigates be like?” This is disappointing, as the real question is “do we actually need any more frigates?” and the answer is very likely “No, or not in their present form, anyway.”
Officially the navy, commissioning BAE Systems to start looking into the new ships’ design, says it isn’t looking for frigates but for a “Type 26 Combat Ship”. But the Type 26 will replace Type 22 and 23 frigates, and indeed nobody is really pretending it is anything else.
Today’s Type 23 frigate. Credit: Royal Navy
This is a frigate.
“You simply cannot have an effective Navy without capable frigates, and the Type 26 combat ship will form the future backbone of the Royal Navy’s surface combatant force, alongside the new Type 45 destroyers,” said the First Sea Lord last week, announcing the deal.
So yes, the Type 26 will be a frigate. That is to say, it will be a surface warship which isn’t equipped with a high-powered fleet air defence system like the Type 45 destroyers. (Or rather, as the Type 45s will be at some time in the future when their buggy PAAMS/Sea-Viper missiles are actually ready for installation. The first two 45s are in naval service already, but almost entirely unarmed.)
A frigate carries only close-quarter air defences, intended to offer some minimal hope of survival should enemy air strikes get through the fleet’s fighter screen and destroyer-mounted missile shield. It cannot, then, offer useful protection to other ships against air attack.
Rather, its main job – if it can really be said to have one – is hunting submarines. However, this is actually done almost entirely by the frigate’s helicopter*. Anti-submarine helicopters can be (and often are) operated at sea in larger numbers and much more cheaply aboard fleet-auxiliary vessels, so it’s hard to see why you would bother buying expensive frigates for this purpose.
Merchantman v frigate combat ship? Merchantman wins, probably
Apart from sub-hunting, a frigate also has surface-to-surface missiles – probably Harpoons like today’s ships, certainly if BAE’s concept pics are anything to go by. These can be used to attack other ships far away below the horizon if the frigate has a good idea of their location; there is also a version with limited land-attack capability.
But eight Harpoons isn’t an amount of punch you would need a several-thousand-ton ship with a crew in three figures to carry. Eight Harpoons would call for a fast-attack boat, or a corvette at best. And frankly, given that you’re going to need aircraft to find or confirm the far-away targets to begin with, it makes more sense to deliver the munitions by air as well. Carrier jets are a much more sensible option here than frigates: helicopters can also carry powerful air-to-surface weapons.
In general, in a hypothetical battle between a Type 26 combat ship and an unarmed enemy merchant ship carrying several helicopters to the 26’s single one, the merchant ship will probably win as it can keep aircraft flying round the clock. The merchant ship can also do a better job at hunting subs, for the same reason.
The Type 26s will “support land operations”, the navy says. By this they mean it will be able to carry a small number of troops, and its helicopter – though usually it will be one designed primarily for antisubmarine work – will be able to fly over land. The ship will also be able to bombard targets ashore with its medium-calibre gun turret.
Type 26 ‘combat ship’ concept from BAE Systems
This, however, is a combat ship. Quite different
Again, though, a fleet auxiliary merchantman comes out ahead. It can carry many more troops, plus vehicles and supplies for them and several helicopters to the frigate’s one. Inshore gun bombardment isn’t a big deal: the frigate makes a superb target for any enemy shore-based batteries, which are likely to significantly outrange and out-punch it if they exist, and furthermore it has only enough shells for about ten minutes’ firing.
What would a real ‘combat ship’ designed for combat look like?
All in all, for just about any job likely or unlikely, a fleet auxiliary with a helicopter deck and aircraft suited to the task would be better, as well as being much cheaper. A proper carrier, able to operate jets as well as helicopters, would be far and away better still. A frequent justification for frigates and destroyers is that you need them to protect carriers, but the fact of the matter is that carriers can protect themselves on their own far better than the escort ships can.
And then a carrier or a fleet auxiliary actually can support operations ashore usefully, too, unlike a frigate.
Given that the Royal Navy is struggling desperately to afford carriers right now – and will then struggle to afford aircraft to fly from them – the decision to spend £127m on a new frigate design right now seems frankly bizarre. And this is only the first of two such designs, we are told by BAE.
None of this is to say that there might not be a place for some surface warships other than full-blown carriers in the Royal Navy of the future. A rational navy would probably buy something very like a fleet-auxiliary helicopter ship, with provision made for proper Tomahawk cruise missiles to be installed as well if required.
Such a vessel, working with a radar helicopter above, would be able to sweep the seas of Type 26s and their like before they ever came near. It would be able to cruise-missile shore targets from far out in the offing with impunity. It would be able to sweep pirates from vast swathes of ocean using quickly reacting helicopter-carried boarding parties of marines, or put ashore (and support) a worthwhile little landing force. Equipped with Merlin anti-sub helicopters, it would hunt subs very well indeed should there be any to hunt.
And it would almost certainly cost less than a Type 26 too. That actually would be a “combat ship”, if you like.
But it wouldn’t offer a viable career path for a naval officer who wasn’t an aviator or a marine – as most of today’s Royal Naval officers are not.
Nor would ships like that offer any opportunities for British industry. They would be basically merchant ships with flight decks bolted on and fittings for Tomahawks. British shipyards can’t build floating steel boxes at prices to compete with yards abroad: they need to have sonars and radars and guns and missiles and complexity built into the design so as to justify a huge price markup.
Type 26 isn’t the kind of ship the Navy needs to use: It’s the kind of ship that BAE Systems needs to make
In fact, the only kind of ship that BAE Systems’ UK yards and factories might be able to make and sell is a Type 26 or something very like it. And people might buy it: Blighty isn’t the only country saddled with a hidebound naval hierarchy whose ideas on force structure are still largely formed by the fleets of World War II. Plus, lots of other countries simply have no access to things like Tomahawks and proper maritime aircraft.
So, fine – let British shipyards sell their overpriced, obsolete frigates to other navies if they can; and let the Royal Navy buy proper kit.
Whoa there! That’s not how it goes. If BAE Systems wants to make something, it gets its development costs covered by the MoD: those are the rules. Indeed, everyone concerned admits that the Type 26 project is as much about keeping BAE’s yards and design offices open as it is about getting some ships.
“Type 26 is a key component in sustaining a surface warship capability in UK industry,” says BAE’s surface-warship chief Alan Johnston.
“Programmes like the Type 26 … also sustain the industry that supports them,” adds Defence secretary Bob Ainsworth. “These commitments will protect the long-term future of the maritime industry … The commitments the MOD has made will protect skills and employment, and preserve the industrial capability.”
Or in other words we need to have some frigates so as to avoid closing our frigate yards, so that we will be able to have even more frigates in future. Tail wags dog: ice-cream licks itself.
Business as usual, then, in the UK military-industrial complex. ®
Bootnote
*The frigate’s medium-frequency active sonar can only find a sub at ranges so close that the sub will already have torpedoed the ship before it is detected – it is basically useless. Some RN frigates now have longer-ranging low frequency active sonar, but it still makes more sense to mount such kit on copters which can move about much faster and can’t be torpedoed.”
Contentious stuff – and we will now get both CVF. But in this situation do we have a choice to do something other than T26?
As in “What about flying hours, maintenance, cre rest etc for you Wild Cat? You would be lucky to get a surface seach at dawn and dusk for 2 hours 5 days a week” a helo cannot be the main means of getting the job done, but rather the means to up the capability of the ship by boarding it when the task is [expected to be]a bit over mere patrolling and presence
– in the Future of the RN series we did the break even between having a full-fat frigate at sea (in days) and a helo (admittedly a heavier type, but so was the ship) in the air (in hours)
– it is not a good trade-off, when not absolutely called for (and then, there is no substitute for it)
px,,
Not Lewis Page!
He never even did PWO course or a complement job on anything other than an MCMV. Yet he feels free to talk about MF hull sonar without any mention of its effectiveness in shallow water where LOFAS is far less use. He then makes a comment about putting LOFAS on helos ignoring the fact that you cannot maintain a screen with airborne assets only as they have to hover to dip not to mention the size of the arrays they would need and the 24 hour coverage. The ability to listen passively etc. He writes good stuff on some subjects but he uses this credibility to push his agenda on other subjects as if he is an expert IMHO.
APATS,
“What about flying hours, maintenance, cre rest etc for you Wild Cat? You would be lucky to get a surface seach at dawn and dusk for 2 hours 5 days a week.”
I’d have hoped for at least double that!
However, I get your point, which means loads more expense on shipboard sensors, which can’t be offdecked to a more useful hull when needed. That makes the whole idea pointless, or at least a huge waste of money, IMO.
On a similar note my interpretation of the requirements is not for area surveillance, more along the lines of “please come and help” what the local nation’s MPA assets have identified.
APATS,
I’ll defer to your expert judgement! I’m playing devil’s advocate again..
But I do think we might need to be planning for a mdular future – the technology is probably not suffiicently mature – but more hulls and flexi-systems that can be reconfigured to the task must be the way forward.
Perhaps T26 is the stepping stone – but would be nice to get some modular ships – cheap and plenty – and systems for the roles envisaged, and use these to test ourt concepts that can take the unmanned future systems into full-fat warfighting.
One way to deal with smaller budgets is to spend them wisely on step changes in doctrine and technology. One way to de-risk that, it to begin to use these concepts on hulls designed for lower capability tasks.
Friends never let friends quote Lewis Page.
The first guy is David Mugridge, do you know of him? I can’t remember who suggested buying a couple of mistral type LPDs -and the Black Swans seem to be no more than frigate sized LPDs – and more UAVs, Wildcat and reconfiguring those Merlins not slated for upgrade as ASc.
@Simon
I think situational awareness is the key now though – hence RN wanting to use UAVs in East Africa… soem sort of 24/7 surveillance is what wins wars. It keeps you a safe distance and alows you to target before they even know you are there – espeically when the oppostion is hard to discern from the flow of ongoing civvy life. It can also be networked in with other systems so give every unit that facility – so in an SF support or even a flod relief mission would be a massive force multiplier.
That Lewis Page line has been used here a couple of times. It’s funny.
@x i’ll bear that in mind ;)
px,
“…24/7 surveillance is what wins wars. It keeps you a safe distance and alows you to target before they even know you are there…”
I utterly agree, but what you’ve done there is upgrade the patrol vessel to a warship. And with that comes the increase in cost and the fact that you now have a frigate.
Basically, as Jed seems to imply, these pirate, smuggler, drug-lord hunters are not warships and would unlikely ever be used as such (other than for a diversionary tactic).
I only agree with the “identify” in Jed’s line: “Sensors to detect and identify surface vessels”. Detection is too costly without high mounted radars (which still have a very small radar horizon) or an entire flight of copters (which are expensive to keep airborne).
@Simon,
“I utterly agree, but what you’ve done there is upgrade the patrol vessel to a warship. And with that comes the increase in cost and the fact that you now have a frigate.”
UAVs – scan eagle is cheap and can be redployed to vessles as the arrive and leave theatre -saving on system costs. I think in thiese operations – suveillance would be first requiremnt. Its not a reactive mission, remember – most merchants in these regions carry on-board private security details for that – its a find, track and interdiict mission – indeed its can also be a shore intervention in collaboration with regional forces and SF.
I
Simon,
I do not think we can aim for 24 hour coverage from an OPV but a few Scan eagle kits sapped between the vessels actually on ops at the cost of a few million pounds would give a good ISR capability.
In the GOA the sensor data from numerous platforms is fused together to task units so vessels are receiving data from far more than their own organic deployable or fixed sensors.
On OPV, I would not go for a single role vessel – I would look for something that is a cheap as a convesntionla OPV, but which could have a war fighting role by operating Merlin, and even a modular towed array, for ASW, UAVs, Wildcat and SSM modules (Fire Shadow Naval – with a soft launch facility anyone?), and modular some close proectection (laser CIWS), at a future date.
Main spec for the OPV mission –
1. ability to operate Merlin, Wildcat
1.
Great article Jed.
For me it boils down to obeying the 2:1 frigate/destroyer rule for large operations in support of the ATFG, i.e. 2x T45 plus 4x 26 (deployed).
In addition, the need to accept the maximal case of a FI 2.0 where all available amphibs and carriers are mustered over six months in order to drop 3Cdo on a beach (plus friends following), i.e. 4x T45 and 8x T26 (deployed).
With due respect to APATS and his notion of sufficiently capable minor warships freeing up frigate hours on standing tasks, I could possibly see that ratio dropping to 3:2 for frigates/destroyers, i.e. 6x T45 and 9x T26 (total).
But in my eyes that would have to bring at least 9x minor warships capable of taking on three standing tasks (including forward deployed), in order for it to be worthwhile. This basically leaves the bulk of AAW/ASW escorts for punitive interventions by HMG.
Two points:
1. I remain to be convinced that sufficiently capable warships could be procured at a 3:1 ratio in preference to T26 alternatives
2. I remain unconvinced that six deployed T26 (i.e. 9x total) is sufficient for a scenario where we muster all available ampbibs and carriers in order to put 3Cdo on a beach (plus friends following).
Given that, my preference is either for:
a) 12x T26 ASW (total – with the full kit), and 0x Corvettes
b) 9x T26 ASW (total – not 8x ASW as currently planned), and 9x Corvettes
If either of those is not achievable, then I’d choose to stick with the current plan (8x ASW + 5x GP T26), than bugger about with high-risk alternatives that will knacker the maximal ambition of naval power projection:
Putting 3Cdo on a beach (plus friends following), with sufficient support to successfully prosecute a minor war.
Another interesting question is “where are your OPVs going to operate?” This affects the decisions made in 2 ways.
1) If you plan to have them far far away from home, you might want to get frigates or destroyers instead due to their endurence. The Israeli Sa’ar corvettes have a serious punch, but pays for it with a rumoured deployability of 5 days only.
2) Depending on their area of planned operations, a certain amount of fudge can be done with their weapons. If you’re planning to deploy them in Europe, you don’t really need to load them to the gills with weapons, the threat environment is not that serious. In comparison, Asian and Gulf states tend to have OPVs that make you wonder if their idea of ship design was to float an arsenal. Side by side comparison of European OPVs vs the rest of the world’s do give you a feeling that European OPVs are way underarmed, but that is the effect of their area of operations.
px, a converted container vessel may add a lot of capabilities to a fleet, but as the Atlantic Conveyer showed, it can’t take a lot of damage, and have minimal defences against being shot at. A frigate may bring less, but it has a much much higher chance of surviving if someone does shoot at them.
The 76mm isn’t for smugglers, though it does work wonders to scare the crap out of people. It’s for someone else’s OPV when they come harass you because you were “intruding in their territorial waters.” :)
oops
2. mission deck for RHIBS although i’d prefer CB90s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzfqxmHpxfU – but also for mulitple UAVs
3. Ability to take modular acconodation for the C3I, SF support and training missions.
It should also be able to handle remote droggie and MCM packages using UUVs and USVs down the line…
This would get us into a new world of naval warfare… and we dont need to buy all of the systems to make these ships useful at once.
Hope you got them plug and play capable to a central console or every time you re-role, you’ve to gut your ship’s electronics. Not a good idea.
gun is pointless, ecept for close prection, these ships don’t ‘chase’ anyone, not should they roisk getting closeinshore in harms way – thats what offboard systems are for – Fire Shadow can be onloaded if they have to do some killing – and LMM on Wildcat and a few Javalin/fifties on the CB90s will be mucxh more effective.
@observer
Not so – yes plug and play – a central networked archetichture is aready becoming a reality on armoured vehicles, as it is in civvy life.
Armoured vehicles for a single role is one thing, changing controls for a surface vessel to a sub to a UAV is a totally different thing. You’re even changing the basic environment the drone is working in.
“gun is pointless, ecept for close prection”
This is a nonsensical statement. That gun is your only means of attack/defence left after you have flushed your missile racks at the enemy. Most ships don’t carry missile reloads. They also double as your secondary mid range air defence.
A wildcat with son-of-sea skua or Fire Shadow will be much more effective at dealing with someone else’s OPV – especially if you have UAV surveillance. Kill it before it even knows you are there.
px, a lot of ship borne air defence outrange your helo missiles. And to get in that close to use it, you have to enter his detection range too. It’s a 2 way street.
Jedibeeftrix,
I think we need to look at the infamous defence Planning Assumptions.
The new Defence Planning Assumptions envisage that the Armed Forces in the future will be sized and shaped to conduct:
an enduring stabilisation operation at around brigade level (up to 6,500 personnel) with maritime and air support as required, while also conducting:
one non-enduring complex intervention (up to 2,000 personnel), and
one non-enduring simple intervention (up to 1,000 personnel);
or alternatively:
three non-enduring operations if we were not already engaged in an enduring operation;
or:
for a limited time, and with sufficient warning, committing all our effort to a one-off intervention of up to three brigades, with maritime and air support (around 30,000, two-thirds of the force deployed to Iraq in 2003).
Nowhere does it say that we should retain the ability to conduct a Division sized potentially opposed amphibous assualt 7,000NM away.
If you then read through the SDSR it looks the readiness of forces and clearly indicates that the second Carrier will be in extended readiness. What we would have initially amphib capability wise is
“the Royal Marines, whose 3 Commando Brigade will provide one key element of our high readiness Response Force. They will be able to land and sustain a commando group of up to 1,800 personnel from the sea from a helicopter platform and protective vehicles, logistics and command and control support from specialist ships, including landing and command ship. It would allow us to conduct an operation such as Sierra Leone in 2000”
I think what I am getting at is that we cannot tailor our forces to fight a Falklands 2.
1. We would be bloody careless to lose it. The Argentinian forces are in rag order.
2. Any campaign to retake it would be fought differently given modern weapon systems and by the time a second CVF appeared on the scene the threat environment would either be minimal or we would be going home with our tails between our legs.
3. Any warning of a build up would be far better and more quickly countered by the deployment of another 8 or so FJs along with the spearhead Battalion and a couple of SSNs than activating a second Carrier.
4. If the rest of South America got involved we do not have a credible military response.
To answer your 2 specific points.
1. 1. I remain to be convinced that sufficiently capable warships could be procured at a 3:1 ratio in preference to T26 alternatives
This depends upoin the tasking that they are given, we can certainly get 3 for 1 T26 vessels that are more suited to constabulary ops and routine security patrols or even chasing bloody pirates. they will not however be able to hunt submarines or provide naval fires in support of land ops or area air defence.
2. I remain unconvinced that 6x T26 (Deployed) is sufficient for a scenario where we muster all available ampbibs and carriers in order to put 3Cdo on a beach (plus friends following).
If you only have 1 T26 deployed instead of 2 or 3 then you should be able to muster more at short notice than you would otherwise. certainly enough to provide the escorts for a single CBG and the amphibs to put the 1,800 men ashore that the SDSR wants.
It is however a fascinating debate. I just do not think HMG sees 2 CBG with the escorts required to take both into a hostile multi threat environment without anny Allies as a prospect realsitic enough to skew planning for.
And the great thing is, you don’t have to have systems integrated onto every ship, or limit the ships capability to some pre-planned packages – you do your threat assessemnt and kit the ship for mission – or fly them out in a C-17 if you need them in a hurry. and development of new systems can be ongoing
On range they have to be global, but that is emminently possilbe if you don’t go for the coast defence mini-frigate design.
px,
We are trying to save money and a 76MM brick is a lot cheaper than a fire shadow or Javelin missile. Most boardings are actually conducted within visual range of the “mother ship” Also whilst fire shadow is probably fantastic in a land environment where teh enemy does not routinely deploy SAMS and radar. in the maritime environment it is a slow low moving target. That is maybe why nobody ahs bought the maritime version yet. It would be useful for land attack but not against a Ship with even a PDMS capability.
If your enemy OPV has air defence its goona we close-in or shart range – if it out ranges son-of-sea skua use ship launched Fire Shadow (if you have it (or serveral) up and loitering you can kill in an instant)… If he has harpon or the like, he’ll need to find you to launch. so you stay out of radar range and kill him before he can see you – you can ship CAMM if he has HELO.
Of course if that kind of threat is around you will nkow long before your deployment unless your threat assessment is a cluster.. so you know what to ship.
In reality these vessles will be used in regions with no substantial conventional air or surface, or subsurface threat, but lots of assymetrical threats. so the first mission modules are likely to be to help you gain situational awareness, combat fast attack craft and deploy boarding parties, SF and UAVs, plus some self defence against FAC. Accomodation for C3I and training missions will also be needed.
For me that is Wildcat or Merlin (depending how much lift you deem necessary and how cpaable the surface threat via FACs is), one or two scan eagles or the like, a couple of RHIBS or a RHIB and a CB70, and accomodation modules with a communications suite datalinked to SF, and provsion to accomodate whatever support or training you are providing to rergional forces.
@ APATS
Methinks when those islands are mentioned commentators are talking about a level of capability not another round of Argie-Bargie,
DPA is custard. It smells very, um, khaki.
Nice article – a much appreciated analysis and explanation.
Whilst we could replace 1 type-26 with 3 global coastguard ships, (pirates, for the hunting of,) we don’t actually have a requirement for a global coastguard ship.
Adding the required sensors to the ships, so that it can do the tasks we have an actual requirement for, massively drives up the cost, such that you cannot get 3 for the price of fully (but still modestly) featured warship.
I also agree that the nomenclature of ships is very unclear these days. Anyone got a good idea on what to do about it? (I guess this site could create some formal definitions, which once published, could then be mentioned on wikipedia, citing this site. “Wikisynthesis”, I believe it is called.)
Gun – takes up lots of space and displcement, carries precious little ammuntion, put the platform in danger from counter-battery when in use, has short range and does very little damage compared to precision guided munitions – and has a major impact on design modalities, limiting waht lese you can do with the platform.
Waste of sauce. Need something much more capable to justify sacrificing that much space and cash.
X,
Methinks when those islands are mentioned commentators are talking about a level of capability not another round of Argie-Bargie,
With some of them I am not so sure :)
My answer to them would still stand though, HMG do not beleive that we have to scale the RN to provide escorts for 2 seperate full sized Tgs to enter and operate in a high multi threat environment without Allied support.
MW
Whilst we could replace 1 type-26 with 3 global coastguard ships, (pirates, for the hunting of,) we don’t actually have a requirement for a global coastguard ship.
Adding the required sensors to the ships, so that it can do the tasks we have an actual requirement for, massively drives up the cost, such that you cannot get 3 for the price of fully (but still modestly) featured warship.
Mike Scan eagle as a system is a few million pounds. None of our FFs have it at the moment. The only difference in sensors between a 130 million pound OPV that I have laid out and a T23/T26 is the height of the radar on the mast.
px,
Gun – takes up lots of space and displcement, carries precious little ammuntion, put the platform in danger from counter-battery when in use, has short range and does very little damage compared to precision guided munitions – and has a major impact on design modalities, limiting waht lese you can do with the platform.
Waste of sauce. Need something much more capable to justify sacrificing that much space and cash
Something like a super rapid 76Mm takes up far less space than a VLS system, is far cheaper than using a single shot fire shadow and can be used for a multitude of tasks from warning shots, shot across the bow, non disabling fire, disabling fire etc. All before we use it as deadly force. It plays a crucial role in what we like to call “reasonable escalation of force” and of course ROE. it is also very useful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfqqsv7oinU
px, the Yanks are doing that now with the LCS. Their final evaluation? There are only 2 ports out of Europe and the US that can do a module swap. Bahrain and Singapore. Your “in theatre” swapping is a pipe dream.
It’s definately not plug and play, each drone has a different control system and station, you have to rip out the old one and reinstall the new before it can even be used, which is also why the module swap for the LCS is now said to take days instead of hours.
@ APATS – “I think what I am getting at is that we cannot tailor our forces to fight a Falklands 2.”
I deserve to have the DPA thrown in my face, i have made mention of them often enough myself, but I really am not referring to a re-run of the Falklands when I talk of:
“the maximal ambition of naval power projection: Putting 3Cdo on a beach (plus friends following), with sufficient support to successfully prosecute a minor war.”
I fully understand that under ‘normal’ jogging the ATFG (never sure of the exact acronym), will use roughly half of 3Cdo and roughly half of the amphibs (the half that isn’t in extended readiness).
That said, the SDSR and the attendant DPA were explicitly crafted under the assumptions of the available equipment of the day, and that did not include a second aircraft carrier. Well, now we’ll have two, even if we are not manning them independently as separate CBG groups.
Now, I of course accept that the ATFG will (in future) include one (of two CVF, one (of two LPD’s), and one to two (of three) LSD’s, all I am suggesting is that we will end up with a total capability divisible by a factor of two, with one half in-role while the other is stood down.
That represents a significant – and very valuable – latent resource, that we should not be unable to use in time of need because we lack sufficient escorts to protect that number of HVA’s.
In much the same way the: “committing all our effort to a one-off intervention of up to three brigades, with maritime and air support (around 30,000)” represents our maximal effort, all I am suggesting is that should we take six months to arrange a FI 2.0 scale effort of:
1x CVF
1x CVF (light crewed as a spare deck)
2x LPD
3x LSD
1x LPH
Carrying the [bulk] of 3Cdo in overload.
Along with:
5x Points
Xx Number of STUFT
Carrying a heavy Reaction brigade.
That we are not unable to provide an escort force sufficient to the challenge.
That maximal effort is not defined in the SDSR as a GW type intervention, it merely notes it will compose of 30,000 troops which is “two-thirds of the force deployed to Iraq in 2003”, and clearly it has been overtaken by events given that we (will) have the second carrier.
A statement of intent, no? :)
@ X – “Methinks when those islands are mentioned commentators are talking about a level of capability not another round of Argie-Bargie,”
Indeed.
Sloop-of-war was originally a 12 gun “light frigate” specifically to combat armed merchants, privateers.
Evolved into “colonial sloops”, which policed the empire.
The original Black Swans were a high-end colonial sloop with a wartime convoy escort mission… The Flowers of WW1 were seen as fleet minsweeping ‘sloops’ originally.
I think the idea is a multi-role vessel that can flex from peacetime OPV, MCM etc. missions to warfighting.
Frigate was a ‘cruiser’ (28-44 guns), with global reach but but not a ship of the line “64 guns plus”
Corvette was a French term for something like a sloop (I think sloop casme to us via the Dutch)
Of course it was WW2 that brought in the plethora of terms…
Sloops were in existence, but Corvette and Frigate were brought our of retirement for small and medium sized ASW escorts in RN parlance. Us of course used destroyer-escort for this category – and to confuse this further the RN invesnted Escort-Destroyer, for the Hunts and refitted WW1 vintage destroyers used for convoy duties.
Messy…
px, you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. All your bells and whistles missile systems are ONE SHOTs. The gun is the only thing you have that has a multi-shot capability.
As for damage, do you even know what the rate of fire is on those things? And that they are using explosive shells? Or the fact that 72 rounds of ready ammo on the carrosel takes up less space than a single missile?
You’re just rapsodizing about the latest tech toys like the Yanks are doing. Toys are one thing. Working weapons fit is another.
jedibeeftrix
Where are we going to send that on our own that requires full escort groups for a hot multi threat environment? We sent more troops to the Gulf but with hardly any actual escorting done other than a single ship for chokepoints, a task we were forced to use a Frigate for at every choke point despite the threat being assymetric.
The far most likely deployment of 30k troops would be taht the equipment goes by sea lift to a Port, the majority of troops fly in and mate with the equipment. The Amphib force deploys and poses in thaetre if there is a suitable coast line.
As for “will” have the second carrier, well I will belive it when I see it unfortunately. I think it will be at 90 days notice with an operational carrier handover every 3 years. :(
To be honest, I forsee the carrier sailing in circles just offshore of the Home Islands for very very long periods of time. Years in fact.
@Observer..
No need to get personal, we are all friends here ;)
One shot that hits is a lot better than 72 that fall short or miss.
RoF is good for close-in defence – what is the range of one of those dinky 76mm things?
I think Fire Sdhadow is around 50NM, each munition can loiter for 5 hours at range
However I think their might be osmething wrong with it, as it seems to have gone off the boil as was not deployed to Afghan as planned.
Still there are plenty of precsion systems one could box onto a flexible design to do a lot more damage at range.
I thikn naval gunfore can be useful – 127mm on T26 is definately the way to go – but on these designs – not enough on-the right-target bang for buck.
RE “Nowhere does it say that we should retain the ability to conduct a Division sized *potentially opposed* amphibous assualt 7,000NM away.
If you then read through the SDSR it looks the readiness of forces and clearly indicates that *the second Carrier will be in extended readiness*. ”
On those ** rated bits
– how about, an initial *potentially opposed* BG sized landing, with a bge/ division to follow?
– how about the next SDSR having the two rotating and doing away with any *extended* part of the readiness?
also – one would carry more than one Fire Shadow!
px,
We are talking about an OPV to cover lower scale standing taskings and free up FF/DD hulls and you want to fit silos of siper expensive one shot precsiion weapons that take loads of space and remove the extremely useful gun.
As I have already pointed out this has not only cost and space implications but also can be easily tracked and shot down by a Naval SAM system and is bloody useless for gradual escalation of force and ROE profiles that we have to utilise in constabulary ops.
also – one would carry more than one Fire Shadow!
They are 12 feet long so wont take up much space then.
@ Observer,
Agreed on LCS – but the septics will over cook it. If one can containerise the systems for watchkeeper on land, one can certianly have a containerised kit out for something like a basic scan eagle, if you have a platform to accept the modules.
As I say situational awarness is where it is at – you casn have all the ‘bells and whistles’, in the form of organic guns and missiles, you like, but in reality you need to know where your enemy is and kill him long before he knows where you are. This can be done – is being done in Af-Pak now – Sun Tzu and all that.
@APATS – no, I don’t want to fit them all for war fighting – remember i’m talking about modiular design – this stuff is not organic. But I want a platform that can also be used for warfighting. In my post of 13:52 – 13:59 I set out what the OPV mission fit might look like.
If we buy OPVs its a one trick pony. If we embrace the futre and get someting like a Black Swan, then we have a platform that can do many things in the future – whatever the strategic circumstances.
Not LCS, but a UK solution to a multi-mission ship with both low-end and high-end potential. Initially kitted for low-end, but evoled over time.
px, the problem is not with scaneagle, last reports are that the system works well. Problem is that if you want to fast swap systems, your UAV controls are going to be running your USV and UUVs as well, and THAT is an entirely different kettle of fish.
As for all your Fire Shadow/Wildcat/SAMs, I’ve to ask you one thing. You designing an OPV or a destroyer?
Range of a 76mm is 30km. Sea skua is quoted as 25km.
And you don’t have to tell me about situational awareness, I do C4I. But I also know that it is not the be all and end all. You only win when you get something that goes boom into the target or make him run away, and that is where your suggestions fall short.
as for fire shadow – they have a lightweight launcher – can be fired from the flight deck – you could certainly stow a few on the mission deck if you were doing a fire upport mission from a 3,500t Black Swan.
As i say – I want a platform that could be both OPV or destoryer – not one that is hard wired to be one or the other. As for UUVs and USVs – unlikely one plastform would carry all of them simultaneously. The concept – even in full warfighting mode – wouls have say one in ASW mode, one in MCM mode, one with fires and one in surveillance mode – for example.
And as TD pointed out – maybe the answer is not fast swap just now, although one hopes it can be possible – but between refits.
Px,
As I say situational awarness is where it is at – you casn have all the ‘bells and whistles’, in the form of organic guns and missiles, you like, but in reality you need to know where your enemy is and kill him long before he knows where you are. This can be done – is being done in Af-Pak now – Sun Tzu and all that.
It is being done with UAVS against an opponent with neither the ability to detect or engage them. In constabulary type roles I am a big fan of a UAV as it provided excellent capabilities.
Against a ship with a decent radar and a missile system the UAV would need to stay outside the engagement range but could still possibly fulfill a surveilance role.
Something like a fire shadow as a naval atatck asset would not be any good against even a moderately capable CIWS or PDMS that are designed to hit pop up supersonic sea skimming missles never mind 160kt 12 foot long alraedy tracked targets.
Modular syems will eventually be fantastic and any OPV should be able to operate a UAV and have space for a couple of containers, allowing a decompression chamber, or mobile met team, or maybe even a some form of towed array but for the really complex stuff lets wait until MHPC. All that any OPVs built before then have to be able to do is be capable enough and cheap enough to free up frigates from low end tasking.
As for UUVs and USVs – unlikely one plastform would carry all of them simultaneously. The concept – even in full warfighting mode – wouls have say one in ASW mode, one in MCM mode, one with fires and one in surveillance mode – for example.
So if we lose one we take a big hit on that area and we need at least 3 of them to do what 1 FF/DD can do?
I must admit my ideal of a form of modular fit out runs with each ship maintaing core capabilities but being able to introduce something more specialised if required.
px. 4-8. That is probably the limit. And you know one thing interesting about these “loitering” systems? They have to be human supervised. You launch them, you have to have one human a piece watching them to all the time make sure their little electronic brains don’t decide that an oil tanker is an enemy carrier. And these control systems take up space and weight.
Hello everyone, apologies but due to the vagaries of time zones and delivering my son to his fencing class I am only just starting to read the comments – responses later :-)
Actually APATS, I see nothing wrong with fitting a radar and a 4 pack of Harpoons on an OPV and using them in an FAC role in a pinch. You don’t really need to even fit the Harpoons all the time, “for but not with” would work well on a low end OPV.
@APATS
Some drones are easy to detect, but stealth technology means that UAVs will be present in high threat conflicts, without a doubt. One of their great advantages is that they can be deplyed into a high thrrat environment and take greater risks. Sure you might loose a few, such as the sneitnel over Iran, but Senitnel is stealthy, I’m sure many more have got back in one piece.
I think imagining them as only suited for low threat environments is not where doctrine is going.
And as you said earlier, these OPV fit-outs are for a low thrreat environment.
The Paks have lots of F-16s. They have not managed to get a Predator yet.
@observer
How would the OPV provide over the horizon targetting for the Harpoons?
Refering also the the recent article on OPV cost drivers, it concludes two things drive most of the cost:
(1) Equipment. Sensors, C3, then weapons.
(2) Speed. Looking more deeply, that is mostly installed power; whilst volume has an effect, and beam is cheaper than length, that is not a major source of cost.
I also note that a lot of the propsals for the MHPC end up with it being armed and equipped comparable the type-21’s:
– MCG.
– The cheapest available self defence AAM, which is CAMM these days.
– Helicopter and hanger.
The Amazons were a wonderful cheap patrol frigate – that then got retired early because they had no space for upgrades.
So, not quite such good value for money after all.
So, what I’d really like looked at, is the cost of a massively de-fitted type-26. That is: take the baseline for the GP version, and rip out hardware until you get it down to the equipment fit equivalent to the old type-21’s.
– No Artisan.
– Cheapest MCG we can get.
– The only missiles being CAMM, and not many of them. 2 batteries of 12 as a baseline.
– Remove all the gas turbines, make it diesel only.
– Either no permenantly allocated helicopter, or a cheaper one. (It is a base to which a helo could deply to, in response to events, rather than a 24/7/52 helo capability.)
As per the earlier article on the cost drives of OPVs, keeping the volume, and hull, of the type-26 should not be expensive.
But doing so (obviously) allows it to receive through-life upgrades all the way to the high-end type-26, e.g. if one of the 13 “complete” type-26 sweeps a mine (once).
px, you don’t. You work under your own IAD net to equalise.
And as for the Pred, oh yes they have.
Px,
What you have to remember is a Ship with a search radar is the very equivelant of what drones are programmed to avoid in the land environment. Ships radars and ops rooms are designed to compile the air and surface picture around them. So a drone flying within the detection threshhold of an sea based air search radar has a much higher chance of being detected. Of course some drones are stealthy and if you read my posts again you will see I am all infavour of using them for ISTAR purposes.
Without being disparaging to Pakistan, their Inetgrated air defence Network for what it is worth is pointing towards India and not looking for Predator drones in the Tribal North.
What I was pointing out is that something like a fire shadow loitering munition has virtually no chance of penetrating the Defences of even a moderately equipped ship.
And as you said earlier, these OPV fit-outs are for a low thrreat environment
Precisely why we do not need to spend millions on a loitering precsion munition when a 76MM super rapid STRALES will do everything we want it to and more at a fraction of the price and the space.
MW
We do not know how much CAMM will cost and without Artisan you cannot TI the missile in the first place. Also by changing the propulsion we need to go back and do some redesign and alter loads of internals.
How would the OPV provide over the horizon targetting for the Harpoons?
Organic helo, MPA, submarine, sattelite, same as a T23 does but hopefully with the option of a UAV as well.
so who is providing the IAD net – in say Kenya?
you might be right on Pak ;)
If your OPV is in Kenya, you bloody well better be Kenyan.
Hehe…
So to summarize, I think a larger modular vessel – of the small LPD or SIMMS style – that could test out some of these systems and provide a good “mother ship” for the CT, counter-pircacy, support to regional forces, disaster response mission – using offboard systems such as helo and fast boats over a ‘ship chasing’ doctrine would be preferable over a mini-frigate or OPV sole purpse design.
and the mission we are talking about will be in East Africa, Indian Ocean, Gulf and Gulf of Guinea, not UK waters.
@px – ” I want a platform that could be both OPV or destoryer” – I think this is why you got the dreaded LCS letters thrown at you; like the yanks you are being too ambitious, trying to cram too many tasks into one platform.
@Mike Wheatley – “So, what I’d really like looked at, is the cost of a massively de-fitted type-26” – Yes, pretty much what I had in mind when I suggested extending the run on T26. No reason to stop at 13 hulls then look to design/build another one, when all you want is something that can deploy remote MCM vehicles, a marine detachment with RHIBs, a helo and/or UAVs, with some medium guns and perhaps (fitted for but not with?) a SAM system.
Your point about upgradeability is well made.
px,
So to summarize, I think a larger modular vessel – of the small LPD or SIMMS style – that could test out some of these systems and provide a good “mother ship” for the CT, counter-pircacy, support to regional forces, disaster response mission – using offboard systems such as helo and fast boats over a ‘ship chasing’ doctrine would be preferable over a mini-frigate or OPV sole purpse design.
That is fair enough but it can only be in one place at a time and can only deploy for so long a year. Gven this and its higher costs how does it help us conduct standing tasks in a manner that frees up FF/DD resources without extra money being spent?
Also if all you want is a UAV/Helo and fast Boats we can do taht from an OPV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Insitu_ScanEagle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AgustaWestland_AW159_Wildcat
http://www.defensie.nl/english/navy/materiel/ships/motor_boats/frisc
Does it have to be higher cost? £65M is estimate for Black Swan. If the first batch are kitted out for OPV missions can be as affordable as an OPV, and also have the potential to develop the concept.
px,
What does 65 million buy you? If 130 million buys you 1 fully kitted out 95M OPV what are you going to get for 65 million worth of a bigger hull. It is no use to man nor beast without systems of some sort. Now if they are integral to the ship the overall cost will inevitably be higher. than the OPV. If they are not then they neeed to be developed. To give you an idea of cost fire shadow cost 78 million pounds in 2008 for development costs alone.
So the more complex systems we need to make a Black Swan useful are going to cost more. Then if each ship as you have only has partial capabilities based on which ever module is fitted we need a few to give the whole package and end up with a Billion pound squadron chasing Pirates instead of a 130 million pound OPV.
Modular systmes may be the future but the US are showing us that the future is not cheap.
They don’t need fire shadow for OPV ops – they need.
– scan eagle or similar UAV
– Wildcat
– small boats – whatever fast assualt craft RM eventually get
Both wildcat and thr boats will be budgetted elsewhere, although soem omre would not go amiss.. maybe with Hellfire or Javalin on the FACs if you wish.
That’s it.
The £65m includes a 30mm self protection mount and mini-guns.
@ Jedi
I think the MoD assumptions on what the post-2015 80,000 men army will be able to take on, given the performance in Afghanistan where the problem was never ever quality but quantity, is a tad optimistic.
Better to plan and resource for a brigade (say 5,000) across the beach when and where we choose for two months to achieve a clear objective than plan to have 6,000 (a good chunk of which will be Jack and Kevin) in a Third World rhubarb hole for 6 months and then another 6 months and another 6 months while sacrificing the lives of brightest and best for an uncertain (probably shifting) objective or indeed objectives.
That’s enough to do the conter-drugs, counter piracy mission.
Can then look as other mission fits for whatever is coming along next…
SF support, Fires if you wish, MCM, droggie, ASW, etc. etc.
@ X – “better to plan and resource for a brigade (say 5,000) across the beach when and where we choose for two months to achieve a clear objective”
110%
px,
They don’t need fire shadow for OPV ops – they need.
– scan eagle or similar UAV
– Wildcat
– small boats – whatever fast assualt craft RM eventually get
Both wildcat and thr boats will be budgetted elsewhere, although soem omre would not go amiss.. maybe with Hellfire or Javalin on the FACs if you wish.
That’s it.
Excellent so we just use a cheap OPV instead of a properly equipped one with absoloutely no defence against a shoulder launched rocket or missile and without launching the helo a max surface negagement range of 3000M?
The £65m includes a 30mm self protection mount and mini-guns.
It also includes a top speed of 18kts and an economical speed of 12kts. Built to Merchant vessel standards, so not citadel and damage control becomes far more difficult.
It includes manning based on an Astute class submarine (guaranteed to make them popular given the manning available on CVF/T26 and T45 by this time) people will be queing up for that draft.
It does not include the development costs of the systems required to make them effective and as they are envisaged to operate in squadrons of 4 to 6 units we are alrady into hundreds of millions before a penny spent on systems development for 1 AOR.
If we want to do modular we should do it but stop trying to kid ourselves on we can do it on the cheap.
So build a Black swan sized vessel with proper accomadation but put the 76MM STRALES and 3 SEAHAWK SIGMA on it, give it a CMS and a citadel, ensure it has a decent range.speed and radar and a helo. Then leave the space for MCM/Droggy/ASW/UUV/USV/UAV fleet etc.
Do it properly. Advantages being we would not need 4 to 6 of these in a flotilla just 1 with the mission kit for its specialised task.
I’m starting to think the harsh reality is that without any extra cash injected into the surface fleet we won’t be able to reach anything like a ‘good’ situation, any direction you look results in a trade off.
I’m beginning to think that this is the most rational approach…
Firstly build the 2 stretched Clyde’s at Portsmouth (enough to keep the shipyard ticking over as a bonus), deploy one to the Falklands allowing Clyde herself to return to the UK and bolster the Fisheries squadron and station the other-one at Gibraltar to try and reign in Spanish sabre rattling (although being based at Gib the ship could also move around the Med a bit providing British ‘presence’ and exercising with partner nations). With stuff like a 76mm and Sea-Hawk Sigma and so on they would have a bit more of a punch than the original Rivers. Crucially as well I think one of these ships deployed down south is enough of a standing commitment when one looks at the pitiful state of the Argentine Navy and Air-force. We could easily save ourselves a high-end escort this way.
Secondly we should strive to get as much out of T26 as possible, aiming for at least 13 ships and if necessary really stripping down some of the general purpose hulls in order to spread the money and buy a couple more. Ideally of course id also like to see more money obtained to buy some extra hulls without any trade off’s but of course that’s far easier said than done!
Thirdly as El Sid suggested yesterday really start to think about rolling out some of the MHPC ships (in whatever form they take) after the money for T26 has been secured and put to use but before we need to start buying up expensive mine-hunting and survey kit to replace the current fleets, I’m guessing at some point in the mid 2020’s. The pricey stuff can be added later, but getting some basic patrol ships out of the programme first could be the way to go.
My opinion on this whole matter changes daily! However right now I’m really thinking we need to tweak these existing or planned projects to get the most out of them, rather than re-inventing the wheel with a whole different class of vessels. We should of course aim for greater numbers of ships to cover our many standing tasks, just in addition to rather than in place of our primary and ‘core’ high-end assets.
Hmmm
Well cheap OPV it is not – its 3,500t multi-mission vessel that can do lots of expansion.
Why does speed matter if it has 360 sueveillance, 40kt fast attack craft and a HELO? I don;t see where this fits in any potential doctine?
You can design the concept however you – like – if you want to kit is out like a cruise ship do so… probably burnt quickewr like than anyway..
what happens if you need anthoer mission and you only have your little super-OPV – you needc ot buld a new ship…
Modular systems will proivide you with both flexibility and cost savings
BTW £78M to develop fire shadow is pretty cheap for a new system.
I think it was £170M plus to turn T26 into a pretty concept, let alone develop it as a wroking system.
px,
78 Million was in 2008 alone mate, the system is still not inservice and my Calendar says 2013.
You can design the concept however you – like – if you want to kit is out like a cruise ship do so… probably burnt quickewr like than anyway..
You have served? You are aware of the problems having submarine standard accomadation will cause manning these things? The discipline problems that will occur and also that like submariners they will have to stay in hotels for every port visit and have off ship cabins in their base port. Which will require more money both for hotels and construction of extra SLA as the current stuff is full. Another example of why we should not try and do this on the cheap.
Why does speed matter if it has 360 sueveillance, 40kt fast attack craft and a HELO? I don;t see where this fits in any potential doctine?
It has to self deploy to where it is needed.
what happens if you need anthoer mission and you only have your little super-OPV – you needc ot buld a new ship…
No I deploy one of the other 4 I built for the cost of the one squadron.
Hehe –
Yes i think it was developed cost effectively though. I think its been priodcued, although you right not where its gone now – pity that.
Why does need to self-deploy at high speed? Cruise is cruise – fuel burn and all that. And these ships are gouing to be on station are they not?
What if the mission is not an OPV mission? MCM, disaster relief, an amphibious operation, over the horizon fire support, ASW?
BS don’t have to operate as a squadron – that was the warfighting concept. and you will also have four BS – maybe more for your money,
APATS,
“4. If the rest of South America got involved we do not have a credible military response.”
You’ve said this twice now and I disagree we very, very much have a credible defence it just depends on how much Clancy you’ve read ;-).
px,
The longer it takes to get on station you need more Ships to maintain presence on station.
What if the mission is not an OPV mission? MCM, disaster relief, an amphibious operation, over the horizon fire support, ASW?
That is why we have Amphibs, MCMVs, RFA, Frigates and Destroyers.
BS don’t have to operate as a squadron – that was the warfighting concept. and you will also have four BS – maybe more for your money,
You will not even get 2 for the price of an 90M OPV and taht is with all the limitations I have already pointed out and absoloutely no money spent developing any gucci systems.
BS is a concept but it is not practicable or effective on the cheap which is what we seem to be kidding ourselves we can do.
Simon,
I cannot talk about that on here :)
On accomodation – I agree the concept is a bit tongue in cheek I think – but I has got out of hand – recruitment is an issue, and discipline. But a 3,400t hull has much more potential for good accomodation standards than a 2,000t hull.
Submariners are plain odd anyway…
@APATS,
Maybe you are right, but I’ll stick with the idea that we are clinging onto a mythologised past of flotillas of fast ships steaming into gunfights.
I thnk that is cloud cookoo. And to imabine that UAVs and HELOs and fast assualt craft are less useful or potent than a 76mm popgun or a cluster of harpoons in the wars we are fighting, is also dreamland.
Signing off for now
Very interesting discussions and thanks for all the thought provoking ideas and tough debating.
James
To imabine that UAVs and HELOs and fast assualt craft are less useful or potent than a 76mm popgun or a cluster of harpoons in the wars we are fighting, is also dreamland.
I proposed UAV and helos and FRISC but I also know we need a gun.
px said “Maybe you are right, but I’ll stick with the idea that we are clinging onto a mythologised past of flotillas of fast ships steaming into gunfights.”
Bless.
APATS said “we need a gun”
Brings a lump to me throat so it does. You do get it that navies are for sinking other navies. I thought you were a lost cause….. ;)
“Better to plan and resource for a brigade (say 5,000) across the beach when and where we choose for two months to achieve a clear objective than plan to have 6,000 (a good chunk of which will be Jack and Kevin) in a Third World rhubarb hole for 6 months and then another 6 months and another 6 months while sacrificing the lives of brightest and best for an uncertain (probably shifting) objective or indeed objectives.”
You can plan for it, but events won’t give you it.
Reality is messy.
You decide what you may need to reasonably achieve and provide the capabilities. You don’t get a say in how long it will take. If it is too big a job for us then we have to build a coalition which historically we are very, very good at.
We managed it in Afghan although belatedly.
I just cannot understand why people are so blinkered when it comes to coalitions. I don’t think we have ever fought a war since the year dot where we haven’t increased our combat effectiveness through alliances, coalitions and diplomacy.
I am always cautious the term “modular”.
– It is sufficiently wooly as to mean anything, and hence nothing.
– Modularity can occur at a great many levels, of increasing expense. (E.g. FREMM is a modular design at the build and refit level, in that a common production line can produce all the variants, and a ship could be refitted into another variant.)
– It is often assumed to be a synonym of “good”, but even if implemented perfectly, it is not a good idea for all situations.
– The chassis (hull) is, itself, one of the most important modules.
The idea of a modular ship is:
(1) save money by (2) building fewer of the expensive exotic systems that we only need sometimes, and (3) installing those systems only when needed.
Note that modularity has a cost: the components need to have plugs (physical & combat system) installed on them, and the ship needs to be built with sockets. The design of these interfaces place limits on future modules.
This means it is only worth using modularity if:
– The system is expensive.
– You only need to use it sometimes.
Also:
– If you make the plug-socket interface too broad in what it can accept, then its cost skyrockets, which defeats the point of going modular.
For example:
– Sylver is a modular socket for missiles.
– The hanger is a modular socket as well.
– The crew quarters are the modular socket for the most expensive component of all, the crew.
So, which systems are worth making modular?
APATS
“If we built 8 or 9 for the price of 3 GP t26 and they took over 1 of the E of Suez taskings you are immediately FF/DD availability neutral.”
You can even save on design costs:
http://www.fassmer.de/index.php?id=191
There a very detailed pdf worth a download on that link and it shows a hull pretty much tailor made to fit the specification you have indicated. Fassmer designs are historically pitched at reasonable cost. The 5 smaller 1800ton 80m OPV designs, from the same outfit, the Argentinians are building are being bought for $120mn!. Thats bare hull and built in local yards, but, its still mind-numbingly cheap!.
My view is that options exist to get the additional patrol capability out of the MHPC hulls, if we build them right (optimised for rotary air/UAV and UUV/small boat deployment/TAS tug ops) and get somewhere near 16 units. If we have the right idea for MHPC we can get the force multiplier there and leave the FFG fleet numbers as they are.
That said if someone said we were shedding 3 26’s in favour of a dozen of these 90m Fassmers or a couple less of a Holland derived class I’d certainly cope with that.
px?
piss-take?
Or Jed himself, having some fun, for Take 2?
Can I ask those that are proposing this Falklands 2 task force were they see us requiring this and when we’ve deployed at this level since ww2 outside of the Falklands. Also if I read apas comments right having a extra carrier or Lpd attached to a task group In one area doesn’t necessarily mean the ff/dd compliment for that forces goes up. I doubt we have enough merlins available to support a second carrier high end asw requirement
I read this all I cant get past the Spanish BAMs vessel . 2 or 3 mods to the basic ship would be the NBC citadel, link 16 and possibly an ice strengthened hull. This ship will conduct
• Protection of merchant shipping
• Maritime search and rescue operations
• Surveillance and control of environmental issues
• Surveillance and control of fishing
• Logistic and medical support to smaller ships
• Humanitarian relief operations
• Intelligence gathering
• Operations against the traffic of people and drug smuggling
• Control and neutralisation of terrorist actions and pirate activities
• Inward and outward transport of Special Forces
• Naval presence
In my views ideal for Caribbean, Falklands, all around Africa and the med. having these ships on these standing patrols doesn’t mean a frigate doesn’t ever go there they can pop in from time to time you just don’t have to allocate the 3:1 drum beat to maintain a frigate there all the time. Crew requirements is important and what we get needs to operate a similar number to what it is replacing we could do that with 12 -16 of these type of vessels replacing 4 type 23. The Spanish managed to design an build 4 of these vessels for 480m euro why cant we do the same? The is a gd case to be made to have the 2nd cvf and Lpd in a more normal high/low readiness cycle going into 2015 but the crew numbers and cost that would entail should also be considered when thinking of standing tasks.
What happened to those 114mm guns from the retired T42s? If sitting in a shed they would provide a cheap gun for the new OPV/light frigate. My vote is for something around 2800 tons like the RN light frigates of the 50s/60s.
@ACC,
No not a piss take (we can be, but not here). Just interested in innovation – new approaches to old problems. What interested me about black Swan was that the concept talks about moving away from platforms to systems (i know its old talk – and look where FRES got us!), but the idea that you rpcure the systems – CAMM, Harpoon, 75mm Strales, Wildcat, low freqiuency towed array… and that is your defence focus. Then you have a pretty basic moducal carrier – a kind of cheap naval “PC” – to plug this into…
Why do we need OPVs?
The RNs posture from pretty much 1939 onwards (with a brief hiatus in the Pacific in 1945) has been Atlantic focussed ASW/MCM. Carrier strike was a very useful but secondary function (which we nearly lost in the ’70s – saved only by clever marketing by the RN of the Invincibles as through-deck ASW cruisers.
But the strategic reality was clear – even after 1982, most of the effort and resources were invested into a plan for 26 “cheap” ASW only T23s (but with Merlin) with six forts multi-role RFAs to keep them at sea (with Sea Wolf to protect them from SSMs and 6 Merlins), ten Upholders, the original “Rivers” (a kind of low-cost RNVR MCMV) to complement the Hunts and “Challenger” to maintain the undersea sensor infrastructure – and probably a less capable T42 replacement. There was no thought of CVF.
In the event 1989 saw only 16 T23 completed but to a much more capable standard – to allow them to operate solo and beyond the north Atlantic in the context of a higher air threat. Upholders and Challenger cancelled or sold and the same with the Rivers and the MCM and SSN numbers gradually wound down. Onyl 2 forts were built to conventional replenishment fit.
CVF came about in the 1997 SDR, which saw a refocusing on a new reality – the spreading of a new world order – in which an expeditionary capability to deliver TLAM and carrier strike, but much more prominently to support amphibious operations to bring peace and plenty to a conflict ridden world (I’m joking here!) were to become the centre piece of naval strategy again – in the aftermath of Gulf1 and Bosnia, both of which has seen these assets much in demand. T45 got bigger and more capable to defend these expeditionary assets (12 were promised), in addition to Albion and Bulwark, the Bays and RFA heavy sealift ships were ordered, along with the 2 Waves. SSNs got TLAM at this time too.
Three things had occurred since:
9/11 – this cannot be emphasised more. It brought a profound refocusing on the asymmetric and a new understanding of strategic vulnerability as “system-wide” in the global economy, not necessarily related to nation-on-nation conflict. It also brought about enduring low intensity deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, which had very few naval components, and resulted in a running down of the fleet to pay for higher-priority kit and operations.
2008 global economic crisis. This also not only impacted on budgets, but also brought about grater realisation of economic vulnerability in the global system, and a final recognition of a rebalancing of global economic power away from the Atlantic to towards the Pacific and Indian Ocean.
And then Libya – less profound – but at the right moment suddenly proved that projecting force through naval power was a necessity (and taken with the Argentine sabre rattling that incoming tory defence cutting administrations also seem to get wrong)….
So what is left? US are concerned that in an era of growing non-aligned military power Europe is not pulling its weight (especially after Libya, which was Europe’s show, Europe’s strategic interest and yet combined European force could not do it without the US). Thus while there is not a credible Atlantic threat – apart from Argentina – we need to be able to pull our weight in a strategic expeditionary operation. And where is that going to take place? Indian Ocean, Gulf, Pacific – on FI2 would demand that capability in the Atlantic.
So 1st base is being able to put a CVBG anywhere on a fairly short leash – we are stuck with CVF which will gobble up inordinate amounts of the defence budget to provide a capability that is too big for pretty much everything we will require. Three smaller ships – hanging onto Harrier and then getting F-35 in due course would have been a much better plan. But we are stuck with CVF, so we need to get them into action.
2nd base is being able to project force again as we did in the 19th century – in support of, and working closely with our regional allies.
This is the “OPV” task – not coastguard, not colonial sloop, but regional maritime C3I – and all the extra capability requires – for HMGs strategic alliances (Phil’s post is very good on this).
On the Falklands 2 (assuming by some idiocy we actually lost them again) or more reasonably that we had to do something like them again (with regional allies but not the US for example)
What went wrong in Falklands?
1. Air defence: especially no AEW, not enough Sea Harrier and having major warships inshore and un-manoeuvrable with crap anti-air. No effective counter to air defences.
2. Surface attack – Longer range anti-ship strike and something better than a Mk 13 torpedo, better ability to find and intercept small blockade runners
3. Land attack – especially ability to take out airfields, dug in positions and artillery
4. Surveillance and early warning – bugger all capacity really, we did amazingly well with mark one eyeball + SIGINT and what Uncle Sam would give us most of the time. We were lucky to have lost Atlantic Conveyor and not Invincible.
5. Armour/mobility for RM
6. Inadequate sealift, replenishment and casualty receipt capacity
So the answer is?
1. CVF+ T45 to be able to provide air dominance, or superiority at minimum, every ship with effective CIWS, ALARM and much better long range land attack to deal with AAA and SAM sites.
2. Long range anti-ship capability from F-35, and SSNs, better short range anti-ship from Wildcat, SSNS armed with something a little more potent.
3. F-35s with Paveway and brimstone and ALARM, SSNs and or T45 with TLAM and/or Fire Shadow give long range precision land attack, Apache on Ocean?
4. ASaC Merlin – at minimum, ship launched MALE UAVs, Desert Hawk with ground forces, Global HawK? NOT use DDs as radar picket!
5. Viking/Warthog + ASCOD Scout, and plenty of Merlin/Chinook from 2nd CV/Lusty/Ocean? Do
6. Fast attack craft provide inshore force protection with LPDs rather than valuable frigates. LPDs and LSLs all have CIWS. Fires to support ground forces provided at longer range by precision guided land attack missiles, Apache and F-35s.
7. Ro-Ro sealift vessels deployed, + MARS in full, + Argus.
Would ASW be a frigate task, or could CVs do it thmselves? and if so – to do any of these war-fighting tasks would we really need frigates?
CAMM is also the replacement to Rapier, so we know it is going to be very cheap.
It is guidance agnostic, with any system queing it onto the target before its own actiuve guidance takes over. The itself missile is common with the land based system, and they certainly aren’t going to be queued by Artisan!
The T-26 power system CODOG, so it already includes diesel, and is already capable of operating with the gas turbines switched off. Of the two, I would look at keeping just the diesel sets, as they are by far the heavier, and I wouldn’t want to risk upsetting the center of gravity etc.
M W
You have to see the target and fire the missile towards it before its active seeker head takes over this is done by Artisan via the command system data link.
Are you proposing to use the navigation radar to update the command system and detect threats?
px,
“Would ASW be a frigate task, or could CVs do it thmselves? and if so – to do any of these war-fighting tasks would we really need frigates?”
It costs a huge amount in terms of the logistics train to maintain copter ASW (avcat). Frigates tow 2087 to detect, and deploy Merlin to intercept and prosecute. It is a very cost-effective way of doing ASW.
Effective air defence on a large ship takes space for the VLS, this takes up deck space which should be used for aviation or supply roles. A frigate with Sea Ceptor can protect another ship. A T45 can protect an entire task group assuming it is hooked into the AEW squadron :-(
The logistics train I spoke about needs protecting with escorts since the most efficient way of moving fuel oil is via a tanker (which sink very effectively). Again, frigates are needed here.
The current RN frigates are sized to provide escort capability (and associated endurance) in the smallest and cheapest platform.
Can’t we just wait until the MHPC studies pan out before wasting money on potentially half arsed OPV’s? Personally I can see us spending a couple of million on this generating a whole new set of requirements and maintenance contracts now only to then start replacing them in 7/8 odd years when son of Black Swan or whatever MHPC ends up being starts to come on line.
Given that the Dutch, Spanish and French currently have vessels that have modular fit capabilities and have a reasonably modest sensor fit plus 76mm ‘pop gun’, hangers for choppers and the ability to deploy fast/ish boats I’d have thought asking the Dutch and French about their experiences with their vessels would be a ‘good’ idea. Given the fifty year pact with France surely leveraging French experiments with UUV’s and patrol type vessels would be somewhat sensible given that France is doing the same with the UK for TUAS expertise.
Personally funding yet more studies when we already have C3/Black Swan/MHPC seems slightly pointless and a waste of more money given that our short range AEW capability appears to be being ‘gapped’ and we are looking to mount UAS on our existng vessels fairly urgently.
Given that CVF and T26 are going to be taking up the ship building capacity I don’t see that panic buying an entire platform like it’s a UOR is actually going to give us what we actually want or need long term?
Personally I like the Venator and Hollande concepts utilising a fitted for but not with for certain components of those designs and doing it after T26 has been designed and is in build seems to match up with 2020ish for MHPC and hopefully allow for a spiral development path instead of the T45 massively expensive experience.
Hey, px
So your quotes were ranging shots?
I can see you are not my long-lost friend, Bob, as you want ‘one’ of everything that is any good (Bob was on about AFVs)
But I like you anyway, sorry about the barbed start
px.
“…we are stuck with CVF which will gobble up inordinate amounts of the defence budget to provide a capability that is too big for pretty much everything we will require…”
Although I do agree that we should have replaced Vince, Lusty, Ark and Ocean with 4 smaller ships it’s interesting to point out that CVF will consume the same amount of fuel and require less personel to run than Vince + Ocean together. In wartime I don’t think we would ever have seen a single Invincible sail alone, we would always have put another alongside… we did even in Op. Palliser!
The problem is when we only need to do a Libya (no fly) or small intervention. This is why I hope we’ll procure 2 x LHD in due course so that we can embark 8 F35 + 12 Merlin for smaller ops leaving CVF to undertake the larger ops (Palliser, FI, GW1, GW2, etc).
Hi Simon, what are those numbers?
” point out that CVF will consume the same amount of fuel and require less personel to run than Vince + Ocean together”
– and how much AVCAT (as opposed to consume, by the platform itself
I’d like a whole fleet of small LHD type vessels that could do most anything with the right assets aboard… keep CVF, scrap the rest. ;)
ACC,
I’m working on 500t DIESO per week for Vince/Ocean and 1000t per week on CVF.
Ocean: 1500t DIESO for 3 week cruise (7500-8000nm) + no steaming.
Vince: 2000t DIESO for 3 week cruise + 1 week on task steaming.
CVF: 5000t DIESO for 4 week cruise (10,000nm) + 1 week on task steaming.
AVCAT is a different matter because F35 will eat about 3t of AVCAT per hour in the air whereas Harrier would eat about 2t. Apples and pears ;-) Merlin will chew up less than 1t per hour.
So perhaps I should have said that CVF with Harrier and Merlin would be about the same as Vince+Ocean with Harrier and Merlin. I keep saying that F35 requires about 1.5 times the logistic train as Harrier :-)
Simon,
I don’t want to be provocative (really). But beyond towing 2087 (which is a situaltional awarenessa that could be delivered in many ways), what exactly is “escort capability”. I mean how are these ships making the CVs safer?
px,
VLS with Sea Ceptor?
Harpoon (or equivalent)?
Merlin ready to go on dedicated spot?
130-150m of steel between the enemy and the escortee?
Not really sure what you’re getting at?
px said “2087 (which is a situaltional awarenessa that could be delivered in many ways”
Do tell how?
hehe
I like last one – improbable but really the most useful.
F-35 kills all that shit far away, Merlin is about being in place not waiting for a ship to tell it where to go (that was Wasp -rember wasp!)
ok – there is his old fashioned thing called a sonabuoy
also there is 2067 towed by a Black Swan?
or a trawler
or a well trained blue whale
Don*t need a frigate.
Hello all !
Interesting discussion, but no one has convinced me yet of the value of purchasing additional OPV’s for the RN.
There seem to be a couple of key themes;
1. What can be purchased instead of GP version of T26 – with an aim to buying more than 5 and freeing up the ‘core’ ASW T26 for ‘real’ military tasking (task force ASW work)
2. A move towards a ‘fighty’ vessel, thus more Corvette than OPV – one with a “real war role”, this requiring more expensive sensors and weapons
3. Not much discussion of the tasking really
4. To be honest not much “out of the box” thinking, nothing overly contentious !
I have no problem with RN vessels having a war fighting role – it is a military service but that leads back to:
1. The MHPC – if the CDS wants us to do more MSO type tasking, start building them now perhaps ? Maybe the first ones could be considered “flight 1” vessels, prototypes only able to do OPV / MSO tasking, no true multi-role M or H capabilities ..?
2. GP T26 – again build the GP versions first, shake them down as patrol frigates working alongside existing T23 before replacing them with full on ASW variant.
However if we do interpret the CDS remarks as wanting more low end hulls to do more low end constabulary tasking, then how about we forget giving such vessels a ‘war role’ at all ? How about we use the avenues available to us to maximise value e.g.
1. Use existing civillian designs, and build in foreign yards
2. Utilize the merchant marine and the Blue Ensign via the Government agency of the RFA
Which pretty much takes use all the back round to TD’s SIMSS concept :-)
At one point above px asked why speed was important for a “mother ship” carrying one or more hello or 40 knt’s plus CB90 type boats – when we originally discussed SIMSS and building it on an existing civvy Ulstein design, I supported Jedibeeftrix’s call to go smaller and use the Ulstein SX119 because it has a higher top speed, because to get back to px’s question, for MSO tasking you need to be able to get an intercept on a modern merchie doing 20 kts plus by getting close enough to launch your hello or “go fasts”.
So far I think the discussion is continuing to push me away from a 76mm armed gun boat, or missile armed corvette, and back towards the SIMSS concept.
Oh, and by the way , in what universe is said 76mm armed gun boat stationed in Gib going to be opening fire on vessels belonging to our EU partners and NATO allies Spain ?
I wonder what the situation will be once the T26 production line is in full swing. Their are many ifs, but assuming the costs remain reasonable, the ships themselves turn out to be a good product and we see some half decent exports I wouldn’t find it surprising if the RN got some additional hulls.
I know it’s a long way off and subject to a lot of variables, but I try to remember that the plan has always been to acquire ‘at least’ 13 ships. A successful programme, coupled with a yearning for force multipliers could produce a growth past a 19 ship escort fleet, lets hope so anyway!
@ px
Thank you.
BTW before we go too far what do you think of container ships?
Nice things, not good in a blow – my old man loved them!
Simon
As an aside I’m surprised by your per hour in flight figure as harrier config with 2 drop tanks would mean it would have about 1tn of fuel less than an f35b on internals per sortie if they were being fully fuelled on take-off.
That container shiip helo concept in the 1970s.. right thre!
px,
“F-35 kills all that shit far away”
I assume you’ve parked CVF over an oil well then?
It costs to maintain CAP (unless you’re on Ready5 and think a Mach3 ASM does not exist). An escorts simply bobs around using almost no fuel waiting ;-)… much more efficient. In fact I’d guess CAP by F35B will cost about 1000t AVCAT each week!
F35 will have trouble figuring out where the sub is without an escort.
“…Merlin is about being in place not waiting for a ship to tell it where to go…”
Err, I kind of think you’re wrong about that but will let someone else put me right :-)
Simon says “Err, I kind of think you’re wrong about that but will let someone else put me right”
I hope not he is funny.
Well obviously if you have good intel, and are at war and in the zone you put up CAP? I’m making these asumptions. If not you do not have a good threat assessmwent, well you are sunk anyway no? HMS Glorious famously did not (to save AVGAS?) – sunk by S&G I think.
Merlin does ASW, F-35 does ASW, I guess?
Well obviously if you have good intel, and are at war and in the zone you put up CAP? I’m making these asumptions. If not you do not have a good threat assessmwent, well you are sunk anyway no? HMS Glorious famously did not (to save AVGAS?) – sunk by S&G I think.
Merlin does ASW, F-35 does AAW, I guess?
And the one thing CVF gives us if we buy enough airframes – is the ability to put up enough CAP, and enough ASW.
BYW check out the WW2 stats for no of subs sunk by escorts – its depressingly low compared to aviation.
ok ;)
Apols for the bad language folks..
Only catching up with the thread, but yes, Simon, you should have
“perhaps I should have said that CVF with Harrier and Merlin would be about the same as Vince+Ocean with Harrier and Merlin. I keep saying that F35 requires about 1.5 times the logistic train as Harrier :-)”
– that makes a platform of 1 with the persistence of 2 and the capability of not 3 but 5, or 9 or over?
This is another thread really – but you have to look at Harrier capability vs. F35 to make sense of that.
So why are frigates essential? – no compelling answrs yet – apart from well we should have a gun (bless)
so pi in front of the ” x ” really is part of the the formula?
As in ” (pi) has been studied since ancient times, and so has the concept of irrational number ”
Maybe, as in Afghanistan, when I was there in the 70’s
” my friend, you are not my friend any more”
Please try to start to make some sense
@jed re your last post
My thoughts, along probably with many others do ‘shift’ on this interesting debate, but your idea of building ‘flight 1’ MHPCs has more sense than just building two extra River type craft. Getting two T26s early , even if lean equipped also makes sense; to ensure the basic design works and as someone has said, hulls in the water will help any (increasingly remote) chance of export sales.
If there is any money around, eg to support Portsmouth or sat in a future MHPC budget than acceleration of existing proposals on those lines rather than a stop gap or new corvette approach would seem the most effective route. I still can’t comprehend why we are still 3 years from pressing the button on T26 line and possibly 9 years from first of class in service (and 9 years after first FREMMs hit the water).
As for what the ‘PC’ flight 1 version of MHPC will look like, then 90-100m, with weapons / sensor fit as described by APATs and some modularity for future kit. Whether it looks like a Holland, extended River / Venator / black Swan is less important. I think the overall Black Swan concept is too radical, and that Holland is possibly too ‘mini frigate’. Something more Venator / utility style is probably the route to go.
4 extra vessels – early – would take the heat of of shortage of numbers for current taskings. I wouldn’t look at any additional SIMMs type class – spend a bit of money in adapting Bays more to the mothership role, eg some sort of telescopic hanger and factor those features into any follow on class
Some of the valid SIMMs concepts could be trialled in a more permanent HMS Endurance / HMS Protector replacement
MickP
I hear ya buddy, always thought the BMT Venator concept looked like it was heading in the right direction for a multi role hull for the old C3 requirement.
However………….
I really think “going big” makes sense for the MSO tasking, if we accept that the vessel may have a military “war role” only as an auxiliary , rather that as a primary surface fleet unit (or even a secondary one for that matter).
Which to be honest bring us back to politics and the Defence-Industrial Policy. Do we think it is more important to get more ship for less money, or do we think it is more important to safeguard ship building jobs in Portsmouth ?
As an ex-Guzz and Rosyth rating, who truly hated being in “dog sh*t city” , I say “screw em” and build else where – which for my idea is less contentious than we might think because we are already building auxiliaries in South Korean yards :-)
Oh and the reason to go big, well, for me the value add in MSO tasking is being able to carry and operate multiple helos, go fast boats and UAV’s, from a simple and cheap “mother” – a “poor mans A salon” if you like.
I would generally seek build RN front line ships in Uk yards to keep the skills base – so that’s Astute / T26 / MHPC / Albion follow ons etc. T26 / MHPC, especially if we pull them forward should keep sufficient skills in work
RFAs / support type ships – to the best bider and if its Korea as with the Mars, then so be it
Don’t disagree on the broader MSO piece. Perhaps we should do a ‘USS Ponce’ with one of the Bays to trial the large ship / MSO tasking more formally?
From what little information I have seen, the MHPC program sounds like the patrol vessel you need, 100 meters loa and about 2500 tons. Useful in wartime but great deal cheaper than the Type 26. Still capable of going just about anywhere. If any of the new RN ships have export potential it would be the MHPC.
The Hunts will need replacement soon. Why isn’t this project further along?
Re the possibility of fielding a task force with both carriers, Escorting twice as many heavy units does not necessarily require twice as many escorts.
@px January 5, 2013 at 23:06, “And the one thing CVF gives us if we buy enough airframes – is the ability to put up enough CAP, and enough ASW….BYW check out the WW2 stats for no of subs sunk by escorts – its depressingly low compared to aviation.”
I’m not sure we can draw any conclusions from 70 year old experience but A bit less than two to one in favor of aircraft if we are talking U-boats. (over 400 to aircraft, a bit less than 250 to ships, I believe) Not sure about the Pacific, But there is also the fact that escorts frequently saved merchant ships and rescued their crews, even when they did not sink the sub. I do like the concept of updating the escort carrier idea. I also like what the Japanese are doing with their DDH concept.
During WWII night ops for carrier aircraft was very limited so they really needed the surface escorts. Now helos are the surface vessels delivery system of choice so having subs destroyed directly by surface vessels should be very rare in the future.
px, I’m starting to see why you’re not making much sense. Your ship specifications are not in line with classification.
An “OPV” is approximately 500 tons.
You were designing a 3,500 ton “OPV”, which should more properly be called a frigate. 7x over the designed weight limit.
If you really want to see what your design would look like and cost, you would do well to look at a T-45 with a stripped out marine bay in exchange for a “missions” bay. It would be about the same.
If you want an OPV, keep it to within 500-1,000 tons.
A lot of interesting points.
px,
Frigates are indeed the jack of all trades abd are capable of an Independennt deployment conductin exercises, defence diplomacy, MSO, disaster relief and virtually anything else they can be asked to do.
As escorts they have the capability to provide an ASW barrier 24/7 covering a much larger area than a helo can do. Their sonar is more powerful and they do not have to dip and then move and then dip. A well placed ASW screen working in conjunction with rotary wing assets as weapon deliver systnes and high speed assets for investigating and localising the target is the best system. of course whilst they are out there on the edge of the sscreen doing this they are also providing inputs to the air and surface picture. With Sea Ceptors improved range and ability to enagge a crossing (or no directly threatening target, Sea Wolf cannot do this)they can also contribute to the AAW effort. Later in a conflict they can contribute to Naval fires, act as the SAR ship for flight ops etc. Specialist ASW vessels such as the T23/T26 are also designed to conduct passive ASW where their advanced sonar and quiet propulsion and other systems can allow passive tracking of Submarines without counter detection (they have what is known as a passive range advantage.
Mick P
Don’t disagree on the broader MSO piece. Perhaps we should do a ‘USS Ponce’ with one of the Bays to trial the large ship / MSO tasking more formally?
We deployed Bulwark in 2006 to the Gulf where she was CTF 50 Flagship and operated Iraqi Pbs from alongside and 2 boat groups out of the dock, as well as rotary wing assets. She then operated her boat groups to expand her footprint in the GOA enroute to the Med where she evacuated 1400 people from Beirut in 1 day. Very versatile platforms.
Jed,
The decision to build a “warship” abroad would have massive Political ramifications and we should not forget we are in our “deal” with BAE.
The concept of building an early t26 as a patrol frigate does appeal but as so much kit is due to come off T23 we would have to swap them out on a 1 for 1 basis.
To answer your point on tasking of my 130 million pound OPV.
1. All GOA and NAG tasking. So 1 of the 2 E of Suez tasks.
2. Non TAPS FRE tasking.
3. All Caribean tasking. RFA for hurrican season.
4. FIGS tasking, the FF/DD is only a trip wire anyway and we could still send an occasional FF/DD.
5. Take up some of the training burden, especially rotary wing avaiation training and possibly Nav training.
6. Suez escort duties for SSN transits.
7. In times of conflict. Choke point transit escorts of ships carrying kit. We had to use frigates in 2003.
8. Emergent tasking such as intel gathering (would ensure we could load a container or 2 with the equivelant of the old “outboard” T22 fit. For instance we do not have a vessel in the EMED monitoring Syria as we have none to spare.
This would free up FF/DD numbers to ensure our core TH escort force was well worked up and used to operating together. Would possibly allow a Frigate to take part in SNMG1/SNMG2 tasking and have increased flexibility in the programming so that when an FF/DD was required somewhere at short notice we may have 1 to send.
Observer,
Think the upper weight limit for an OPV has moved on somewhat to about 2000-2500 tonnes and well into the Corvette or even light Frigate weight range. The classification now seems more dependent upon armament.
Our basic River Class are 1700 tonnes and 80M.
We could use the hybrid air vehicle? Or am I being crazy?
Apparently £60 million each, can carry 150 marines and has a top speed of 80 knots
Attach a half decent ISR system (left over Searchwater) and somehow add a C-130 Harvest Hawk system (9 kits costs $22 million apparently).
Could do much of the Maritime Support Operations tasks and potentially amphibious support. Also could provide COD for the carriers and some ISR.
Ouch, that is a very big leap in tonnage creep. Most of the OPVs I know are still below 500t, like the American Cyclones and the Australian Armidales. Think that might be also due to roles.
Eurpoean designs are tending towards seaworthiness and endurence, while most other parts of the world still use OPVs as FACs writ large, and the irony of it is that it now appears that adding food and water racks up the tonnage much faster than adding missiles.
One of the questions I asked still has not really been answered. Where are your “OPVs” going to operate? If it is near the home bases, you can load them really heavy with weapons and equipment. Conversely, if you want “expeditionary OPVs” you have to think about equipment sacrifices for deployability, which I unfortunately do not see as a winning proposition, or build ships so big that the OPVs are really frigates by another name.
Considering that the RN mostly works overseas, I don’t really see how OPVs can help in the UK context. Yes, they may free a FF/DD for deployment, but that is assuming that a fair number of those ships are deployed for coastal defence in the first place! The UK is fortunately in such a safe area of the world that even forward deploying all their escorts will not seriously compromise the defence posture, unless somehow hordes of illegal immigrants take it into their heads to want a country for themselves, which I seriously doubt.
Ali, LCAC (Landing Craft Air Cushion) also has a maintainance requirement of ~200 hours before skirt change. Every week, you need to change the skirts. Not good for sustainability. Tried it, junked it. ST Marine had the old Tiger class. Now gathering rust. Even our current Griffin SARs don’t get much practice, only deployed in actual emergencies. No point racking up the maintainence hours for nothing. And at 2x 60M pounds, I can get you an all up LPD with 4 LCs for 100M with a savings of 20 million. (See Endurance LPD sales to Thailand).
@APATs, agree with your tasking list. Outside of UK waters this would suggest just the requirement for one FF/DD in the gulf (or have I missed one?).
I think the point on the FIGS being a trip wire is extremely valid not only to the South Atlantic but more generally. Having a ship on station (regardless of its capabilities) shows a level of intent and gives on the ground Intel. The question is what happens when the trip wire is tripped (or looking increasingly likely to be tripped). In this case you need to be able to get strength quickly to the area (before any RFTG or PPG :) is ready) which probably means a FF or SSN.
As such, alongside having a SSN in the Atlantic and one in the Indian ocean (which I suspect we do already) the RN should forward base 2-3 FFs in both Gibraltar and say Oman (or Diego Garcia).
Returning to the OPV (or whatever we call it) I have the following points / questions.
– If we used the HMS Clyde forward basing model how many more OPVs do we really need? Feels to me 4-6.
–
Observer,
Ouch, that is a very big leap in tonnage creep. Most of the OPVs I know are still below 500t, like the American Cyclones and the Australian Armidales. Think that might be also due to roles.
Eurpoean designs are tending towards seaworthiness and endurence, while most other parts of the world still use OPVs as FACs writ large, and the irony of it is that it now appears that adding food and water racks up the tonnage much faster than adding missiles.
The Ozzie Armadales formed the basis for the slightly larger Kiwi protector Class Inshore Patrol Vessel. They bought the Otago class although offciially known as protector class as well to be OPVs. The Cyclones are very much designed for Littoral ops and SF inssertion/extraction.
The classifications are extremely blurred. What some nations would describe as a OPV other would classify as a FPB or even a FAC.
The real difference between what you think of as an OPV and what we have been discussing on here is the what you want to use them for. This leads to 2 distinct types of construction.
On one hand you have something like your Victory Class, the Greek Roussen Class or the Swedish Visby class. 60-70M 550-700 Tonned, draft about 2.6M capable of between 30 and 40kts. Limited range, poor Rhib facilities (spent a couple of weeks training the Greeks and the one small Rhib they had was just plain dangerous to launch/recover or use. Aviation facilities limited to UAV only. The job of these Ships is to go to sea and flush their Ashm racks before hopefully ahving the speed and defence capability to get alongside for a reload or enagge other targets with their gun.
They pack a powerful punch in a small hull, not designed for Open ocean, bad weather or long cruises.
perhaps the other design should be called an Ocean Patrol Vessel. These are bigger and heavier, BAM is 94M with a draft of 4.2M, 2,500Tonnes, long legs in excess of 8,000NM. Good Rhib launching and recovery facilities, organic medium sized helo. Much lower top speed. Less weapons and decoy systems. These ships are designed to patrol for a prolonged period in open Ocean and conduct boardings, MSO and presence patrols as required. They are armed for self defence and constabulary ops.
Calling both types OPVs is very confusing.
Phone playing up..
– Is a new design really needed, is now the right time? Using HMS Clyde as the basis (it’s a know design both to build and the RN to operate) what more capability is really required? Hanger for a Merlin or Lynx /UAV combo, but what else is really required for the tasks described? Maybe a CIWS?
Repulse,
Yes it should reduce current tasking to the 1 E of Suez.
The problem with forward basing is the rotation of the Ships company and what you do with them when they are not forward based, especially if all vessels of one class are forward based.
As an example Clyde is forward based but the Ships Company trickle draft from the other 3 Rivers so still only spend 6 months down South and the rest on a UK River.
The 2 Hunts and 2 Sandowns in Bahrain change entire crews every 6 months with Ship classes seperated by 3 months. When the Ships Company return to the Uk they take over the vessel that has been vacated by the Bahrain bound crew.
If you forward base all your OPVs, how do you rotate through the UK? The same with your Frigates not everyone would want to be permamebtly based abroad. Forward basing actually works just like deployments, you need 3 crews to keep 1 on the forward based Platform. You save on the deployment time by flying but still need Uk based assets for their time back in blighty.
The quickest way to respond to rising FI tension would be to reinforce the garrison with extra troops (spearhead battalion) or extra jets.
BAE also do a 90M OPV. See the new Thai OPV so systems etc inside would be extremely familiar and it comes with FD and hangar at that point the weapons fit can be chosen but yes I definitely think for the task I have described you need more than a single 30MM.
@APATs, Agree with your points which is why I think a design based on an extension of the current River class is the best course of action (unless we are willing to wait until the MHPC concept is further advanced which seems 10 years off). Bring Clyde home and then you have the same UK / overseas deployment model . Moving to a HMS Scott manning model may also be a way to go.
Forward based FFs would be T26s so the same approach could apply.
Also agree on your FI response assuming it is a direct threat to the Islands themselves. Aggressive maritime action (unlikely but an example) where UK / FI boats are being boarded or seized would require a maritime response.
“Calling both types OPVs is very confusing.”
Exactly my point, which was why I seperated the two into “home” and “expeditionary” OPVs, and was the original drive in the question of how far are they operating.
The new LCS deployments are going to be a very real subject of interest, not because of their capabilities, but because of the practical experiment of trying to forward base a ship squadron while rotating crews through. Going to be facinating to see if they succeed or fail.
Of course, there is also a bit of a political and thread toes problem. We need to escort these new LCSs in, really going to be a political black eye if terrorists managed to “USS Cole” one of them, yet at the same time, you can’t use too powerful a unit or it’s going to make them look bad. Which means a job for either a Victory corvette or a Fearless OPV. My bets are on the OPV, the fact that the corvettes carry Harpoons would already invite scathing comments. :(
What a headache.
Observer,
I forgot to answer you point on where such an expeditionary OPV would operate but as I posted earlier this is how I see the tasking for such a vessel.
1. All GOA and NAG tasking. So 1 of the 2 E of Suez tasks.
2. Non TAPS FRE tasking.
3. All Caribean tasking. RFA for hurrican season.
4. FIGS tasking, the FF/DD is only a trip wire anyway and we could still send an occasional FF/DD.
5. Take up some of the training burden, especially rotary wing avaiation training and possibly Nav training.
6. Suez escort duties for SSN transits.
7. In times of conflict. Choke point transit escorts of ships carrying kit. We had to use frigates in 2003.
8. Emergent tasking such as intel gathering (would ensure we could load a container or 2 with the equivelant of the old “outboard” T22 fit. For instance we do not have a vessel in the EMED monitoring Syria as we have none to spare.
They have the range and endurance to self deploy and maintain an FF style operating schedule.
We need to escort these new LCSs in, really going to be a political black eye if terrorists managed to “USS Cole” one of them, yet at the same time, you can’t use too powerful a unit or it’s going to make them look bad.
Escorting in restricted waters is really a job for small manouverable gun armed craft that can zip around the larger vessels and get between any threat and the vessel being escorted whilst they are in restricted waters. We use Scimitar, Sabre and big Rhibs in Gib. The US use big Rhibs and Defenders to escort Warships in and out of Bahrain harbour. Further out they should be able to look after themselves or they are pretty pointless.
APATs, problem with trying to tick all those boxes is that by the time most of them are filled, you might end up with “Frigate, Type-26 model 2” anyway, especially the range/endurance caused increases in weight. By the time you hit 2,500+ tons, any added equipment is really a small factor compared to the sustainability tonnage increases.
Re: LCS escorts, it’s not the problem of using missiles in congested waters, the OPV and vette gun fits are similar, which is not surprising as their tonnage is similar (500 tons vs 600). Problem is their very existence on the ship would invite comparisons which would be unhappy for all parties concerned, totally ignoring the fact that the LCS has a massive weight difference due to the need for long distance deployments.
Observer,
I agree… you end up with a frigate.
Perhaps that’s what APATS is getting at?
Observer,
Hulls that tick all those boxes are in service for 100 million a pop.
Sttel is cheap and air is free. The BAM cost 100 million, I reckon about 120-130 million for what I proposed, a couple of weapon upgrades, single citadel, UAC capable. You are not fitting expensive sonars, missile systems, phased array radars, Gas Turbine Propulsion or even bigger diesels to go above 25 kts, large ops rooms with multiple redundancies on combat systems, big commcens, expensive EW and decoy outfits. Even the Galleys etc are smaller. Operating costs are lower as Ships company is reduced to 50-60 including a flight.
APATS,
2. How can an OPV provide the escort defences for FRE? Ha ha, a little OPV is sent to escort Kuznetsov past our shores!
6. How can an OPV provide the intel/defences necessary for SSN escorts?
7. How can an OPV provide any escort capability for choke points?
Isn’t that how you’re saving money? By removing the systems necessary for escort defence?
Simon,
1. Pray tell me what the HMS York was going to do to Kuznetsov? The point is that you show them that you are watching them. They had been watched since they cleared the North Cape and were watched their entire Med deployment (by various NATO assets) but not always visibly. Not to threaten them, we could have achieved the aim with a UAV but it looks better to fly the Flag.
2. An SSN Suez escort is about leading them through and providing defences against an Assymetrict threat, this involves people manning GPMG/Mini Gun/50 Cal. As for intel? What do you mean. A T23 has no special intel gathering capabilities that an OPV would not have.
3. Well an OPV for choke point escorts is better than an FF/DD as it uses less man power. The theat is assymetric and a 76MM STRALES/ SEAHAWK SIGMA and 50 Cal with a helo flying is much better than what Westminster or Cornwall had when they did them in 2003.
You must not confuse escorting in a high multi environment threat with escorting through choke point where the threat is a USS Cole style attack or a rhib with an RPG/rocket launcher. You do not need SAM systems/Sonar/4.5 guns/ESM/Decoys etc. You need good accurate quick firing close range weapons.
@ Mark – “Can I ask those that are proposing this Falklands 2 task force were they see us requiring this and when we’ve deployed at this level since ww2 outside of the Falklands.”
I already have in my reply to APATS:
I really am not referring to a re-run of the Falklands when I talk of:
“the maximal ambition of naval power projection: Putting 3Cdo on a beach (plus friends following), with sufficient support to successfully prosecute a minor war.”
I fully understand that under ‘normal’ jogging the ATFG (never sure of the exact acronym), will use roughly half of 3Cdo and roughly half of the amphibs (the half that isn’t in extended readiness).
That said, the SDSR and the attendant DPA were explicitly crafted under the assumptions of the available equipment of the day, and that did not include a second aircraft carrier. Well, now we’ll have two, even if we are not manning them independently as separate CBG groups.
Now, I of course accept that the ATFG will (in future) include one (of two CVF, one (of two LPD’s), and one to two (of three) LSD’s, all I am suggesting is that we will end up with a total capability divisible by a factor of two, with one half in-role while the other is stood down.
That represents a significant – and very valuable – latent resource, that we should not be unable to use in time of need because we lack sufficient escorts to protect that number of HVA’s.
In much the same way the: “committing all our effort to a one-off intervention of up to three brigades, with maritime and air support (around 30,000)” represents our maximal effort, all I am suggesting is that should we take six months to arrange a FI 2.0 scale effort of:
1x CVF
1x CVF (light crewed as a spare deck)
2x LPD
3x LSD
1x LPH
Carrying the [bulk] of 3Cdo in overload.
Along with:
5x Points
Xx Number of STUFT
Carrying a heavy Reaction brigade.
That we are not unable to provide an escort force sufficient to the challenge.
That maximal effort is not defined in the SDSR as a GW type intervention, it merely notes it will compose of 30,000 troops which is “two-thirds of the force deployed to Iraq in 2003″, and clearly it has been overtaken by events given that we (will) have the second carrier.
Jedi,
|Let us wait and see SDSR 2015 but I will say now that we will have 2 Carriers in such as we will not sell the other but it will be kept at probably 90 days notice or more. They will do an operational switch every so many months or years. It is simply not the best use of scarce naval resources to man and run 20 60k tonne Carrier for our every day real life non Tom Clancy roles.
We are most definitely not going to have 2 CVF and Ocean going anywhere together. As to how we could man that initial TG you describe of 2 CVF/2 LPD and an LPH I have no idea.
We are scaled to send 1 TG which may include 1 CVF/1 or 2 LPD 2 or 3 Bays and associated RFA tanker support. Requiring 6 to 8 escorts. The follow up forces would only enter theatre when conditions are correct and would be screened/escorted as required whilst they followed the safest route to conduct their offload at a Port.
A lot of troops would be flown out to mate with their equipment. That I am afraid is what we can do and what HMG expects us to be able to do.
Of course in the 99% ceratin probability that we are acting in a coalition before we would ever even consider such a large deployment then the requirement and assets would have to be looked at again.
APATs, have you ever considered that the saying “Steel is cheap, air is free” may not be true?
Anyway, there are a few things I would agree a bare bones patrol vessel does not need, but there are also a few things I absolutely insist on.
1) Sonar. You really can’t secure a passage if you cannot even detect mines.
2) Radar. Hard to have a defence without knowing the direction of the attack.
3) SAM. Preferably one that can engage crossing targets.
4) 57/76mm Guns. Anti-Boghammer defence, not for yourself, but for your escortee. 30mms are self-defence weapons.
5) RHIB on divots. Hard to do search and seizure without one. No mission bay, that is a luxury for larger ships.
6) EW/Decoys. With late generation AESA, you might be able to fold the function in to the radar, and decoys only cost if you actually fire them. Jamming can also help a lot if you’re escorting something.
7) Torpedos. Worst case, you can use them to clear mines. They are also your big punch against large targets.
Nice to have, not essential:
1) UAV. You’re not doing an assault, you don’t need to know what is beyond the horizon.
2) Helo. Again, you’re not on an assault. It helps a lot in a recapture operation, but your RHIB works too.
3) AShM. Intimidation value, but if you’re really focused on escort, it’s not really necessary.
Not really necessary
1) Citadel. Wot, you think a small ship like that would survive any big hit? :)
2) High speed engines. You clear the area BEFORE your escortee arrives.
Honestly though, a frigate might be a better choice. OPVs were originally for home defence, they sacrificed endurance, not equipment. To extend their reach, they would have to start making very dangerous compromises.
Jedi
Point there is the large scale deployment is to one area. Doesn’t mean we automatically need another 6 frigates to go along, it will also be an allied action we may not have to provide all the escorting forces big difference to the independent requirement to deploy such a force. We only sen 9 ff/dd to the first gw and 6 to the second if its 2/3rds of that in the future are we only looking at 4.
Observer,
I do not think that you are following the roles intended for the “Patrol Ship” or the fit that I have proposed. I talked about some very specific choke point escort duties not the sort that a FF/DD does in open Ocean. The main role of the Ship would be constabulary ops in GOA/NAG/Caribeann/FIs
They are designed to conduct MSO and constabulary Ops. The choke point transits I talk about are SUEZ/STROG/Bab El mendeb etc and a typical FF/DD sonar is no use at detecting mines anyway if they even had it turned on for such a transit the threat is asymetric.
To answer your points.
1) Sonar. You really can’t secure a passage if you cannot even detect mines.
See my point above, 90% of FF/DD sonars are not designed to detect mines, certainly not ground mines and free floating mines are best detected by mk1 eyeball or EOD.
2) Radar. Hard to have a defence without knowing the direction of the attack.
My proposal is to have the Scanter type radar that is on Clyde, an excellent set.
3) SAM. Preferably one that can engage crossing targets.
Pust the price up for a Ship that is not designed to fight in a war zone. SEa Wolf cannot negage crossing targets. SEAHAWK SIGMA will alllow self defence at 2NM plus for air threats. STRALES also has a capability.
4) 57/76mm Guns. Anti-Boghammer defence, not for yourself, but for your escortee. 30mms are self-defence weapons.
I proposed fitting a 76MM STRALES super rapid and the 3 SEAHAWK SIGMAS have both a missile and 30MM anti surface capability.
5) RHIB on divots. Hard to do search and seizure without one. No mission bay, that is a luxury for larger ships.
I would use the excelent Dutch FRISC.
6) EW/Decoys. With late generation AESA, you might be able to fold the function in to the radar, and decoys only cost if you actually fire them. Jamming can also help a lot if you’re escorting something.
Again thse are not escorts in a an open ocean multi threat environment but choke point excorts. A basic ESM threat detection kit is all that is required.
7) Torpedos. Worst case, you can use them to clear mines. They are also your big punch against large targets.
Sorry but just no. I am not even certain anyone makes a ship launched torpedo to atatck other ships anymore.
Nice to have, not essential:
1) UAV. You’re not doing an assault, you don’t need to know what is beyond the horizon.
Important, you are doing MSO ops in GOA or chasing drug smuggler in Caribeann then ISR is crucial.
2) Helo. Again, you’re not on an assault. It helps a lot in a recapture operation, but your RHIB works too.
Again for anti piracy and constabulary ops they are important, combo of helo and sniper most effective against go fasts in caribean.
3) AShM. Intimidation value, but if you’re really focused on escort, it’s not really necessary.
Agrre not required.
Not really necessary
1) Citadel. Wot, you think a small ship like that would survive any big hit?
It is very useful to stop spread of smoke and also alllows operation in a chemical environmnet.
2) High speed engines. You clear the area BEFORE your escortee arrives
Agree
All Pol
The Swedes are still big on Torps launched from surface ships against other surface ship. I understand the thinking is an anti ship missile to disable followed by a torpedo to sink.
@ APATS – “I will say now that we will have 2 Carriers in such as we will not sell the other but it will be kept at probably 90 days notice or more. They will do an operational switch every so many months or years. It is simply not the best use of scarce naval resources to man and run 20 60k tonne Carrier for our every day real life”
I do not disgree.
I merely suggest that there is great deal of difference between the normal jogging of the ATFG, and the ability to man out-of-sync vessels from the other half of the equation in times of extremis, given sufficient time to build up, and for a limited duration. Making use of [latent] capability.
Given that the second LPD is in extended reserve surely your calculation above cannot be preidcated on normal jogging (the ATFG) using the second LPD. If it does, then this is exactly what I am referring too. I also note the posited uplift in the naval reserve, a factor that may increase the likelyhood of (light-) manning the second CVF (given sufficient time to build up).
@ Mark – “Point there is the large scale deployment is to one area. Doesn’t mean we automatically need another 6 frigates to go along”
I can accept this, as said in my original post:
“With due respect to APATS and his notion of sufficiently capable minor warships freeing up frigate hours on standing tasks, I could possibly see that ratio dropping to 3:2 for frigates/destroyers, i.e. 6x T45 and 9x T26 (total).”
“2. I remain unconvinced that six deployed T26 (i.e. 9x total) is sufficient for a scenario where we muster all available ampbibs and carriers in order to put 3Cdo on a beach (plus friends following).”
“Given that, my preference is either for:
b) 9x T26 ASW (total – not 8x ASW as currently planned), and 9x Corvettes”
I am willing to be convinced………………..
The inner womble in me wonder if we could make half a dozen 2800 ton light frigates/OPVs armed with recycled weapons to keep them cheap? So 114mm gun, 30 mm Goalkeeper + whatever 20/30mm mounts are available. If there are any light torpedo tubes sitting in a shed, then bung them on too.
So future escorts, 6 T45 + 13 T26 + 6 Womble Light Frigates.
Ouch APATs, all the things you added together are most of the fit of a frigate already especially the helo and hanger. :( Only thing you really extracted are the sonar, the EW/decoys (which won’t actually save much) and the missiles.
That’s a very minute reduction and makes it even more a fit for a frigate than an OPV. Need to cut a fair bit more to make it a fit for an OPV.
Jedi,
A lot easier to get a secon LPD running, given the numbers involves, the length of time in service and experience knocking around than activate a second carrier.
My proposals would see us have 6 T45 and 10 T26 so we should certainly have enough escorts for the TG we can actually muster and send to sea.
“2. I remain unconvinced that six deployed T26 (i.e. 9x total) is sufficient for a scenario where we muster all available ampbibs and carriers in order to put 3Cdo on a beach (plus friends following)
The possibilty of us doing what you have described above without being part of a Coalition is so remote that it is not worth unbalancing the entire force composition to allow it is what HMG have basically said and will no doubt say again 2015.
Observer,
It is an OPV, the only difference between what I have listed and BAM/Holland is I wanted SEAHAWK SIGMA and do not have the Goal Keeper or fancy mast of the Holland. Call them what you like but these sort of vessels already exist at the prices i have quoted.
Fair enough APATS.
Just out of curiosity:
1. Do your notional T26 have the full kit, i.e. are you effectively deleting the GP variant?
2. Do you believe there is any chance that we will get more than 8x fully kitted out ASW T26 variants?
3. Do you believe we will retain enough amphibious tonnage to drop (the bulk of) 3Cdo on a beach, if we do take the time to bring both LPD, the LPH, and three LSD into the picture, even if it is in overload? Fully respecting that this is a temporary capability only likely to be activated in extremis.
Jedi,
1. I would like to think so as it would be a decision we could delay until we started to build number 9. One thing for certain they should all have a set up that allows 2087 or similar to be fitted and deployed. Although the non 20131 T23 used to have a better gym :)
2. You mean if we stay with plans to build 13? Probably not initially. Not sure the order that T23 will retire in so whetehr the plan is to build the 8 ASW T26 first, which would increase the chances as would delay any spend required.
3. The numbers are probably not as much of an issue as the ammo, arty, food, water etc.
cheers APATS.
:)
APATS, had to smile at the tonnage of the Holland. That’s not an OPV, that’s a stripped frigate.
But yeah it’ll work as a gunboat. Just have to run like hell if the Straits get hot.
Guess I’m more used to ships which are more fangs than handcuffs.
Observer,
Exactly, If the Uk was positioned where Singapore was or in the Baltic I am sure we would build 500 ton 30kt “OPV” with missiles and a gun but we have not face anyone across the Channel since 1944.
When we used things like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Gun_Boat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Torpedo_Boat
Anything we build today has to be able to deploy and operate in rough seas and over long distances. Even the Pirates and drug dealers we chase after are bloody thousands of miles away.
APATS,
“1. Pray tell me what the HMS York was going to do to Kuznetsov?…”
Launch Sea Dart at any Migs it happened to launch in anger.
“2. An SSN Suez escort is about leading them through and providing defences against an Assymetrict threat, this involves people manning GPMG/Mini Gun/50 Cal. As for intel? What do you mean. A T23 has no special intel gathering capabilities that an OPV would not have.”
I suppose it depends on what you put on your OPV. Without a radar you won’t see the Cessna full of semtex ready to ditch on top of the sub. Without a sonar you won’t hear the RC boat towing a neutral buoyancy sack of semtex towards you sub. Okay, I’m in Clancy world again, but if I can think it up, so can the real threat ;-)
“3. Well an OPV for choke point escorts is better than an FF/DD as it uses less man power. The theat is assymetric and a 76MM STRALES/ SEAHAWK SIGMA and 50 Cal with a helo flying is much better than what Westminster or Cornwall had when they did them in 2003…
…you do not need SAM systems/Sonar/4.5 guns/ESM/Decoys etc. You need good accurate quick firing close range weapons.”
Okay. Thanks. That’s what I thought which is why I wouldn’t use the same vessel for FRE or SSN escort.
Looking at following comments I think the difference between what you’re suggesting and what I consider to be a ~£100m OPV is different, and to be honest I have no idea about the cost/effectiveness of a Scanter radar, etc.
If what you suggest can be procured for £120m or so then I’d sacrifice the 13th T26 for 3 of ’em at the drop of a hat.
Simon,
Scanter is what is on Clyde and it is blasted good.
http://www.terma.com/media/90985/4102_brochure_web_sep2011.pdf
Sorry to dissapoint you but sonar on a surface vessel is not going to detect a toy boat. You are on for Mk1 eyeball and good binos/EOD. Also the Suez canal is controlled air space.
We differ on our views as to the role of the FRE and shooting down Russian Migs is so not going to happen.
What I suggest should be between 110-130 million.
@ APATS – “We deployed Bulwark in 2006 to the Gulf where she was CTF 50 Flagship and operated Iraqi Pbs from alongside and 2 boat groups out of the dock, as well as rotary wing assets. She then operated her boat groups to expand her footprint in the GOA enroute to the Med…” you wouldn’t happen to have links forcthe above would you?
If we are going to swap one or more T26 for OPV’s what would be an acceptable ratio.
I tend to think that in order to make it attractive you have to seriously limit the cost to get a decent exchange rate. If Type 26 is estimated to be between £300m and £400m (which is not unrealistic) then that means, for me, the new ships must be no more £100m all in
My preference is for a big hull, plenty of room, good sea keeping and endurance.
Its utility is derived from what it carries, not what it is fitted with
@ TD – ST Marine sold an Endurance class to Thailand for less than £100m which I think fufils your requirements – however, Observer has pointed out the Thai version lacked the automation of the Sinapore versions.
@TD
Its utility is derived from what it carries, not what it is fitted with
Indeed but its ability to survive and operate depends on what it is fitted for and a 30MM as the main weapon pretty much means it cannot operate where we would want it to.
How often do we end up cutting corners and trying to do things on the cheap only to decide half way through that actually we will change the design and it costs us twice what it would have cost us to have got it right the first time.
Spend the extra 5 or 10 million and actually get a useful platform or say, yes it only cost 99 million but it is F all use as it cannot protect itself.
Rant over, what I am saying is that instead of starting with a price we must meet we have to start with a capability we must reach. The capability is driven by what the vessel is expected to do. Only then can you look at the ratios and decide if it is agoer or not.
APATS said “A lot of troops would be flown out to mate with their equipment.”
It’s a man’s life in the British Army……..
Seriously war is about manoeuvre and logistics. You are being a tad patronising if you think the likes of Jedi and me don’t get that “Thomas Cook” model of deployment is the MoD’s preferred way of doing things. The reasons for that preference are many and varied, both objective and subjective, and sadly not all are centred around what is best for the UK as a whole but more about what is right for certain vested interests. As I have said before several times now this site is called “Think Defence” not “Accept the rather rancid state of UK defence.” Yes we all appreciate your vast professional knowledge and it is good to read, but if everything you write here is framed within the dour professional of the modern RN then why bother? Don’t you have enough of that “work”? Really does it matter that a few random bods on the internet think that island nation with a proud naval heritage (one that seems to have ended when the guns fell silent in 82) should have, I don’t know, 6 to 8 amphibious ships? You never get the pro-airpower lads (and Topman) questioning £9bn on Voyager or the need for 100 or so F35a (on the shakiest of logic I might add) do you? I am not expecting you to lie prone in homage to The Immortal Memory every time you pass Victory when in Pompey. But the speed at which you dismiss any positive suggestion, whether half arsed or considered, doesn’t say much for the attitude of RN’s officer corp.
X,
I would love to have loads of Amphibs and 30 escorts and if we were on a thread about what we should be spending and how to spend it then I would love to join in. We are however discussing the manner in which we could possibly spend our budget differently to achieve our aims using “different” platforms.
I do however apologise and will attempt to be more positive, I disagreed with the boss about spending less money if that helps.
px, RE “HMS Glorious famously did not (to save AVGAS?) ”
– an early exercise in ‘jointness’
– the aircrews insisted on flying patrols
– the old school captain regarded that as mutiny and had them under arrest for court martial on arrival back to the UK
Fair points APATS, I really do see where you are going
But
Putting a top cash limit focuses the mind of the designer, forces innovation and means the project would achieve a dash of financial credibility.
I also sometimes think we should include the cost of upgrades right in at the beginning so the ‘fitted for but not with’ becomes part of the through life cost calculations. At year 0 we have x, at Year 1 we have x and y, Year 5 we have x, y and z
@TD
You can have all the finacial credibility in the world but if it does not meet spec it does not meet spec.
I am not suggesting spending whatever is required to meet the requirement. If we cannot meet the requirement at the right price in terms of replacing X T26 hulls with Y OPV hulls hulls then it is the wrong option and we do not do it.
What we should not do is spend a few extra million here or just cut a bit of requirement there (though that sounds awful familiar) :)
I do thing if we are to go down the ‘hulls in the water’ OPV ruet, we are asking for 2 different things from it.
Those un sexy non pointy Rivers just chug about doing the unsexy non pointy things in UK home waters. Now there is a real argument that if and when we replace inshore survey craft and mine sweepers we should look to combine all those functions on one hull. In particular as survey and mine hunting sonars share some functions. It would be good to loose those very expensive, not necessarily that seaworthy, and delicate minehunting hulls. A rather more upgraded radar fit would not hurt for survailance against smuglers either, but there are cost limits. They do not realy require helicopters but the old Castle class refueling capability might come in handy. And yes the 30mm is probably enough with a couple of 50 cal for their job. Remember they are acting in home waters under very good radar and air cover. But that role really puts a limit on sizw of about 2000 tons or so.
Sending them far away as Jedi says the ocean going coastguard hugeley changes the rules of the game and I do not believe the ‘smallship mafia’ (as Jedi puts it) really see this.
If we sail away to where (quite literaly) the black flag flies we need a different type of ship.
We range range and more unsupported range, we will need helicopters (in the plural). Fast boats (several) AND a limited self defence capability.
I suspect Jedi is about in his 2nd post to propose that.
Hi JH,
That “The Swedes are still big on Torps launched from surface ships against other surface ship. I understand the thinking is an anti ship missile to disable followed by a torpedo to sink.”
is a stylish theory, but I’m afraid not true (just compare the vastly different ranges)
Torp’s are for ASW, as in http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_w1Te9kELSl8/S1p0NNoHLMI/AAAAAAAAKyM/u87r2aj7gks/s1600/visby4.jpg&imgrefurl=http://defense-technologynews.blogspot.com/2010_01_22_archive.html&h=600&w=620&sz=46&tbnid=pWJWfxdjxMghtM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=93&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dvisby%2Bclass%2Bcorvette%2Bcost%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=visby+class+corvette+cost&usg=__6hTXoSJ2JGsjUaAT8jE037arSjA=&docid=1Dd1A8CQ4LCAFM&sa=X&ei=0YXpUMKHNaXH0QXP1YDwAg&ved=0CFIQ9QEwBQ&dur=1390
Norway maintains torp defences, but they are coastal, so do not negate the point made by APATS.
I have often considerd 2 hulls one small one big sharing largely the same systems would be good idea.
ACC, what has ranges got to do with what they want to use for the coup de grace?
Remember, even with all the big gun battleships in WWII, they still tried to finish off the Bismark with torpedos.
The protocol is to cripple the enemy’s offensive capabilities with missile fire, then close in to torpedo. It is a workable tactic and fairly common for countries whose navy evolved from PT boats.
BTW @ST
I don’t mind the Endurances used as police vessels or force multiplier for a frigate squadron, but it’s just not usable as a frigate directly. It may be a multi-role LPD, but it still IS an LPD. :) So no chasing Boghammers. As an escorted unit though, it can really help out if you can keep it from harm. 8 missile armed USVs with 25mm mounts can be a big help.
Hi Observer, do you mean the Visby’s high sprint speed is to close the gap, after firing their 100 km ranged RBS15s?
“ACC, what has ranges got to do with what they want to use for the coup de grace?”
I appreciate the ship-sinking prowess of big torps (Chuck has a great article about it on his site), but do you know of any ocean-going warships carrying surface torps? In the ‘West’ I mean; anyone still sailing old Riga class and the like will have them.
Corvettes have sort of faded from the discussion, but the Hollands came about as the threat scenarios got updated, corvettes were retired (regardless of how good they were) and the ocean-going OPVs were got instead. Exactly for the reason of not having to have a full-fat warship with a big crew to hang about the Dutch Antilles, very much like the taskings APATS has outlined
ACC most frigates and destroyers pack torpedoes, just look around. Exceptions are specialised ships like APAT’s Holland class, most GP ships should have 4-6 torps + reloads.
Observer,
The Ship launched Torpedoes carried are ASW torpedoes, something like Stingray or Mk 46 or MU90.
They are for when you really have made a mess of it and the submarine is not detected and fires at you. All you have is a Torpedo bearing. So you counter fire back down the same bearing.
The idea being that if the sub has fired a wire guided weapon at you then it may cut its wire and lessen the chance of the weapon finding you. the other thing you hope to do is make the sub move whereupon it will be detected and localised allowing it to be prosecuted.
@ Ixion – “We range range and more unsupported range, we will need helicopters (in the plural). Fast boats (several) AND a limited self defence capability. I suspect Jedi is about in his 2nd post to propose that.”
Well, you have goaded me into it!
I have nothing against IPV’s, or OPV’s for that matter, but as you rightly surmise I do not consider them any kind of a replacement for a frigate.
When I say this:
“With due respect to APATS and his notion of sufficiently capable minor warships freeing up frigate hours on standing tasks, I could possibly see that ratio dropping to 3:2 for frigates/destroyers, i.e. 6x T45 and 9x T26 (total).”
And APATS talks about this:
“my 130 million pound OPV…… build a Black swan sized vessel with proper accomadation but put the 76MM STRALES and 3 SEAHAWK SIGMA on it, give it a CMS and a citadel, ensure it has a decent range.speed and radar and a helo. Then leave the space for MCM/Droggy/ASW/UUV/USV/UAV fleet etc.”
I don’t believe we are talking about different vessels. It may be a purely semantic thing, but I consider that to be a (sufficiently capable) minor warship, not an OPV. Thus, it is capable of carrying out the following standing tasks and minor wartime roles that would otherwise occupy a frigate:
“where such an expeditionary OPV would operate:
1. All GOA and NAG tasking. So 1 of the 2 E of Suez tasks.
2. Non TAPS FRE tasking.
3. All Caribean tasking. RFA for hurrican season.
4. FIGS tasking, the FF/DD is only a trip wire anyway and we could still send an occasional FF/DD.
5. Take up some of the training burden, especially rotary wing avaiation training and possibly Nav training.
6. Suez escort duties for SSN transits.
7. In times of conflict. Choke point transit escorts of ships carrying kit. We had to use frigates in 2003.
8. Emergent tasking such as intel gathering (would ensure we could load a container or 2 with the equivelant of the old “outboard” T22 fit. For instance we do not have a vessel in the EMED monitoring Syria as we have none to spare.”
APATS has also helpfully defined what [I] consider to be an Offshore Patrol Vessel:
“The £65m includes a 30mm self protection mount and mini-guns. It also includes a top speed of 18kts and an economical speed of 12kts. Built to Merchant vessel standards, so not citadel and damage control becomes far more difficult. It includes manning based on an Astute class submarine”
This is a separate beast, for a separate job, that I consider to be totally outside the scope of a hi-lo Navy. They are great, and we could obviously use some, but lets buy a load of Ulstein SX119 boats for peanuts and stick a 30mm on the front and some HMG mounts on the side:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ulstein.com%2Fkunder%2Fulstein%2Fmm.nsf%2Flupgraphics%2FSX119.pdf%2F%24file%2FSX119.pdf&ei=apHpULj_Lsel0AWOhYDoAg&usg=AFQjCNEG-CaJBjMLpEzU-3DD3ZKR3OBU9g&sig2=bllw1DisgGUUD5gFVY6CmA&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.d2k
But back to escorts and the potential for using sufficiently capable minor warships in their place: it boils down to the big wars!
I can accept that we may survive with 9x T26 (but by god, they had better come fully kitted out), along with 6x T45 for the normal jogging of standing tasks and the ATFG, but:
Is that sufficient for what I will bloody-mindedly term a FI 2.0 sceanrio?
There are people who might [continue] to get lost semantics of the isles-which-must-remain-unnamed and whether kirchner will have another crack, that is irrelevant, and I’d rather have them visible so that they can be ignored (i take responsibility for the first round of such due to poor wording). No, what I refer to is HMG’s continued desire to be able to conduct big one-offs as stated explicitly in the SDSR.
Can an escort fleet of fifteen major warships defend a task-force that would include the vast majority of our amphibs, RFA support, carriers, Points, and STUFT?
If the answer is yes, and we can get these sufficiently capable minor warships at a 3:1 price vis-a-vis T26 then i’ll fill my boots!
I’ll take twelve please; keep two in the Gulf, two in the FI, two somewhere else sunny, and rotate crews through the six at home.
My guess is that a T26 is going to roll in at £360m, and APATS guess is that a sufficiently capable minor warship might be as little as £120m. That potentially might be viable in economic terms…………..
But what will sell it to me is whether fifteen major warships will enable HMG to do those big one-offs when events call for a maritime centric one off? And why not, we have a whole commando brigade, and we have enough tonnage (3 Cdo will be a little smaller in future by all accounts) to drop them on a beach. All i’m saying is we should have enough escorts to take them there and protect them in theatre.
But OPV’s (in my terms) are a separate matter, bring on the ulstein’s.
I like the look of that Scanter 4100 radar partnered with a Wildcat.
Any idea how much they are?
I’m starting to think these OPVs might just be good enough for basic patrol and escort tasks.
Simon,
Interesting answer from 11 Jun2012 in parliament.
Angus Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total cost was for the Scanter 4100 air search radar purchased for the River Class Offshore Patrol Vessel. [110061]
Peter Luff: The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has not purchased Scanter 4100 radars for its River Class Offshore Patrol Vessels. HMS Clyde, the only River Class Offshore Patrol Vessel to be fitted with the Scanter 4100 air search radar, is owned by BAE Systems and is chartered by the MOD. BAE Systems supply the capability against the Department’s requirement, an element of which is the provision of an air surveillance radar capability.
jedi,
Think you have put 2 of my posts together ref a 130 million OPV and doing Black swan properly. I belive we can get a 90M OPV of 2,000 odd tonnes armed as I specified with room for 2 or 3 mission containers for 110-130 million but not a full on Black Swan type vessel built as a warship.
Hereafter, I shall refer to “sufficiently capable minor warships” as “sloops”, not least because typing that out continually will give me RSI.
I also have another motive; I want to see whose teeth grate at use of the phrase.
Just as I continue to use the term “FI 2.0” when discussing a one-off major effort, similar to that identified in the SDSR.
And just as I continue to use the term “strategic raiding” as a useful aggregate term to broadly describe a strategic posture that provides:
Carriers and amphibs and 18+ escorts along with an 82,000 strong army
Rather than:
No carriers, an LPH and LSD, ~12 escorts along with an army of 110,000
http://critical-reaction.co.uk/2783/17-10-2010-britain-and-the-world
So, brace yourself for the “sloop-of-war”!
Best regards
JBT
@ APATS –
I take it your £130m OPV (call it a “sloop” dammit! :) ), includes the following:
“the 76MM STRALES and 3 SEAHAWK SIGMA on it, give it a CMS and a citadel, ensure it has a decent range.speed and radar and a helo”
?
I did not mean to imply, nor do I believe that you did either, that such a £130m vessel was comparable to the ambition of the Black-Swan.
jedi,
Yes, when I read the comment ‘mentioning build a Black swan sized vessel” I thought you were referring to my post about doing Black swan properly which would be expensive.
I have laid down what I would want a couple of times.
Base it on the BAE 90M OPV as the Thais built.
90M
2000 Tonnes plus
24kts
6000NM plus at 14kts
Flight deck and hangar for Wild Cat and small UAV (possibly Scan Eagle)
Basic Citadel Capability
Scanter radar as on Clyde
Bridge and nav radar set up from Rivers
Expanded Ops annex at rear of Bridge with Tacticos CMS as used by the Greek Roussen class.
Sufficient consoles to control 76MM, 3 x SIGMA SEAHAWK, 4 other consoles, 1 for air, 1 for Surface and 2 command consoles. Approximately 8.
1 76MM STRALES mount.
3 SEAHAWK SIGMA mounts
Positions on bridge wings and waist for GPMG/50 cal
Ability to carry 2 or 3 containers and supply power to them.
@ Observer – I was thinking of a mothership for craft like these:
http://www.xsmgworld.com/defence/partners.html
http://www.dockstavarvet.se/Products/Combat_patrol_boats/IC_16_M.aspx
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii292/cabatli_53/mrtp-22.jpg
I was thinking two sizes to match the “footprint” of the LCVP and LCU landing craft; an Endurance type vessel could carry and support four smaller patrol craft (on davits) and two patrol/attack craft (well dock) – Albion class 4 +4. Start off with manned MSO operations and experiment with USV/UUV/UAV operations.
Obviously vessel would need CWIS/PDMS, perhaps two (replacing 76mm gun?)
It seems to me that most have ignored my comments and are still designing small “war ships” rather vessels focused on MSO.
For info in the RN a ‘Citadel” refers to a gas tight sub set of internal compartments to defeat CBRN threats – why does an OPV need one ?
While I understand a BAM might be cheaper than a T26 for Caribbean / Somali anti-piracy ops, it also provides no step change in capability with only one Helo for example. Here I am with TD and his comment about the capabilities you bring by what you carry.
And yes, I think hull steel is cheap compared to modern sensors and weapons systems, and as far as I know air is still free (for now)……….
Jed,
It seems to me that most have ignored my comments and are still designing small “war ships” rather vessels focused on MSO.
The idea is to look at a vessel to undertake tasking that can free up Frigates. This requires a certain level of capability, which at the end of the day will be decided by the tasking.
For info in the RN a ‘Citadel” refers to a gas tight sub set of internal compartments to defeat CBRN threats – why does an OPV need one ?
I would not look at sub citadels but one based around the bridge and ops annex especially as the engineering remotes on the BAE OPV are also on the bridge would offer a capability at not a massive cost. if it was too expensive I would drop it.
While I understand a BAM might be cheaper than a T26 for Caribbean / Somali anti-piracy ops, it also provides no step change in capability with only one Helo for example. Here I am with TD and his comment about the capabilities you bring by what you carry.
You want to get 3 for 1 and offer a step change in capability? The introduction of a small UAV will offer some increase in ISR and a weapons fit focussing on more accurate quicker firing wepaons than an FF will also help but to get a step change at a 3rd of the price is pushing it.
ST, no need to replace the gun, there are 2 spots on top of the hanger L/R for non-penetrating stand alone missile systems. Used to be a manned twin Mistral mount (Sinbad).
As for the current USV, guess you’ll have to settle for Spike armed Protector USVs.
Still not supposed to be a front line fighter though. Usage in a war situation would probably be similar to a carrier,standoff and persecute while protected by real escorts.
I know this is a wiki link but I like it…
Royal Navy Rating System
If you simply change “guns” to “missiles” you have almost exactly what we currently build. 3rd rate = T45, 5th rate = T23/T26, what’s missing is the unrated sloop-of-war. Look at the numbers of hulls in commission.
Also, 1st rate would be a Ticonderoga, and 2nd rate would be an Arleigh Burke in terms of sizing. Furthermore, just multiply the burthen by 4 and you have the modern ship’s displacement (ish).
This hints at a modern sloop-of-war being a 1500 tonne ship with about 16 missiles :-)
@ Simon –
Interesting analogy.
I’m quite liking “Post Ship” to describe APATS sufficiently capable minor warship (in JBT terminology):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_ship
“Post ship was a designation used in the Royal Navy during the second half of the 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars to describe a ship of the sixth-rate (see rating system of the Royal Navy) that was smaller than a frigate (in practice, carrying fewer than 28 guns), but by virtue of being a rated ship (with at least 20 guns), had to have as its captain a post captain rather than a lieutenant or commander.”
“The vessels were frigate-built, with traditional quarterdecks and forecastles, but, unlike true frigates, they lacked an orlop platform amidships. They had a high center of gravity, which made them slow and unweatherly, but they were seaworthy. In peacetime the Royal Navy frequently used them as substitutes for frigates, especially in distant foreign stations. In wartime their slowness meant they were used mostly as convoy escorts.”
Not a romantic classification, but in definition i’d say it was spot on!
Not long ago, we agreed on 25 frigates and destroyers as the absolute minimum required in a conflict. Two years earlier, we had 32. Now, we are down to 19, and the ‘cheap as chips’ mafia wants to scuttle a few more.
Multiple proponents of ‘sloops’ and ‘OPV’ here, all talking about magical modular kit, expecting to get a decent modular vessel to be delivered in the £100m league. Even the RN expects MHPC to deliver 8 vessels for £1.4b, which equates £175m per vessel, without hangar.
But – for a moment – let’s assume, we get the lower price, and lets assume, T26 would not be a program solely to deliver escorts. What do we get for it?
T26 GP is designed to make up the mobile reserve of the RN. It is intended to travel as fast as possible to choke points, providing forces in theatre with sensors and C4 capabilities and additional firepower they don’t possess.
Word goes, for the same money we pay for 5 T26, we could get as many as 15 vessels shorter ranged and slower than a T26, with only navigational radar and without sonar, but by some miracle with a hangar and a helicopter, on which so much depends operating these vessels. For the lack of speed and range, its proponents want to deploy them in theatre. What theatre? Well, we will see. We will start with a best guess, and when there is something to do, we will simply have neither the real materiel nor the real manpower in theatre.
Exactly this is the French model. The Floreal is as sloopish as a ship can get. It is notable, that the Floreal class is not required and not suited to provide any warfighting capability. They are CG cutters in all but name. Despite being forward deployed, they don’t free a single escort from its tasks, as they don’t pursue pirates and don’t do counter-narcotics. So, as CG vessels, they seem to be seldomly constrained. There is also no magic modular kit, that makes a Floreal a ASW-frigate, and to think a NH-90 or Merlin will change this, is pure fantasy. It vastly underestimates the complexity of ASW-ops.
Bottom line is, before scrapping the rest of the fleet, I would like to see a single working model. In the meantime, I propose to orientate on the Japanese model.
Why can’t we simply do the following:
– take a OPV-design of choice, built them for a CG funded by DfID within a Commonwealth legal framework, using locals as crew, supported by the strategic-choke-point-cavalry of the RN (and the RAN, RNZN, Canadian Navy a.s.o), without expecting them to make up numbers, we otherwise lost to hesitation and fraud
– set instate a one-escort per year rule, re-building the escort fleet back to 25-30 ***real*** escorts over time
Instead, we will discuss to death, if the UK is capable to find the £300m required out of a £38b budget, of which £2b are the annular equipment budget of the RN. If we are broke, we are by choice or by accountants, calculating delay or downgrading of a given piece of kit as ‘savings’.
Flicking through Janes, the French built Saudi Madina class frigate has 4 x 21″ Torp tubes. The Italian Maestrale frigates have 2 x 21″ tubes. The Indonesian frigate Ki Hajar Dewentara has 2 x 21″ tubes. The Saudi La Fayettes have 4 x 21″ tubes.
My fantasy 2800 ton Womble frigate would probably be 110 m long ,looking at 1950s/60s RN frigates. Probably needs to be that to keep the crew happy in rough seas.
jedibeeftrix,
Still think the sloop-of-war is what we’re missing…
“…In later years the type evolved; in World War II sloops were specialized convoy-defence vessels, with anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capability.”
That’s what we need to alleviate the burden on our frigates.
veering into the ~£200m territory if we start considering any serious AAW and ASW capability.
a pocket-frigate if you will.
@APATs: Although I’m not convinced on the need of 76mm I concur with your proposed design. Having a high degree of commonality with the Rivers make a lot of sense and allows for the crew rotation discussed earlier.
I think we all agree that these need to be low risk / high value vessels to avoid a significant impact to the FF/DD fleet. Therefore, whilst a brand new class is interesting the time for building it is not now. Maybe late 2020s once the technology has matured.
So here is an idea. Get BAE to lease 4 of these stretched Rivers with the same remote maintenance arrangement as HMS Clyde for 10 years as a stop gap. Cut the T26 order by one to man them. At the end of 10 years get the DfID to buy them for a 3rd world country like Bangladesh.
Also, keeps Portsmouth open avoiding penalties.
Yes but lets not go serious!
I like the dinky radar APATS mentioned and I like Wildcat. Add to that a few seaceptor or manpads for air defence and it should come in pretty cheap. I have no faith in guided darts. Theyll never steer as quickly as a modern asm will jink.
I just wish we had put a dipping sonar on Wildcat
McZ
Where do I mention modular other than making power available for 2 or 3 containers.
Even the RN expects MHPC to deliver 8 vessels for £1.4b, which equates £175m per vessel, without hangar.
Yes but this includes sytem development costs.
T26 GP is designed to make up the mobile reserve of the RN. It is intended to travel as fast as possible to choke points, providing forces in theatre with sensors and C4 capabilities and additional firepower they don’t possess.
T26 GP is designed to make up the mobile reserve of the RN. It is intended to travel as fast as possible to choke points, providing forces in theatre with sensors and C4 capabilities and additional firepower they don’t possess.
I am not certain that I have ever come across the OPLAN that states this. T26GP will be used exactly the same way as non tail T23, often working in company as escorts. You do not need too many active 2087 sets in a screen. The GP or non tail version can be silent and guided by the active unit.
For the lack of speed and range, its proponents want to deploy them in theatre. What theatre? Well, we will see. We will start with a best guess, and when there is something to do, we will simply have neither the real materiel nor the real manpower in theatre.
I have never proposed forward basing other than possibly the FI. Whilst they may lack top speed teh range at economical speed is equal to that of a lot of FF vessels.
Exactly this is the French model. The Floreal is as sloopish as a ship can get. It is notable, that the Floreal class is not required and not suited to provide any warfighting capability. They are CG cutters in all but name. Despite being forward deployed, they don’t free a single escort from its tasks, as they don’t pursue pirates and don’t do counter-narcotics. So, as CG vessels, they seem to be seldomly constrained. There is also no magic modular kit, that makes a Floreal a ASW-frigate, and to think a NH-90 or Merlin will change this, is pure fantasy. It vastly underestimates the complexity of ASW-ops.
The Floreal class are forward deployed in the many French dependencies where they do fulfill the role of a CG, a well armed CG. They have also been used for constabulary ops in the NAG and port visit to Iraq. Interestingly enogh despite only having 12 “proper FF/DD the French have managed to find one to keep a constant presence in the EMED over the last few months.
They have used the even smaller D’Estienne d’Orves class for anti Piracy and a vessel of this class conducted NGS during the Libya op.
The newer La Fayette class are used for anti piracy. Surcouf is currently part of TF 465 with a 815 Squadron Lynx onboard :)
APATS,
For queuing the CAMM missile,s I was under the impression that the Artisan was fairly expensive, and figgured that there are cheaper alternatives, for a low end platform. For example, is the Scanter radar sufficient?
@APATS
You are proposing a Floreal size and specced vessel with a La Fayette outfit and speed requirement.
I highly doubt, that such a 2018 La Fayette long-range will come in much cheaper than a T26 baseline. And this is of course the core of the discussion here.
I have very little to add to what is fantastic debate, just one aspect that has not been covered is running costs. There are effectively two military budgets, the capital cost of initial purchase and the annual running cost, which HMG does see as two distinct bank accounts.
A lower purchase price means a lower depreciation charge in your annual running costs. Throw in using diesel engines, and greater periods between less complex and thus cheaper refits then you can see the long term financial attraction of this route. Swapping one FF for a number of Corvettes/OPVs might not reduce the initial outlay and thus depreciation but the through life equipment running cost will be lower.
As an aside, BAE inherited the River’s PFI contract when they merged with Vospers. The MoD has just exercised it’s right to buy and the Rivers are fully owned by HMG now.
Mc Z
I am not proposing anything of the sort. La Fayette has an FF style C3 system, I propose 8 consoles of the TACTONIS system. Which can be integrated to a 76MM, I have seen it when I was training the Greek Roussen class. The 90M BAE OPB for the Thais forms the basis and they built it for under 50 million.
I am not proposing AShm or steralth features or the sort of EW gear and noise makers and decoys found on La Fayette.
Not even as complex as the 100 million pound Holland Class with their link 16 and 22 and integrated mast and Gucci radar.
A 90M BAE design with a basic CMS a slightly different weapons load out, UK comms and LINk 11 /ESM and hangar for wildcat and a UAV will be same as a base line T26 with CAMM etc?
You do make a good point it is all about being able to match capability with cost.
@ Observer – yes – an old concept now but something like the screening force suggested here: pages 10 to 17 http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a245236.pdf&sa=U&ei=7uDpUPjBEaur0AX60oDIAw&ved=0CCwQFjAA&sig2=Njv325Hxjgx1gHx_mqjk-w&usg=AFQjCNGkow5u3nmdED2DGZk4cCSNxORb_g
Daughtercraft protect main fleet and operate in home and abroad littorals (Sorry! Seaside) while main fleet protects mothership/daughtercraft during blue sea transit.
TD,
On numbers. There is an interesti ng quote somewhere from David Cameron saying we have to cut the cyucles of ever fewer bigger ships for the RN, as we will end up with none. CVF has acceperated this trend I guess, as the attempts have been amde to cut cost to keep it afloat (no pun intended).
Therrte is a very interestin g headling article in the sunday Times today about the crfreation of the first “private navy” in the UK to combat priractes.http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-01-06/millionaire-s-private-navy-to-battle-somali-pirates-times-says, Glemncore being one of the worlds biggest miners – and thus with an interest in getting its productrs to market?
So that’s one option – privateise it.
The alternative is to get more hulls out of the same budget – and that is what this OPV discussiobn is about.
I agree that not what the ship is fitted with in these days of offboard systems. That’s old time thinking.
I wont get into the gun thing, but situational awarteness is gold – a weapon only works if you know where to point it – and when. N oreason why a vessle cannot ship a capable system like CAMM or an SSM, oir even this new mulit-0rolew missile thngy in due course.
Modern 30mm (or 40mm CyTA) will put a hole in anything that’s lkely to threaten on an asymetric missiom + miniguns, HELO and fast assault craft. Rember we do not have cash to waste on things that might look good but will not be essential.
I;d like ot see us go with:
10 T26 – with tails and with land attack/SSM cpacity (so they are useful in a real fight)
Then:
6 1st batch Black Swan/SIMMS type vessel – each about £100m + invest the saving in a high-end modular UAS capability, and some decent fast attack craft, maybe a few more Wildcat, some addtional ISTAR or C3I fit as command for Horn or Gulf service.
8 second batch as “MCNP” – to replace the Hunts and Sandowns in due course, with MCM modules – UUV/USV systems etc. Could begin to buy some ‘warfighting modules’ at this time – CAMM, Fireshadow Naval or something like it to enable land attack,
6 final batch with OPV fit (with ASaC Merlin for FI duties), to replace rivers, Protector and Echos – with a a couple of droggie modules, and air search and ISTAR module for FI fits.
whatever, we all have ideas…
But that would give us a urface fleet of 16 CTBG escorts, and 20 ‘adaptable’ multi-role vessels which could do low-end and swtich to high-end roles (including MCM and ASW and naval fires/land attck) with refit. They could also be fine escorts for and amphibious group or RFAs if needed.
That’s a 36 ship navy.
Top banana.
apologies for the illegible – fat finger and have specs on now
A bit late to the debate on this one. However I just wanted to say that I agree we should not trade of frigates for opv’s in general however a 13 th T26 does not really bring us much if we consider ship’s deploying in rotations of 3. Assuming T26 spends less time in refurbishment than its predecessor then we can do the same with 12 T26. If we can get 6 vessels like the Krabi for the price of the one T26 we give up then we gain the ability to replace 2 Frigates on other duties with out loosing anything.
Bit more on private navy from ST – seems to be using mother ship concept.
“BRITAIN’S first private navy in almost two centuries is being created by a group of businessmen to take on the Somali pirates who are terrorising an expanse of the Indian Ocean.
Its armed vessels – including a 10,000-ton mother ship and high-speed armoured patrol boats – will be led by a former Royal Navy commodore. He is recruiting 240 former marines and other sailors for the force.
It will escort its first convoy of oil tankers, bulk carriers – and possibly an occasional yacht – along the east coast of Africa in late March or April.
Typhon, the company behind the venture, is chaired by Simon Murray, a millionaire businessman who joined the French Foreign Legion as a teenager and walked unsupported to the South Pole aged 63.
Typhon has been set up because the Royal Navy, NATO and the European Union Naval Force lack the vessels to patrol an area of ocean that is as large as North America, said Anthony Sharp, chief executive. “They can’t do the job because they haven’t got the budget and deploying a billion-pound warship against six guys [pirates] with $500 of kit is not a very good use of the asset,” he said.
Digital Pass $1 for first 28 Days
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Simon Murray
Sending the pirate trade off the plank
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Typhon said its aim is to deter pirates from attacking its convoys, rather than engaging in firefights.
The pirates will face former marines in armoured patrol boats capable of 40 knots and able to withstand incoming Kalashnikov fire. They will be armed with close-quarter battle weapons, such as the M4 carbine, and sniper rifles with a range of 2km.
The Britons intend to sail under a sovereign flag which will give them the legal right to carry their weaponry into harbour, rather than cache them on platforms in international waters.
Mr Murray is chairman of Glencore, one of the world’s largest commodities traders. He is backing the new force alongside other investors.
It will be funded by shipping firms in much the same way as the cargo ships sailing under Indian, Chinese and Russian flags hire private convoys.
Other Typhon directors include Admiral Henry Ulrich, former commander of US Naval Forces Europe, General Sir Jack Deverell, former commander in chief Allied Forces Northern Europe, and Lord Dannatt, former chief of the general staff.”
@px (enough)
I could live with your fleet proposals. Equally I could live with a number on here. Two things seems to be fairly consistent:
– we need enough high end DD/FF to support a deployed CVF / ARG group in a hot environment with sufficient escorts to rotate a second CVF and possible some attrition reserve / slack in that structure – seems 16-20 is the right figure..
– we need greater numbers of ‘something else- – a capable and adaptable ship class (or classes) built to a price that can cover a range of low end tasks and, with some bolt ons, contribute in a higher threat environment.
My view keep changing but my current view is as follows:
I’d advance procurement of 2 GP T26 pre 2015 SDR as first of class. I think that may be the best use of any limited spare resource right now rather than two random OPVs – and would give us 21 DD/FF for the meantime. In 2015 SDR, or earlier, then commit to build another 2 T26 GP and probably 8-10 tail / tlam models – aiming for 18, or hopefully 20 DD/FF – ideally 6 T45, 10 T26 ASW / TLAM and 4 GP T26 (I see that as basically full T26 without towed array and TLAM silos – but space for them). 16 are assigned to CVF / ARG taskings (in crisis – but can be used elsewhere in absence of one) and the GPs allocated some other standing tasks
I’d press on with accelerating the plans for MHPC – tending towards a venator / black swan type vessel, but possibly two classes, a larger vessel and a smaller one. Numbers as you outline, ultimately 18ish
Mickp,
Yes I agree with you in general. Although i’d like MHPC to be one class, if only save on development costs and to get production in numbers.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5940161/london_animation_mustard_design_typhon_piracy_security/
Re Observer’s comment, January 6, 2013 at 06:41 “px, I’m starting to see why you’re not making much sense. Your ship specifications are not in line with classification…An “OPV” is approximately 500 tons….You were designing a 3,500 ton “OPV”, which should more properly be called a frigate. 7x over the designed weight limit….If you really want to see what your design would look like and cost, you would do well to look at a T-45 with a stripped out marine bay in exchange for a “missions” bay. It would be about the same….If you want an OPV, keep it to within 500-1,000 tons.”
True there is no firm and definitive definition of what constitutes an OPV (Offshore Patrol Vessel), but there does seem to be an emerging consensus. I did a bit of a “market survey” of what is being built now. You can find it here: http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2012/07/12/opv-to-opc/
The typical OPV is 1500 to 2500 tons, diesel powered, 20 to 25 knots, has a single medium caliber gun (57-100 mm) plus one or two 25 to 35mm remotely controlled heavy machine guns and some .50 cal., a helo deck and usually a hanger, at least two RHIBs of at least 7 meters, a range of about 5,000 nmi, and an endurance of three weeks. Increasingly they have provision for a small number of containers.
Compared to Corvettes, OPVs generally have greater endurance and seakeeping, better boat handling and aviation facilities, but are slower and less heavily armed. They also tend to be more heavily built so they should have longer useful lives. They don’t need to be built light for speed.
Compared to Frigates, OPVs may correspond in size to small frigates, but have smaller crews, lower speed, lighter armament, less sophisticated sensors. That means they cost much less to run and because their training, qualification, and maintenance requirements are lower, they are available more mission days per year.
OPVs can (and I believe should) be built to be upgraded to light frigates if the security situation changes, but those upgrades might require several months in a yard.
The class of vessel Observer referred to is frequently identified as an IPV, “Inshore or Intermediate Patrol Vessel”or simply patrol boats. Endurance of about a week, they don’t need organic aircraft because they are always in range of shore based aircraft, and when the weather gets really bad, they are in port or otherwise avoid it.
I would consider the Visbys either small corvettes or large FACs, not OPVs. Their focus is warfighting rather than constabulary duties.
Look what we practically gave away:
http://defense-studies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/tiga-kapal-ex-brunei-dibeli-dengan.html
76mm, couple of 30mm, 16 SeaWolf, Exocet – but no hangar.
Full spec and convoluted history here at wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakhoda_Ragam_Offshore_Patrol_Vessel
Regarding armament. A wartime mission OPVs might undertake at relatively little additional cost is to provide Naval Surface Fire Support, so by all means arm them with recycled 4.5″ mounts.
Regarding torpedoes. One capability OPVs must have is the ability to forcibly stop merchant ships. I have little faith that guns or missiles are capable of doing that quickly and reliably. I believe even light weight torpedoes that target the propellers could do that while imposing minimal demands on the crew and the ship.
At least some of the light weight ASW torpedoes including the MU-90 have an anti-surface capability. Other more obsolete ASW torpedoes might fill this need with little more than a software modification.
@ Chuck re OPV,OPCs, corvettes etc.
Well said sir.
Re: Ship stopping.
I know that is a concern of yours. I have a similar one, what concerns me is future bun fights that will be similar to this one,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N6URYN_nc4
I mentioned ice-strengthening above. But as the resident nut case nobody took any notice of what I said. They were all too busy talking about modules, again.
If type 23 is fitted with aristan camm and the new command system how long can they continue for without needing replaced realistically.
X
OK then I will bite, please explain your desire for ice hardening based on current and potential future tasking ?
@x
I agree; the ships could end up far north or far south so should be ‘toughened’ in any event
Ice strengthening or not you wont stop hull damage when you get deliberately rammed by something big and solid. For the 5% of times the additional displacement of strengthening is useful you have to accept performance/endurance penalties 100% of the time?. Bad trade that one.
Interesting that the ‘French model’ is being cited here with the Lafayette/Aviso/Floreal split. The Marine Nationale are moving forward with a project they call BATISMAR, allegedly putting first hull in the water in 4yrs, replacing their patrol fleet, including the Floreals and some A69’s, plus MCMW elements with a single modular-based OPV hull. Publically that seems to be an 80m 1500ton design that, individually, doesnt seem to offer as much as current Spanish, Dutch and German OCPV designs.
@Jonesy
I think x might have been suggesting that a nice, sharp, ice hardened prow could be used as a weapon in rough constabulary duties.
http://telias.free.fr/gallery_01/trireme.html
Might make the other buggers less keen on trying it on anyway.
Good use of an Ulstein “Axe” bow?
@x January 6, 2013 at 23:11, “I mentioned ice-strengthening above.”
The new class of CG cutter is supposed to ice strengthened. The USCG does seem to spend a lot of time in cold climes, and we don’t have much as yet that is comfortable in the Arctic. They are also supposed to have some protection against small arms fire, similar to that of the Holland class. Apparently the Holland design is to be one of the contenders, but they will have to increase range and add ice strengthening. The Request for Proposals are due this week. Three designs will be chosen for further development before the final design is selected in 2015.
@Ant, January 7, 2013 at 00:12
@Jonesy, “Good use of an Ulstein “Axe” bow?”
Check this out: http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2012/09/19/unconventional-contender-for-the-offshore-patrol-cutter/
The Ulstein design is an “X-bow” the “Axe Bow” is a Damen design.
X-bow does look aggressive. Battle of Lissa ready.
@Ant
Doesnt look modular enough that design to me and X will hate it as there’s no guns!.
Back to Batismar it did inspire CNIM to their 90m MPV (http://www.meretmarine.com/fr/imprimer-article/55239 MPV about 2/3rds down the page) which is where we really need to be looking if we are serious about a one-size fits all hull that can offload taskings from the warfighting fleet.
One thing to note is that Batismar is pitched at providing 16-18 hulls for the MN so the theory that MHPC is going to stop at 8 for the RN is somewhat unrealistic.
Earlier there was some discussion of the MHPC that indicated it would not have a helo. Why? It is certainly large enough. It would need one for patrol function. The USN expects to use helos for MCM. There might even be a use for it in hydrographic survey work. And it makes VertRep easier.
I get the feeling we’re asking too much from a single ship again.
Chuck, I’m old, my criteria for an OPV is 2 decades old, and that was the 500 ton OPV. It seems like there has been a tonnage creep changing the OPV into a light frigate, but retaining the old name. What you’re really getting is a light gun frigate by the old classification, not a defensive Home Guard PV.
It also seems that there has been a role swap. Previously, it was corvettes that were more seaworthy while PVs were meant to keep closer to home. But really no surprise there when your OPVs nowadays are really frigates in disguise. Guess it’s easier to sell your budget if you said “more OPVs” instead of “more frigates”.
You should still get two to three OPVs for the price of a frigate. An OPV and a corvette should cost about the same.
The less than 500 ton patrol vessels still exist and serve a purpose. The USCG was making 2500 ton OPVs before WWII thought 1000 to 1500 tons was more common. They did not call them OPVs, they called them gunboats.
@Observer
As well as the ‘tonnage creep’ of Patrol Vessels there has been a ‘capability creep’ of Frigates.
A fighty boat justifying the name ‘Frigate’ now needs a VLS supported by an appropriately advanced sensor suite. Something the size and shape of a frigate (long range, gun, hanger, helo) but without VLS and advanced sensors now needs a different name. Hence the tendancy to describe such things as: Sloops, Corvettes or Patrol Vessels.
My own view is that if we are going to build ships without an integral main armament then we might as well optimise the shape in order to be able accomodate the maximum range of offboard systems – some of which have yet to be designed.
So if I were shopping for a ‘Patrol Vessel’ I go for the ‘Evolved Bay’ as a self sufficient mothership for whatever offboard systems the tasking requires. It has the advantage that no-one (opfor, politicians, media, CDS) is going to mistake the ship itself for a fighting platform when its not shaped like a gunboat, frigate or destroyer.
An elegent way of reshaping the RN along these lines would be to replace the Albions with 2 new 40,000T LHD, then use Albion, Bulwark and the 3 Bays as our Patrol and Mothership platforms. This has the added bonus that (unlike unarmed frigates) they actually have a wartime role too. They form a redunant fleet of auxiliary LPD which, suitably escorted, would allow us to land and sustian a second brigade over a beachead captured by our first wave in the 2 new Amphibs.
Can it be done within existing budgets? Well we are committed to a level of capital spend by TOBA. And the crews off the Hunts and Sandowns have to go somewhere. So it is not beyond the realms of the possible.
@x
Interestingly it was he cod wars that brought about the Isles, which were bacially a trawler design.
I think we are too focussed on platforms – ship classes – rather than the systems that will be required and the best way to deliver them in the right way at the right time.
What is clear is that any new hulls will need to be ‘global’, and not Atlantic or home waters fcoussed, and most likely work in the tropics, although there will still remain a fishery protection, SAR and an ice patrol task.
No reason why we can’t invent a new type of ship for these tasks that is affordable and flexible between low-end and high-end duties, based on lesson-learning on current experience in using RFAs, MCMs and frigates and destroyers to carry out these task.
I nam px – not sure where enough is coming from ;)
So, a “Common Auxiliary Hull” for policing, mapping, resupply and transport? That might work.
You’re going to have to train your civilian naval auxilaries to a higher standard though, severely doubt if most of them are really qualified to do a search and seizure or are up to date on the laws of the sea.
As for the dreaded “modularity”, the first thing you need to get rid of is the idea of “homegrown”. If you’re stuck with designing everything from the ground up, forget savings, your R&D will kill you right off, which was one of the American failure points. You really want savings and speed, you have to skim the best of OTS for intergration, regardless of what special interest groups claim. You want to design every single missile, torp and module on the ship, you might as well design a GP ship in the first place.
Modular is not really new (we had kits to turn container ships into flight decks in the ’70s), nor does it have to be uber high tech. The challenge is to develop a common plug and play architechture into which modules can be slotted.
High end wear fighting requires sutuational awareness and C3I, the ability to penetrate defence systems, resilience to attack (range is one answer, better siutaitonal awareness and a reduction in vulnerability through adequate numbers of platforms and systems, and hard and soft self defence systems) and first strike accuracy.
low end reqires situational awareness, and the ability to pursue and defeat (and provide self protection from), asymmetrical threats. It also includes providing support to regional forces, including both operational support and training, and UK forces engaged in CT and stabilisation missions.
To look at these one-by-one
High End
1. C3I requires an operations room + accomodation for staff, comms and ability to be networked into other assets and ISTAR resources.
2. Penetrating defence systems – precision munitions delivered at range (via air assets including HELO, UAS or USS/UUV in the case of mines, or through long range surface luanched guilded systems for land attack or as alternative to air launched antiship), means to defeat enermy hard and soft counter-measures (could include UAS, swarming etc.)
3. Resilience – ability to engage beyond the range of enemy systems (dependent upon quality of situational awareness and targeting and ability to deliver munitions wia long range missiles or from air assets), numbers and redundancy in systems and platforms, self defence from guided and high velocity weapons, or any platforms that want to get in close (CIWS, HELO, CAMM, soft defence).
4. First strike accuracy – better situational awareness and precision guided munitions.
Low end
1. Situational awareness – onboard ISTAR or offboard UAS and HELO
2. Self-protrction – onboard CIWS, primarily from surface threats
3. Pursuit and kill – HELO and fast assault craft, boarding party
4. Support to regional forces – C3I (see above), accomodation.
5. CT/stabilisation. ISTAR (UAS), Support/SF HELO (Merlin?), accomodation for SF, fast assault craft, C3I.
This is a bit repetative, I know.
@x
I would not go the auxilliary route, but I would go ‘commercail standards’, but manned by RN. After al the Flowers and Rivers of WW2 were basically commercial (as were the Isles), but manning needs to be RN. They are ships from which systems will be fought.
But yes, in terms of design – although smallish 2000-4000t – so that we can have plenty.
Peter Elliott,
If we hadn’t sold one of the Bay class already your idea of using Bays + Albions would yield 6 hulls, enough to maintain 2 standing tasks.
However, the Albions are expensive ships to use as anything other than command/assault ships. They’ll be around for a while yet ;-)
Also, we can’t really build another three Bay otherwise that’s more egg on face. Furthermore, a large ship is expensive to own and run. Why deploy a 16000 tonner when (debatably) a 3000 tonner will do the job and use 1/3 of the fuel?
I keep going on about fuel, but that’s because a 3000 tonne hull will probably cost about £50m in fuel over the life of the vessel (assuming a million miles), never mind about the cost of getting the fuel to the area.
Simon, though from the problems the Aussies are having, maybe it was just as well the RN let that one go :)
px, X wasn’t the one on the auxiliary, I was. And I do not believe there actually is a “standard” for auxiliaries, you can build them to civ specs or you can build them to military specs, as long as they do support work, they’re auxiliaries.
I would recommend against using civ spec ships as frigates or destroyers though, which was one of the roles you wanted your multi-purpose ships to have. Seriously embaressing to have a 3,500 ton “destroyer” sunk by 30mm fire.
BTW it’s C4I now, not C3I :(
@observer,
Thanks for updating my jargon ;)….
I’m not suggested they are “used as frigates and destroyers”, i’m suggesting that they can be used for war fighting with a new doctrine – the black swan concept sketches out what that might be. Obviouly that requires a doctirner that keeps them far way from 30mm – and if they are not fitted with systems to prevent 30mm getting anywhere near them, then they should not be war fighting.
“if they are not fitted with systems to prevent 30mm getting anywhere near them, then they should not be war fighting”
Well, shit happens. C4I et al are fine and dandy, but some times when things go wrong, you’ll need some armour for basic protection. Example being the USS Cole. You can hardly say the Cole was underarmed or underequiped, but tied up in harbour, it still allowed a hostile not only into 30mm range but actual contact range before having a big hole blown into her.
I’m not saying the equipment is useless, but pointing out the fact that in rare circumstances when all else fails, armour is the only thing that you have left to rely on.
Re weapons fit and the 76mm gun.
It has been something of a dandelion gun, springing up weedlike all over the place and despite the best efforts of the ‘Neither fish fowl or good lean meat crowd’ it refuses to be logically argued out of existance.
I am not a particular fan, but at 120 rpm (the same rate as a wartime Bofers gun) the shells, which have a bang bigger than pre ww2 3 inch shells (which after all were not that bad), can ruin anyones day. For example, if one asked the captain of a t45 how he or she felt about say a 10 second on target burst of guided 76 mm shells and what it would do to the ship, I suspect they would shiver at the thought. OK I know that is never going to happen the t45 would nail it’s arse long before it got in range. But in terms of the damage it could do to land sea or air, targets I am certain it would not be good idea to be standing in the target area. It comes with the guided this that and the other by way of shells, and seems ‘proven’
But But But, So would a 30/35 mm. I seem to recall that no curent warship could withstand a burst of 30/35 mm to the bridge/ or along the waterline. Certainly no commercial ship can.
So as far as ship stopping capabillity is concerned, 30/35 mm would seem to be in practice as good as 76mm.
What concerns me; is that I remain absoluteley convinced that no matter what it is, LPD LHD, T26 T45 or OPV,SIMMS or whatever, if it carries RN/RFA flag it should carry a propper search radar good coms fit AND a 360 degree CIWS anti missile/aircraft capabillity. I am actually am not bothered how it gets it, nor how it does it .
Phallanx (the latest versions have a manual mode for surface targets), But apparantly now thought not up to the job calibre wise.
There are some 27mm types out there.
Goal keeper
Some PD Missile
Millenium (my personal favorite but its a non uk standard calibre)
57 mm
76mm
There are others – you pays our money and takes your choice
(again all non uk standard calibre)
My main concern is that THIS is the ship that is more likely than anything else we have affloat, to run into the Yahoos in speed boats, and or semi state controled nutters who hapen to have a couple of 50 year old design chinese anti ship missiles lying about or some old Saggers. Not top line by any means not 1st or even 2nd rank, but 3rd and more chippy, and more likely than anyone else to loose their rag and use their weapns.
Also remember that our frigates proved very bad at the whole cod war thing as well, (we lost those). Admiral of the fleet the Lord Hill Norton said famously said it was ridiculous that millions of ponds of ASW frigates were ‘Playing bumpercars in the North atlantic’.
So my MINIMUM capabillity, is that 360 degree anti air/surface close over, with the radar/sensros to go with it.
Everything else on the ship can be fitted for not with, and you can argue about the size of hull, speed,range until the cows come home, and the necessityof /numbers of choppers boats etc…..
@observer
Which RN ships have armour these days? CVF has no armour. Naval contruction standards are more about compartmentation, citadel and damage conbrol are they not?
Osverver,
“yep the enemy gets a vote as well”
It is a bit late to realise you have loaded the wrong module as you are taking rounds inboard.
Its perfectly possible to put some ballistic protection panels in a commercially designed ship.
Aslo the USS Cole scenario is not as warfighting senario – its someting all ships need to be ready for at all times. Hence mini-guns and fast attack craft.
“It is a bit late to realise you have loaded the wrong module as you are taking rounds inboard.”
You could equally say, “its a bit late to realise you should have sent a frigate and not an MCMV or an OPV as you take rounds”. The only answer to an off-the-mark threat assessment is to have all ships as do everthing warfighters… and then we get fewer and bigger ships, and cna’t do much at all – the cycle that we are trying to escape from.
“yep the enemy gets a vote as well”
It was a design trade off to get the ships I believe.
px,
You could equally say, “its a bit late to realise you should have sent a frigate and not an MCMV or an OPV as you take rounds”. The only answer to an off-the-mark threat assessment is to have all ships as do everthing warfighters… and then we get fewer and bigger ships, and cna’t do much at all – the cycle that we are trying to escape from.
No it is an argument that all Ships that could be sent anywhere remotely hostile should have a baseline capability. A capability that I often see being attributed to modular systems and not a permanent fit.
Modularity. Rhubarb.
px, problem with your analogy is that most frigates do have a fair bit of multi-role capability inbuilt into them, so even if they were given the “wrong” job, they could still get it done. Not without more effort mayhaps, but it will still get the job done. Your LCS Mk II does not have a good baseline capability as APATS has pointed out, which means if the crystal ball readers get it wrong, you’re screwed.
“Naval contruction standards are more about compartmentation, citadel and damage conbrol are they not?”
And civilian construction standards are about compartmentation, citadel and damage control? Or cost efficiency and accessability?
APATS,
So what is the “baseline”?
Scanter?
Wildcat?
What else?
As we all know in 1982, HMG sent HMS Endurance, which was in Stanley at the time to South Georgia, with a small party of Royal Marines, to evict the Argentinian Scrap Metal workers which had set up shop there.
Now I know she was Ice Breaker and the support ship for the British Antarctic Survey, and not a Warship of any type. HMS Endurance was very lightly armed. she was only equipped with 2x20mm Oerlikon Cannons and two unarmed Wasp Helicopters. But as she was the only asset HMG and the RN had in the South Atlantic at the time, HMG, had no other choice but to use her.
We all know what happened next, so there is no need to repeat it again. But the fact of the matter is, and without criticising her Captain and Crew who were put in an impossible position. HMS Endurance was unable to prevent the fall of South Georgia, unable to support the Royal Marine Landing Party, and was forced to disappear, until HMS Antrim’s Task Group arrived to retake South Georgia.
However, I doubt if HMS Clyde, could have done any better, given the circumstances.
OPV’s are fine for the Coastal Policeman’s role, but as an instrument of UK Foreign Policy they are not best suited for that role. This has been frequently stated on here, “You can send a Fleet Destroyer to do an OPV’s job, you can’t send a OPV to do a Fleet Destroyers Job”.
Simon 257,
Give that the Argentinians had 3 Drummond Class Corvettes in the AOR each with 4 MM 38 exocet I am not sure that a single FF/DD would have risked itself either.
The force that took back the falklands consisted of Antrim, Plymouth an RFA and an SSN along with SAS and SBS.
@PX
——————————–
Low end
1. Situational awareness – onboard ISTAR or offboard UAS and HELO
2. Self-protrction – onboard CIWS, primarily from surface threats
3. Pursuit and kill – HELO and fast assault craft, boarding party
4. Support to regional forces – C3I (see above), accomodation.
5. CT/stabilisation. ISTAR (UAS), Support/SF HELO (Merlin?), accomodation for SF, fast assault craft, C3I.
——————————–
Good spec listing. If you follow on from that you start to be able to define requirements for type. From the listing –
– Comprehensive air/surface RF and EO suite. ESM/CESM on the wishlist.
– Basic Combat Data System driving defensive weapons systems sufficient for survival in modest threat contested waters.
– Seakeeping ability to permit boat and rotary air ops at widest environment envelope limits possible.
– Primary design consideration on boat launch/recover and aviation dept operations.
– Reserve, reconfigurable, accomodation spaces for EMF, SAR transients, mission specialist crews (MCM/Droggy)
– Reconfigurable mission space for MCM/Droggy/MSO Ops coordination/Disaster Ops coordination etc
Now the problem is that there are several conventional ways to deliver the above – Absalon, F125 and San Giorgio come immediately to mind keeping things in the ‘under 10,000tons’ bracket. None of those ships are particularly cheap or particularly well suited to the MCMW or droggy missions.
What is needed then is something that can deliver all of the above on a minor war vessel sized hull. As per the entry on the STX thread re the Abeking&Rasmussen 70m OCPV and the CNIM design noted above it is by no means impossible to deliver, and deliver for modest expense, with the right kind of hull layout. Needs a leap of faith to step away from the traditionalist monohull though.
@simon257
Its all hypothetical but if Endurance had been accompanied by a 90m ‘OPV’ with a 76mm gun and carrying a Lynx with some Sea Skua or equivalent, ie APATs baseline spec then that would have made it a more even fight, if not tipped the balance. Taking SG as a specific example I agree an ‘OPV’ will not prevent any full naval based assault but would probably be sufficient to prevent or contain any infiltration of the sort that preceeded the invasion of SG. Like many others here I see the potential for a full scale FI invasion as slimmer than remote, however I cannnot rule out further ‘nuisance’ raids or similar incursions. An enhanced OPV capability would be able to deal with most such events, or at least contain until other units arrived.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Fighter
Britsh designed – much like Independence
These mini-frigates/corvettes – just ike a frigate but with a smaller gun, a little HELO, some dinky radar and a few SSMs remind me of those old coast defence battleships that minor nations bought in the late 19th early 20th century.. The scandawegians, Dutch, Thais and South Americans loved them. They looked like a proper warship and bristled with large calibre guns, but did it on a light cruiser displacement.
Can’t remember them covering themselves in glory, or venturing far from shore.
I don’t think a ‘shrunken’ major warship will do becuase, it will always be inferior to a frigate, probably will not have the legs to do a global missiom, and cannot do any of the other workaday missions cost effectively.
Ou-of-the-box is where we need to go. What does a sensitble LCS look like if not over-egged by USN?
@Jonesy, thanks for the extra expert knowledge. Agree with you. Must not end up as USN has over-designing a warship and now having to claim that LCS is also cover for amphibious lift – baseline must be £100m.
http://www.meretmarine.com/fr/content/bord-du-patrouilleur-holland-de-la-marine-neerlandaise
Another good article from this French website, the usual Google translate interpretation is needed but it does put into context a lot of what has been discussed in this thread. Not at all suggesting we go as big as as the Holland class but the story behind it’s need and role coincides with much that has been said here and hopefully adds to the debate.
I am going to dsign an aircraft Carrier for 200 million! Well it is as likely as a UK LCS for 100 million :)
Thats the sort of thing PX…..20knts and 4500nm on diesels. Delete the GT’s save on build and running costs.
BMT specs say it will do rotary air ops to the top of Sea State 6….on an 80m hull!. Build in a superstructure covering the forward deck spot to the bows with crew/mission spaces forward and a full width hangar aft and you’ve got a ship that can embark an enhanced aviation dept. with a thumping great mission bay that is already well able to deploy boats and UUV’s!.
Use some of the spaces left by deletion of one of the GT’s to add in palletised MCM/Droggy/ASW towed arrays and bolt on a couple of non deck penetrating 35-40mm mounts forward and, effectively, there’s your MHPC doing all the things required in the one hull!.
so here’s an idea….
Take the Black Swan, re-arm with 57mm or 76mm, and space for a couple of quad pack CAMM up front. £100m?
@Jonesy, agreed.
APATS
“I am going to dsign an aircraft Carrier for 200 million! Well it is as likely as a UK LCS for 100 million”
Whats the CNIM MPV but a French LCS intended for the BATISMAR budget?!. Just because the Yanks made a godawful muck up of it doesnt mean its a bad idea!. A&R have been building 60m SWATHs with the exact seakeeping/boat ops credentials required for years and turning them out at £40mn a pop…sure they aren’t warships but the basic hull is there able to do the job on 60-70m!.
Jonesy,
This is what the majority of the BATISMAR budget is going to be spent on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_patrol_vessel_L'Adroit
SWATH seems to get a bad name for cracking and having a very deep draught compared to the length of the vessel as well as being expensive. Personally I do not think they are that bad but what may be a problem is with the fact they are fing ugly as sin :).
Building a vessel with a mission bay is not the expensive part, it is designing the midules and making them easy to change in and out. Now if the US with their massive tech base and plenty of money are struggling, is it likely that. I loked on the A and R site but did not see what i would describe as a suitable hull nor any prices.
1. They are stupid or
2. It is neither as easy or as cheap as proponents like to make out?
What ever happened with the trimaran hull concept tested on RV Triton?
Ali,
She ended up in OZ with the Customs service. No idea if she is still running though.
Thanks APATS,
Do you also know the results of her trials and if they were good?
APATS
http://www.motorship.com/news101/ships-and-shipyards/ships-of-note-2010/another-swath-joins-the-elbe-pilot-fleet
50mn Euro’s for a baseline 60m hull…as I said…not a warship, but, definitely the foundations of a useful patrol hull. Not heard of any cracking reports with these or with the German class 751 design?.
The modules again, its an issue of picking the level you want and sticking with it surely?. The only actual hard fixed modular hardware component really needs to be, for MHPC, a towed sonar. I’ve seen palletised towed arrays on trials fits on a couple of different warship classes…last one a German F123 frigate with the reel pallet parked on her chopper pad which allowed the hangar to be used as the biggest floating cinema/cycle rack I ever did see!.
Creating an adaptable space, on an MHPC, that can accept a PS60 multibeam array or a 2093 VDS with an extending ‘sea chest’ or a gantry crane setup for UUV handling….or….or…etc wouldnt be easy or cheap. It is the only real part of the vessel that need be novel and expensive though.
10 or 15 ton davits will cope with Survey Launches or LCP’s with equal ease. Flight deck, flyco and hangar space work well with choppers or UAV’s. Reconfigurable workstations in a multirole ‘mission space’ are hardly news and, of course, people are the most modular capability of all!.
The feasibility for putting those elements together to create an MHPC that can role change practically, and at modest cost, is there…but it will be, I agree absolutely, as ugly as a smacked a%se!.
Ali, whatever this says
http://hildstrom.com/publications/pub-StructuralTrialsOfTheRVTriton-Feb-10-2003-Final.pdf
regardless, in Oz, they stationed her to the North, to find some less choppy waters
Re Using guns to stop a medium to large merchant ship. If the crew puts their survival above their mission, most any modern weapon will do. If they are suicidal, I have doubts that even a 5″ will always succeed. I also believe the choice of ammunition may be critical. Most high explosive and armor piercing rounds will explode shortly after penetrating the ship’s side. That may or may not have any effect on the heavy machinery that propels and steers the ship. Discarding sabot long rod penetrators might work better for disabling machinery. I really think we need to do some testing. As far as shooting at the bridge is concerned, the ship can be steered to its objective by autopilot like a giant slow cruise missile, even after all the crew is dead.
As long as you are hitting the ship above the waterline and the hull below the waterline remains intact, the ship can float for a very long time.
Look what happened when a cutter was sent out to sink a derelict Japanese trawler and fired into it repeatedly with a 25mm: http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2012/04/06/what-does-it-take-to-sink-a-ship-illustrated/
@ ACC
Yes the Australians have been bit before by multi-hulls……..
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5169/5312382720_f9b9f9ef8d_b.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_class_minehunter
@ArmChairCivvy, January 7, 2013 at 18:53, “Ali, whatever this says
http://hildstrom.com/publications/pub-StructuralTrialsOfTheRVTriton-Feb-10-2003-Final.pdf
regardless, in Oz, they stationed her to the North, to find some less choppy waters”
That is where their illegal immigrant problem is. They have put 14 Amidale Patrol Boats up there as well and they are having trouble dealing with the conditions. http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2013/01/04/premature-problems-with-australias-patrol-boats-multi-crewed-over-worked-under-specd/
Even though the Armidale Class is not that old the Australians are talking about replacing them with something that souldns a lot like the MHPC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Australian_offshore_combatant_vessel
@chuck
Brilliant blog sir!
@chuck
Do we really need to be able to sink ships or just to put them out of use – of course it might be like the 5.56mm vs 7.62mm infantry argument – actually yes we do need to be able to kill at range with a good ‘ol infatry weapon.
When are guns used, and when are rhey better than GMs or loitering munitions? We know about naval gunfire support in Falklands (although it would have been much less costly to have has a solution that implied not having to put major warships into confined litoral waters) and recently in Libya.
I don’t have a position, but would be interested in some thoughtd and expert opinion.
BTw I like those big multihulls, however. I did some time in East Timor way back when and that big old mulithull car ferry the Aussie had was quite a revelation.
No-one liked my idea for another 10yr PFI to lease 4 extended Rivers to fill the gap before the MHPC concept matures then… HMG could even lend BAE the money to finance it at a super low rate :)
Cut the T26 order by one to crew them and overall it may actually be pretty close to neutral for ongoing costs. Might even free up some cash to ensure the T26 is up to spec (perhaps all getting TAS for example).
While the rational of using smaller, less capable platforms for maritime security (CP, CN etc) is without question, obstacles that the UK would have to overcome include procuring vessels at low cost (always easier said than done), and establishing/funding forward logistics & engineering support. While LCS will be a forward deployed asset, the US and French Navies have invested heavily in such support – I am to be convinced that the UK has either the political leverage or will to permanently establish overseas bases from which to operate such MarSy units. If, instead, these units would be homeported in the UK, then they would clearly require both the sealegs to deploy on a global scale (endurance >3000nm?) &, perhaps more importantly, the ability to operate without/with limited shore support – this tends towards something that looks very like a USCG Cutter / low-end Frigate – neither of which are likely to be delivered for much less than 400-500 Million. If the UK wishes to continue to operate on a near global scale, then it needs to invest accordingly. If not, the OPV may be the right answer after all!!
BB,
You are very astute on these issues.
But what if hulls are leas importnat than systems, we build hulls in estonia or South Korea – encoraging BAe to buy a yard there (afer all we we are part of the global economy), and we build higher tech modules in Newcastle. Admitedly this needs some politcal PR.
Lower cost, more aligned with the stengths our economy.
BB,
If, instead, these units would be homeported in the UK, then they would clearly require both the sealegs to deploy on a global scale (endurance >3000nm?) &, perhaps more importantly, the ability to operate without/with limited shore support – this tends towards something that looks very like a USCG Cutter / low-end Frigate – neither of which are likely to be delivered for much less than 400-500 Million.
I am not certain where to start, you talk about a range of 300Nm and then quote a vessel that has a range of 12,000NM and a 28kt sprint speed. It is just under 7,000NM from Portsmouth to the Falklands so the National Security cutter could deploy to the FI and then remain on station at 14 kt patrol speed for 7 days before they got to 25% fuel. It is also the biggest rip off since the Germans built the F125 at 500 million a pop for no sonar and a 4,00Nm range.
A type 23 can do about 8,500Nm at 15 kts (13 if the galley is running). They manage to deploy perfectly well.
The Spanish recently deployed a BAM OPV to the Gulf of Aden and operate it in a normal ops cycle. BAM can do about 8,000Nm at 14kts. it did not fuel between Cartagena and Djibouti. We manage to self deploy Hunts and Sandowns to the Gulf where they happily operate out of Bahrain but can also fuel in Dubai.
The standard pattern for an FF/DD deploying East of Suez involves fuelling at Gib, Souda after a final shakedown and then Djibouti. NATO assets skip Gin and use Augusta or Souda.
Once in the op area they would actually be in an OPV would have all the facilities it required in the Gulf, Bahrain/Dubai, the FI ECMP, the Caribeann with a variety of options including the Dutch base at Willemstad. In the GOA we use Djibouti, Dar es Salam and Salalah for fuel and Gulf ports for more major maintenance.
Of course that does not even take into account RAS scheduling. In short we have all the facilities we need to support vessels operating where we deploy them.
@px says: January 7, 2013 at 19:57, “@chuck, Do we really need to be able to sink ships or just to put them out of use
We don’t necessarily have to sink them, but we do have to be able to take out engines and/or steering. Those pieces of large ships are extremely robust since they are subject to very strong forces just in their normal operation. Additionally much of this equipment is below the waterline. Explosions may not have much effect. When the allies bombed German factories in WWII, frequently the factories appeared destroyed, but the heavy machinery was actually unaffected.
In the Coast Guard’s case we have 76mm guns, 57mm, 25mm, Phalanx, and .50 cal. The 57mm that is replacing the 76mm does not have a discarding sabot long rod penetrator round while the 76mm and 25mm do and the Phalanx only fires only a high density sub-caliber round. I think that type round may have a better probability of disabling a large diesel engine than a high explosive or semi-armor piercing round that destroys itself before it ever hits the engine or steering gear.
I’m not sure there is any doctrine about choice of ammunition type for disabling large suicidal merchant ships. I’d like to see some based on testing or at least good analytical work. Until I see some proof guns will work, I will continue to advocate for torpedoes.
“When are guns used, and when are they better than Guided Missiles or loitering munitions? We know about naval gunfire support in Falklands (although it would have been much less costly to have had a solution that implied not having to put major warships into confined littoral waters) and recently in Libya.”
I’ll expand your question a little to say why do you need NGFS when you have aircraft, missiles, and loitering munitions.
I believe the warships were in confined littoral waters because that is where the transports were and the transports required protection, which the frigates and destroys did at great cost to themselves.
Obviously tossing in a few naval projectiles in cheaper than delivering ordnance by air, but there are other reasons. Frequently air assets need a visual on their target for weapons employment. If there is a cloud layer it may force air assets to fly below the cloud layer where they may be vulnerable to AAW. Fog, smoke, or sand storms may obscure the targets all together.
NGFS tends to have advantages for area fire where you choose to plaster a large area rather than discrete targets.
Warships are the ultimate loitering asset. They can be ready for call for fires for long periods in virtually any weather.
Destroyers and Frigates will need to protect Carriers and Amphibs. Being in the right place to do NGFS may not be the right place to do AAW or ASW. This is why I’ve become convinced it is a good idea to give OPVs an NGFS as a war time role. They could become NGFS specialists like the monitors of WWI and II. While DDs and FFs cover the heavies, OPVs could follow the assault wave in and do both NGFS and SAR in the Amphibious Objective Area.
@ Chuck – “Destroyers and Frigates will need to protect Carriers and Amphibs. Being in the right place to do NGFS may not be the right place to do AAW or ASW. This is why I’ve become convinced it is a good idea to give OPVs an NGFS as a war time role.”
An argument I am sympathetic too. back in the day i talked of a choke point frigate; capable of self (not area) defence in AW/ASW but with decent naval fires capability.
Just thought you might like to benefit from my through life cost estimates for the T26 and 3000t OPVs. These figures include procurement, running and manning cost. They do not include R&D, refits or embarked aircraft.
T26 looks like about £22m per year per hull.
3000t OPV looks like about £8m per year per hull.
This assumes £400m and 166 men for T26, and £100m and 60 men for the OPV. Both manning figures include the appropriate RM detatchment. It also assumes a fuel cost of about 80p per liter and an average man cost over a 25-30 year career of £1m (I think I read this somewhere).
I get about £22m for the T23 too so I’m not far off ;-)
Bottom line is that a 4:1 hull cost ratio drops to a 3:1 through-life cost ratio. Not too bad!
ACC thanks! Guess that’s off the list! Didn’t the independence LCS suffer from corrosion at one point? But from what I can remember that was just poor designing.
Once the Type 26 comes in couldn’t we use the carry on using the Type 23 for the patrol class but with a tad stripped down? The leander class stayed in for quite a bit of time so why couldn’t the Type 23?
It’s already proven itself and would have a war time role. Possible could even integrate a mine countermeasures part where the towed-array would be located?
@ APAT’S
Sorry my post earlier didn’t come over as well as I thought it would. I should have been more clear, the reason I used HMS Endurance and South Georgia as an example, is that in any given situation or scenario, you will never be given the luxury of having the right resources in the right place. And you go with what’s available at the time, not what you may have in a months time. That was the point I was trying to make.
So, I would not swap a future GP T26 for 3 extra OPV’s. Whatever future concept, on which we decide to replace the Current fleet of OPV’s with. Now, heres the reason why.
Lets say the RN was to deploy in 10 years time, a future Black Swan Sloop, off the coast of East Africa, its mission, still chasing those pesky Pirates. Now she is permanently fitted with a 76mm Gun and a couple of 20mm Cannon. The Black Swan Class is designed to use modules for whatever the mission requirements are. She’s also carrying a Wildcat and a couple of rotary UAV’s, plus Rhibs for the embarked RM detachment for boarding duties. The class can also be fitted with modules fitted with CAMM and whatever future Anti-Ship Missile the RN decides to use in the 2020’s, lets say the Norweign NSM. But, for this deployment, she is not fitted with them.
However, up in the Gulf, things are getting abit tricky. So HMG decide to send reinforcements to the Gulf. So the MOD, orders our ship to the nearest friendly Port so that it can be Beefed Up, in this case Mobassa in Kenya. And the RAF going to fly in the Camm and the NSM modules and the crew to man them. It takes the ship 2 days to get to Mobassa. The only problem is it takes the RAF, 6 days to get the necessary modules to Mombassa to rerole the ship. A day to fit them. And then 2-3 days to get up to the Gulf, and join the existing RN forces. So it takes over 10 days for the ship to be reroled and to be on station and properly equipped for the task at hand.
Or you could just order your GP T23/26 already fitted with Camm and NSM, to stop chasing Pirates and head for the Gulf at best speed. And which it will on station in less than 3 days.
Simon257,
You are right. But if you are working from a fleet of 13 T26s doing the workaday tasks no extrta capacity. An alternative fleet of 30 BSs on these tasks + a CVBG – you might have something to deploy. Otherwise – come Fi2 or anthing mildly challenging – we are Foxtrox Uniform Charlie Kiloed.
px, you can always let pirates wait on another day if something big comes up. One of the main reasons why high end warships are being sent to do anti-piracy is not only because there are no low end assets available, but also the fact that most of the time, there isn’t anything serious for them to do!
Chuck, another fan of torpedos here I see :)
To be honest though, the 25mm is a popgun, it’s good for anti-personel use. The mid-calibre guns though throw a much larger brick, so much so that I do believe it is capable of disabling engines etc, even if it’s by transmitted shock. Part of the reason why ships are hard to sink by gunfire is also the human tendency to shoot “center of mass” when ripping holes in the waterline is much much more effective. That’s a training problem. Or the guys are having way too much fun getting rare target practice and are trying to make it last. lol
I’m really interested in what others think an OPV needs, partly due to the fact that there is an outstanding requirement in my country’s navy for a next-gen OPV and it was interesting to see that there is a very large difference in expected roles and hence equipment loadouts in OPV design among countries.
Simon 257
I have always said that the usefulness of the OPV would depend upon a review of the taskings and capabilities required. My proposal would have a vessel chasing pirates that could not be upgraded to go to the Gulf in a heightened tension scenario. I would only have 1 FF/DD in the Gulf/GOA AOO.
That is for HMG to decide. Looking at the specific scenario, how much difference would a re roled modular ship make to 5th fleet ORBAT as we would undoubtedly operate inside their command structure. The biggest contribution we could make would be our 4 MCMVs and either a T23 /T26 for ASW or T45.
Now if the US with their massive tech base and plenty of money are struggling, is it likely that
Denmark’s massive tech base did it. perhaps the US’s “massive tech base” is mostly specialised in writing contracts?
Ali
I suggested keeping the 23 with the espensive kit taken out, de crewed, and just keep the guns. Received with a thunderous silence…
And to all the we need full fat t26 crowd it’s like my oposition to the elephants it’s not carrier airpower I don’t like, its half arsed wannabe carrier airpower.
Its not t26 I object to. I would love to have an all t26/t45 escort navy it’s only having 13 of them. If we had 20 odd I would be a simple thing to send one off to chase bad guys off somalia, and re role it to go up the gulf.
But if we only have 12 is there going to be one chasing pirates?
If we send an elephant off somewhere aren’t the t26’s not going to be available to go up the gulf anyway?
I simply do not see how the likely commitments of the RN can be met by 12 t26,and 6 t45? Given the need to cover an amphip opp, and elephant surely that alone will use up nearly all the available hulls.
A half dozen deep sea patrol ships would go a long way to covering our peace time commitments and ‘freing up the high end stuff for propper training etc.
Unless of course you take the view of that spanner of an admiral who is demanding and etra £15 bill on defence spending.
Staniflex worked in that the Danes designed holes for boxes in their ships, built holes for those boxes, and unsurprisingly the boxes fitted. Not that difficult to do really. The German Mekos have similar. Yes all very exciting swapping modules (IF AVAILABLE) in and out in peace time exercises off Jutland. But does Staniflex really work? I have seen no proof that it is a war winner or an answer to financial problems. The Danish navy is small the main users of Staniflex would be coastal ships. Ships have high utility as they are in effect man-made pieces of land that can be moved as being “there” and “manoeuvre” are fundamentals of warfare, but the best ships are built for single purposes. What are these modules for? An AAW fit like Sea Viper is too big to be modularised. The idea of TAS in a container all very well. But what about having the optimum engine fit out to make the most of that sensor? And besides a true ASW ship would have a hull sonar system, not exactly something that can be made modular. What about the main gun? Well having it so it can be lifted out of position when the ship is in refit may be useful. But what need can you for see it needing to be swapped out when not in refit? The smaller the ship the fewer modules in can carry the bigger the ship the more modules will get in the way or be superfluous to the systems that have to be built in.
Let’s take everybody’s here favourite here MCM. “We can stick it a container and have UAVs on the back of steel ship that has a hull designed to move water and we won’t need expensive purpose built “minesweepers” (love it when that word gets used.)” Forget the IT behind theses systems SONARS still need a certain amount of power to reach through a certain amount of water. Some of you need to forget your Sunday evening Discovery Channel “We have found this wreck!” programmes and their wonderful tow able side scan sonar systems like the 2093 are little bit beyond those systems. Even if you remove the human element from the hull and build a robot vessel around such a system it is going to be large because the hull will have to cope with that unpredictable element called the sea. It is going to need sizeable thrusters and propulsion system to keep it on track. And they will need a prime mover. Making it completely submersible won’t work. Yes the sonar body can sink but for command and control reason best if stays where it can be seen; last time I look radios don’t work underwater. MCM warfare is about precision that seems to escape many here. Of course this robotic vessel just like the manned equivalent will have to be non-ferrous rafted machinery. To move 2093 (or hold station so that a ROV can be operated) in a steady precise manner using a low signature hull we end up something that is a bit beyond something that can be packed into a TEU or operated off the deck of a small OPV or even frigate. Won’t be cheap. To do that you will need an OSV type vessel with a large working deck and with suitable cranes. Yes I grant you may be able to build several for the cost of one manned vessel. But screwing the systems on to the deck of a patrol ship. Really? What is doing the patrolling when this vessel is playing mine hunter? I think it was Mark who said that he can’t understand why everybody thinks UAVs will be smaller and cheaper than piloted aircraft. Why some here think MCM will be cheaper, less risk free, and can be carried out by dangling model submarines off the quaterdeck is beyond me.
Don’t get me started on hyrdographic work. The reason why the RN submarine force is the second best in the world is as much to do with how seriously the UK undertakes that work as much as it is do with our SSNs and SSBNs. Go look at the E class, look at their sensors, wonder why they are built with azimuth thrusters, and then wonder how stuffing such capabilities will work shoved into a common hull. We are decades away from having this stuff done by robots. Hyrdography is precision work; men’s lives rely on “charts” being precise. The ships are specialised but have long lives, high availability, and efficiently manned. I don’t see where the savings would come from in scrapping bespoke hulls in search of commonality for the sake of commonality. Hydrography isn’t a subsidiary, nice to have, can we do it on the cheap capability?, it is what enables the navy to do what it does. It would be like asking the RAF to switch off all its radars.
@ IXION
You have to look beyond CVF as a strike platform. Look at it as our one true modular ship, the modules being helicopters. Remember it will be used, just as the Invincibles were intended to be used, as a supplement to USN capabilities. Flightdeck space is valuable and having several acres available will be a big force multiplier. To concentrate your thoughts on F35 is wrong. We need to get Crowsnest/ASaC/AEW up and running. We need to consider giving Merlin some ASM capability. Remember that CVF cost over runs were politically generated. Remember the total project cost could be sunk into Typhoon many times over.
But yes you are right 19 escorts aren’t enough. That is why any suggestion to go below 12 T26 is wrong. Doesn’t matter how many clever schemes some generate to say OPV will free up more escorts. There has to been a line. And that is 12. FI already has Clyde. If HMG want a ship to cover WIGS as was get the FCO to cover it with their budget.
X,
The physical addition, to a ship, of ‘a’ or ‘b’ system is chickenfeed compared to the open system architecture that allows for whatever system to be grafted on and talk to the rest of the ships data system. If nothing else Stanflex shows that can be done without recourse to the hideous cost escalations that accompany American projects.
As stated TA modular integration has happened. The problem, of course…and I think you allude to this, is with sensors that you need to calibrate them etc. Still though we come back to the observation that this has been done!. Vessels originally not possessed of tails or lesser spec tails have been upgraded or retrofit. These are not insurmountable issues.
In terms of 2093 the ‘wet end’ deploys out of a framework called a sea chest. There is no reason why that sea chest cant be retracted or deployed similar to existing tail line-handling systems. 2093 tows at about 3knts….same as the droggy array mentioned…a little over steerage so we arent talking about extreme loads on the sonar body or tow platform here?. A precision navigation system with position hold capability would be a natural requirement for a vessel doing either MCM or Droggy work….that is a given for MHPC surely?. Not sure I understand why you raise this as an issue?. Its exactly that kind of commonality that makes MHPC viable…they are naturally synchronous capabilties.
The Simrad multibeam suite in the E’s is very good, but, its not a unique capability set and its performance can be matched by towed sets. The PS60 is just the one I’m familiar with…3km ensonified strip at 10cm resolution capable down to 18000ft!. Why do you think these systems are actually in use if they dont work?.
You said “What is doing the patrolling when this vessel is playing mine hunter?”
The MHPC thats got the patrol tasking I’d expect!. The point is to have vessels on deployment that effectively multirole. While MCMW and Droggy work is vital it is, usually, nothing that cant be put off a short time…if a higher priority tasking crops up. The modular concept is to have a primary configuration but have strong secondary capabilities in the hull or, if a real pressing operational need were to crop up, the ability to change primary configuration as an alternative to retasking another, more distant, unit. The technology is there to do that now. The roles are there that have operational crossover in hull requirements and deployment patterns and the RN are only one service of several that have noted that.
We are looking for a way of lifting the deployment burden on an already inadequate-sized frigate fleet. Its a given that no amount of solid logic or foot-stamping is going to see that force number raised, plus, we are trying to find a more cost-effective way of servicing the non-warfighting taskings. Missing the chance to get every ounce of extra capability out of the MHPC, against those criteria, would be absurd beyond belief…especially if its only due to shrinking back into the luddite view that ‘its never been done that way before’.
Just for interest, last time I looked the Danes had decommissioned all their Stanflex ships. Seems the maintenance costs of the additional modules were more than the “modular” capability was worth (among other things).
X has it spot on re MCM and Droggy work – precision is the key. The only reason MHPC was even begun was a vague hope that by combining all the “future” small ship budgets into one pot, more could be squeezed out to go into what was C1 & C2.
No rational person thinks that 19 DD/FF is enough. However, the cold hard truth is that in the event that we need a full CVBG and ATG with full spectrum escort, some of the permanent commitments will be temporarily gapped and their escorts released to help administer whatever stiff talking to is required. Which is another reason why losing DD/FF at the expense of a corvette/OPV is barking.
Just to add – the Flyfevisken have all retired and the newer ships that have entered service are not supposed to swap capabilities around. It was maintaining the huge stack of modules that did for the concept.
IXION
Yeah these suggestions do meet a horrendous silence!
The carrier i see being used in the same way as a LHA would be in an expeditionary strike group with an albion, a bay and maybe a point providing the main bulk carrying. Surely that would work to deploy a Commando group?
But I do not see 15 billion coming to the armed forces as a whole anytime soon. Especially with an election soon approaching where they would rather that go on to something to increase their chance of being voted back into office. Got to love politicians!
I support anything to get fleet numbers up at least but 12 should be the bare minimum for the RN.
NaB,
“Seems the maintenance costs of the additional modules were more than the “modular” capability was worth (among other things).”
Shouldnt that, more fully, be that the maintenance costs were more than the modular capability was worth….to them. Emphasis on the ‘to them’ part?. Possibly the discrepancy between their taskings and ours may see a slightly different amount of value on modularity between the two services?.
Not really Jonesy. The problem with module stacking is that it just passes the maintainence cost from the ship to the modules and multiplies that effect.
Let us just say we have, for example, 4 multi-purpose ships. What we then maintain are 4 ships.
On the other hand, if we have 4 “LCS”, we have 4 ships… + 3 more modules per ship of specialised equipment to swap (assuming anti-ship, anti-sub, mine clearing and anti-air variants). This means you are paying for 4 hulls AND equipment that would give the capabilities of a new ship entirely. Even being generous and setting equipment maintainence at 15% cost, you would still be paying 145% of base.
@ NaB
Just to let you know us irrational people think 19 is not enough too.
Just to clarify for everybody else. Not saying that in the future MCM couldn’t be done by a remote body. The Germans have had remote controlled sweepers. But if you think something the size of sofa dropped out of container off any hull will do the job just because we live in the super duper 21st century and we have the Internet and iPads and the future is now you don’t know what you talking about.
@ Jonesy
In a previous life I was an IT bod. The idea of modularity runs deep within my thinking. On the surface it is a very attractive idea. Modularity in software works because in reality there is only one “module” that everything else can call on virtually unimpeded. (Trying not to use technobabble here.) And hardware these days is very scalable, but what allows that scalability is software. Parallel mulit-core whatever you call it works fine. Computers are universal machines but the idea doesn’t really scale up perhaps with one exception.
Everyday here on the rural fringes I do see modular concept at work, the tractor and the Ferguson Three-point Hitch. Idea works a dream. Ploughing one month. Drilling the next. Mowing. etc. Works really well. Works well because the geography is small. The work is predictable. And the tasks are straightforward.
Ships as I said above have high utility. You can hold the infamous cocktail party onboard. You can use them for SAR. At push you can load them up with refugees. You can use their generators to supply power shoreside. Same for water. You can use their comms for more than just tactical stuff. Myriad of uses. Even the crew is an asset in that they are disciplined multi-skilled team. But all that is extra and above the ship’s core purpose, and ships designed for one job make the best ships. And with crews trained for those roles. How would you organise your manning for a modular navy the size of the RN. Not a big navy. Not technically advanced as the US but still up there, still top tier? How do you go about working up? How do you build expertise?
I have pointed above the problems with the idea of MCM and hyrdography modules. And I even did for major high end tasks like AAW and ASW. So what does that leave? What tasks are left that can be shoved into a container? How many of these containers should we buy? If we have 12 hulls do we 2 of each? 3? 4? How does the idea work? Where are the benefits? The only thing I can see is military-communications-module that we can drop on to a trawler. That would answer about 90% or more of what is being talked about here which is presence or manoeuvre. Modularity is a very expensive way of making “fitted for but not with” not just a concept but a concrete reality. As everybody here knows I want our ships fitted with everything. I want T45 to have the sonar fitted that it should have fitted not the mine dodging compromise we got. And I want 12 2087 sets not 8. But at least I know the capabilities will be covered if need be. Nobody here as yet to explain how modules work.
And I haven’t forgotten what you said about ice strengthening either. All I will say is that is the one capability we could have done with and as disputes like those South China Sea become more common it will be a capability we will need in the future. That feeds into OPVs being cheap ships, which I will question as why should they be cheap, isn’t patrol a task that has its own needs? Go look at the USCG Legends that take the idea of gold-plated OPV to an extreme or do they just do it properly? But that is for a rant later on..
Jonesy
If the Danes couldn’t make it cost-effective, given that their op area is the Baltic where everything is geographically close, such that rapid module switch-outs should be possible, and that their requirements could conceivably have switched from fully OPV to fully MCM to full ASuW in a matter of days had the balloon gone up, I’m f8cked if I can work out how the RN might make it work several thousand miles from home.
There is potential for modular systems, but they have to be thought through carefully and are likely to be augmentation to core capability, rather than delivery of that core capability itself.
As X points out – how are you going to train these people in a matter of days while the modules are swapped out? And no, the answer is not an iPad!
RE “Yeah these suggestions do meet a horrendous silence!”
Shhh! We’ve been doing that for years with the T42s – and nobody has noticed
RE “Yeah these suggestions do meet a horrendous silence!”
Mmmm perhaps because to the MOD it was bought as a Frigate, looks like a Figate, smells like a Frigate, requires a Frigate sized crew (even with lean manning) and has the running costs of a Frigate…….
therefore, a T23 with no Harpoons, and empty VLS cells, may well be entirely suitable for pirate / drug runner chasing, but it’s still an empty frigate, not a “cheap” OPV…….
And thus someone will complain about the “multi-million dollar ASW specialist ship” being used for pirate chasing…… :-)
Um. Yep. The trouble is we are already talking about two or more classes of OPV. We have the OPV to police UK and CD waters. And we want an OPV to chase pirates. And to do that economically as Brown suggests we need a frigate sized ship becuase of bunkers and stores. And that takes me back to the lesson we should be taking from the Danes which is diesels not GTs. And yes we are back to frigates chasing pirates because they can and because an OPV can’t do combat. It is silly to talk about how many percent of a ship’s life is taken up with certain tasks. The Eurofighter hasn’t shot one enemy plane down, hopefully never will do. But because it has spent 0% of its time doing its designed task would we be without it? No. Just in case. Because we don’t know. You can go to the other extreme and say Trident has never been used. You could argue in that case it is being used 100% of the time to fulfil its design purpose. No anybody arguing frigates shouldn’t be chasing pirates just hasn’t thought it through…
I don’t think “quick change” modules work very well in practise there maybe a case for a common hull but as I’ve said previous I’m not convinced there either esp for mcmv but am willing to have a sound technical case be made that convinces those doing the job that it can.
I’m not against type 26 it looks like one one the better ships designs we’ve come up with the problem is there only a dozen of them. Now you can sit and sulk in the corner bitching to the news papers about we need more money and its all the big bad rafs fault and if the army hadn’t gone here we’d of had this and that which is fine but totally pointless. The tasks are not reducing and the budget pot is not getting any bigger therefore we make best use of the funds available to meet the tasks, is that type 26 don’t know but like ixion I asked with the upgrades planned how long could type 23 which is getting them last in there primary asw role if they weren’t dashing about the place on standing tasks. If apas mentioned boat is a 3:1 ratio you could get 40 for type 26s budget for 13 ships, not practical as such as it could meet all the treats or rn the crew requirements but what if type 23 stayed on?I can’t help thinking we may need to do to the frigate what f16 attempted to do to the fighter business in the 70s maybe that is type 26 is doing I’m not sure.
For me 12 ASW escorts is a base line number. Just as having 4 SSBNs is a base line. Just as one cavalry regiment and one artillery regiment for every 3 battalions of infantry is a base line. And I bet you could up with a similar figure for an aircraft of a given type for a given use.
Why not have only 4 Type 26 as ASW control ships with 12 cheaper ASW optimised Sloops/corvette of say 3000ton as the main ASW ships with another 4 more Type 26’s added to AAW escorts and 10 sloops as GP patrol ships with a fit of 76mm NSM/(for ASW versions ASROC 2087 towed array and a decent bow sonar) millennium guns or MSI Seahawks with a wild cat for the sloops and the Type 26’s each having 127/64LW gun TLAM and NSM CAMM (AAW Astor 30) ASW LRASROC 2087 sonar and decent bow sonar RAM millennium guns/MSI Seahawk and 2 HM2 Merlin.
The Royal Navy should take over MPA with a Hi/Low mix of P-8 and C-295’s in 2 Sqn’s
I know the cost could be huge but the savings of 5 type 26 plus funding from the 8 billion I allocated fu ding and the 4 billion of leeway included for programme over spend I think this is achievable
One last fantasy fleet stab at my Womble light frigate.
2800 tons, 110m long, either trimaran or or get the Shannon RNLI designer to come up with a reduced slam monohull. So comfy in bad weather for the crew. Automation to reduce crew numbers. Light ice hardening of the hull can be done cheaply, see NZ patrol ships. Good for the Baltic in winter. Recycled weapons to keep it cheap, say 114mm gun, 2 x whatever 20/30mm mounts sitting in sheds, 30mm Goalkeeper, light torpedo tubes.
X
Where I differ fr0m a lot of the pro OPV crowd is I d not see the MHPC as a vessel for deplyment over sees I see as doing the uk survey, MCM and Patrol functions.
I would have thought a precise psitioning system was essentail to each role as would be being quiet. It also puts an upper limit on the the size for manouverability.
As for staniflex it started out as look we are able swap ships roles arround. It rapidly became that we could at a refit if we wanted.
The proposal is that we have one hull with a Meko type structure, rather than stanifle. And Meko’s have been very succesful
In any case I would prefer the OSV type vessel to do the job of MHPC not a ‘Millitary’ ship.
The Offshore patrol element and I mean really off shore like east africa, or carribian, not Lowestoft, should be much bigger.
X
I agree we are talking about 2 classes of ships as OPV I happen to thing the frigate sized opv is a bit to small to have a true wartime role whereas soemthing biugger would/could.
12 t26 really is baseline number, in that doing and training for their high end warfare role will pretty much use all of them all of the time.
I take it your baseline is a figure that to your view means that 12 is enough, not ideal but enough for what the navy is told it needs to do?
@ John H
A big Sigma…..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_class_corvette
NaB/X
Training is already in the pipeline for T26 modular crews. 118 for ship ops/engineering and accoms for up to 72 transients in ‘capability teams’.
For MPHC the concept would be that a capability team stays with the ‘modules’ not any specific hull and rotates around deployments, shorebased trade training and seamanship workups pre-deployment phases. If there are 14 hulls you buy elements of 11-12 modules with 2 or 3 teams per module.
If you work it out right the only real modularity requiring fitting to the hull, as I said, is going to be the sonar suites differentiating MCM from Droggy. Say we opt for Sb90E LCP’s (using a recently featured example from these pages) for inshore MCM UUV/diver deployment role shifting to MSO ops may be as simple as landing the MCMW capability team and embarking an RM group/stores and landing on some additional UAV’s etc. Unless an urgent need to progress with the MCM task was there the sonar/rov/uuv’s could even stay embarked!.
Droggy role shift is more complex as here you’ll need to change over the SMB’s on the davits for LCP’s and then change the capability team for RM’s etc!. Provided you can fly out a couple of 11m LCP’s…not such a huge task.
In fact the only role change requiring significant work would be to retask a patrol or droggy configured unit to an MCM configuration if a significant mine presence were to appear somewhere sensitive or be threatened…a not altogether unrealistic scenario I suppose!.
Modularity need not be US LCS style, or Stanflex blocks, to be useful.
@ IXION
Um. MHPC just for the UK would fail for all the reasons I mentioned above. The North Sea, North Atlantic, and the Irish Sea are a bit lumpy; deep V hulls, knuckles, accommodation amidships etc. You still need accuracy for hydrography so you still need all the kit (see Wiki entry for E class) even on the shelf. Mine fields get laid close to coasts across harbours, channels, and choke points; look at the UK coast look at how many MCM to keep Portsmouth, Faslane, and Devonport open. Never mind terminals like Milford Haven. How many do you want to build? We have 3 OPVs in UK waters now (not counting Scottish FP and UK Border Agency cutters). Go look at the extent of our EEZ. One size doesn’t fit all. MHPC is silly concept. That the RN staff don’t shoot such silly stuff down sooner says a lot.
As for OPV. Yep. For policing UK and CD EEZ Rivers etc are fine. No flight deck and need a better gun but fine. As for a frigate sized OPV. Um. Are you saying that a ship over say 2500t/3000t should be properly armed from the start? By armed I mean weapons and sensors? Why would an OPV need to bigger than frigate to be of any use in war? Don’t follow? If I typed something that was unclear tell me and I will try to explain. Above I did say that I would be happy to see a class of RN Iver Huitfeldt frigates (ignore their weapons fit) as the hull gave us what we need. Diesels. Merlin capable. I said keep the SONAR but no SeaCeptor (FFBNW)just the 35mm guns, is that what you mean?
Ixion said: “The Offshore patrol element and I mean really off shore like east africa, or carribian, not Lowestoft, should be much bigger.”
Oooh yes, 8,000 tonne cheap(ish) civvy hull, built overseas, such as Ulstein SX121, with hanger for 3 Merlin (plus 3 Schiebel Camcopter), and davits for 4 x 15m / 18 tonne “go fast” boats (e.g. CB90), and an over the arse rough weather launch capability for at least 4 x 11m RHIBS – no air search radar, no missiles, run by the RFA with Naval Party as required !!!
I will write it up as a follow up article :-)
NaB – “No rational person thinks that 19 DD/FF is enough. However, the cold hard truth is that in the event that we need a full CVBG and ATG with full spectrum escort, some of the permanent commitments will be temporarily gapped and their escorts released to help administer whatever stiff talking to is required. Which is another reason why losing DD/FF at the expense of a corvette/OPV is barking.”
This is exactly why my tepid acceptance of 9x T26 (ASW) was caveated to hell and back; because i am unconvinced that nine are sufficient if the balloon goes up.
Re: X’s basline numbers:
T45 = 6
T26 = 12
CVF = 2
Amphibs = 3Cdo in overload
Points + Stuft = follow on brigade
RFA support = enough for the above
That is your baseline folks!
@ Jonesy
Yes. I have heard about this T26 capability teams idea. Knew things were heading South with Drafty when they formed that T23 manning pool. What is it they say on the Tube? Oh yes I remember,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ojomTUt0X4
I do get what you are saying with that module manning plan I just don’t see it working. Probably more on philosophical level if nothing else. Separating crew from ship from function isn’t the way to go.
Modular Royals? Mod-u-lar Roy-als…Nah. :)
@ Jedi
The thing is if the balloon goes up can you see HMG sending CVF anywhere without 2 ASW escorts? What about keeping the replenishment and follow on forces safe? If things are getting really iffy what about something oop north to stop anything reaching where CASD may be (or not)? What about the sea in between the CBG and home? What about having to face another threat in another direction? What about having enough ships after the guns have gone silent? What if the Yanks are sitting this one and we are left the Frogs etc? 12 is an absolute limit. 3 for 1 in peace time. What if the RN get another 3 away from wall and say 2 working up as replacements? That is 8 leaving at least 2 in bits. That leaves us with 2. Look at how many ships got damaged in the Falklands and then look at how much of the RN’s strength never left the Northern Hemisphere. 12 is a minimum. All with TAS. Some with one iPad per man, sorry per person. :)
I’m thinking more and more that a whole different class of OPV’s or light frigates would be a dangerous divergence of resources, in particular the sacrificing of our precious high-end escorts. I can see a lot of merit in dropping down from 13 to 12 T26 in order to give them all 2087 and provide a standardised, high quality fleet, but that’s it.
I agree with a fair few other commenter’s in seeing that 18 high-end frigates and destroyers is the absolute minimum the RN can get away with. Right now they are operating with 18 vessels, 17 if you count the working up HMS Dragon, and it’s perfectly clear that the cupboard is bare! Securing 12 fully kitted T26 has to be the priority.
Beyond that I reckon bringing forward (as purely patrol ships before the mine-hunting and hydro-graphic capabilities need replacement) some sparsely fitted MHPC hulls that can fill out some of the ‘constabulary’ RN commitments could be the way forwards.
There have been so many comments that this may have been mentioned alrwady, apologies if so.
The more sophisticated a vessel gets the harder it gets to maintain. The maintenance of specialist weapons and radar requires typically maintenance / refits in the UK. This is part of the reason why a 1:3 or 1:3.2 ratio of FF/DDs to tasks is required in peace time.
Whereas for example HMS Clyde can stay forward based for 10 years with 90%+ availability. So with a little room for flexibility 4 “simple” OPVs could cover 3 standing tasks by being forward based.
This is why I think the spec of a patrol vessel should be close to the minimum required. Otherwise you are building more halfway house ships (Corvettes) than we really need which can’t fill the gap you’ve made by diverting significant cash from building DD/FFs.
X, I think you are spot on with your baseline.
Jonesy, having crew for modules that are not on ships is a terrible idea. That would mean massive amounts of crewmen stuck on shore doing absolutely nothing worthwhile when their module is not in use. If you “shorted” the crew (>modules than crew) you add another limiting factor to the problem, trained crews. There might come a time when you have the module, but the crew needed is on board another ship.
Far from simplifying logistics, think this type of “modularity” actually complicates logistics and drives costs up. If you want “modularity” keep it simple, USVs and UAVs on a universal dock system, not contorting the ship everytime something different needs to get done.
@ Repulse re baseline
I know. :)
Sad isn’t it? :(
Observer said “having crew for modules that are not on ships is a terrible idea.”
I have been thinking a little more about this and still think the idea is rhubarb. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I hadn’t connected the dots. I keep saying helicopters are modules. So why can’t a team support a module and be attached to that module? And then I thought about the Boer War and sailors dragging ship’s guns across the veldt. Joining the RAF to go to sea. And I though about “air group” being passengers aboard ship. And I also thought about my recent grumblings about crews being a bit untrained for subsidiary tasks like boardings. There has to be line between ship and land, task and crewing. So…..
1) If the “capability” is independent of the ship in that it can do other useful work in its own right then it needs it own support team that though part of the crew is distinct. For example, CHF can go to Afghanistan it doesn’t need HMS Ocean to do useful work. A naval air squadron has its own CO, 2i/c, etc. but onboard ship it becomes another department. But unlike say engineering a squadron can up and leave work in another ship or off a convenient runway which always in theatre so I am lead to believe.
1a) But the “capability”‘s main purpose should dictate which service it belongs to because of collective/corporate memory/experience unit cohesion. For example CHF’s main purpose is to fly commandos off RN flat-tops. The sea is hostile environment, operating off ships is hazardous, air group may be specialist but their share a similar culture with the rest of the ship (can’t believe I said that about the WAFU), shared knowledge, shared experiences, shared expectations etc. etc. I think the modern word is synergy.
2) If the capability is dependent on the ship then the team supporting that capability is part of the ship. For example you can’t hunt sea mines on land you need a ship at sea. (That is sea mines aren’t found on land, not a remote body can’t be controlled from land even if IMHO though that would limit effectiveness.) A ship that is best driven by somebody with experience of mine-warfare, working in shoal waters, etc. The whole crew works toward one end.
2a) That shouldn’t preclude the crew from training to perform other shipboard tasks like crewing ship’s boats or fire fighting. There has to be a limit to specialisation for general tasks.
2b) Whether that task should really involve sailors in hazardous boardings I am not sure. But that takes me back to test 1 but using RM as an example.
@ Mark,
“I can’t help thinking we may need to do to the frigate what f16 attempted to do to the fighter business in the 70s maybe that is type 26 is doing I’m not sure.”
— The Frigate is really the F-16 to the destroyers F-15. You’d be looking at more creating an F-5 or A-4 to the Type 23’s “F-16”.
I have been reading through all the posts and I realise that I am not entirely clear on several things:
What is the difference between a patrol frigate and the modern trend of OPV’s in the range of 3 – 4k tonnes? Plus is there any difference between a patrol frigate and GP frigate (i.e. when the RCN procured the Halifax was it really a GP frigate design they procured)?
Presumably for every system you install there an impact on the crewing requirements, but is there a difference in the crew requirements for say installing the Scanter 4102 and Artisan? Is there a difference in the crew requirements between fitting a MK8 and a weather protected 30mm?
Can Scanter 4102 (is this the same as the Scanter 4100 fitted to HMS Clyde) cue CAMM?
Finally does the RN typically build in certain amount of redundancy in the crewing of frigates and destroyers (compared to HMS Clyde) to improved damage control?
Sorry for asking so many questions, I am just trying to work out what a baseline “fitted for not with” frigate would look like in terms of crew requirements and if this is a million miles away from what a modern OPV would look like, as there have been several mentions of simply building a diesel only (CODOD?) version of the T26 with most of it weapon systems “fitted for not with” as a way of stretching T26 buy and fulfilling the requirements for ships to carry out constabulary duties.
I’m with X on the modular crew training piece. Once upon a time Topmast and manning pools was the future – lots of very clever people in and out of the mob swore it was true. The reality proved somewhat different and the future (I believe) looks different too.
Where the “capability teams” bit is likely to fall down is when it comes to the warfare / executive split. Is the skipper of a T26 going to willingly delegate command of his ship to the temporary “capability expert” who may know everything about his particular mission, but not necessarily be conversant with the other operating requirements of the ship? It’s a little reminiscent of the Super-CAG concept that the USN tried in the 90s and have since discontinued. Command tensions and division of responsibilities proved somewhat more difficult than envisaged – human interactions tend to be more complex than people suppose.
BTW Jonesy – you’re not the Jonesy who recently left one large UK defence company for another part-European owned one are you?
I’d guess Scanter cannot cue CAMM as it’s only 2D (no elevation data).
A bit of a shame as it would be great to have a basic CAMM capability.
@ Tubby
A OPV is a simple ship with the utter minimum of armament. It’s main role is presence not combat. The “rise in size” comes about through modern shipbuilding techniques (stronger lighter meaning bigger is a bit cheaper), improvements in accommodation (though crews are smaller too. Not just “cabin” space but rec spaces and feeding spaces), and bigger means greater endurance (bigger bunkers, bigger stores space, fridges and freezers) which means one ship stays at sea longer with less support costing less.
As for “difference between a patrol frigate and GP frigate”. Different navies classify ships is slightly different ways. I am not happy with how the term GP is banded about here. After WW2 the RN built three classes of single purpose frigates,
Type 12 ASW frigate
Type 41 AAW frigate
Type 61 fighter direction / radar picket ship
and for completeness,
Type 14 Second Rate ASW Frigate
All of these ships were replace with one class the Leander Type 12M General Purpose Frigate. Some of the consolidation was for budgetary reasons, some was due to technology, and some was because splitting functions across hulls didn’t make sense. A Leander carried the same AAW armament as the Type 41/61 and carried the same radar fit. Yes Leander lacked one Mk6 but that made little difference. They couldn’t afford to build Type 14 in the numbers they wanted (two T14 for one T12) and T14 was woefully under armed and too slow it was too single purpose. The diesel T41/T61 were designed to escort convoys in the days when many merchant ships didn’t exceed 15kts or so. But their lack of speed limited them working with the fleets. So T14, T41, and T61 were rolled on to the hull that worked the T12. All RN frigates (even the Tribals which leave to one side) then since Leander was introduced have been GP. That is to say they have capabilities in all spheres; ASW, ASuW, and AAW.
It is this concentration on ASW that causes the confusion; especially the issue of T2087 TAS. In the modern RN frigate means ASW ship and destroyer means AAW. But even T42 was a GP ship. It had an ASW capability (T2050 sonar same as T22 and helicopter), an ASuW capability (only a MK8 but), and (obviously) AAW. What makes a ship a frigate or a destroyer to the RN is its primary role, its specialisation, where the greatest investment in equipment and volume is found. This leaves T45 out on a bit of limb as it has questionable GP credentials; it is a single purpose ship, perhaps even a capital ship in its own right (SeaViper is that good). T45 was designed to be quieter than T42 so a proper search hull search sonar would work better; the LF set fitted is very limited. Go compare T45 with its Dutch/German and French/Italian peers.
This is why I prefer to talk of first rate and second rate capabilities. As see the former has having an area wide capability and the latter being local or point defence system. So SeaViper can reach out 10s of nautical miles and hit crossing targets. A TAS equipped frigate can listen for contacts over hundreds of square miles and cue its helicopter onto those contacts. A T45 equipped with a better sonar would be able to listen out for contacts over tens of square miles, cue its helicopter, and contribute to the underwater picture of the task group or better defend itself if on its own. That’s something to think about with only 19 escorts ships being on their own. A frigate with SeaWolf can only defend against missiles attacking the ship itself. It is still causing attrition to the enemy. And by placing itself on the threat axis it can “defend” other ships. To my mind a patrol frigate or second rate frigate would have hull sonar, Sea Wolf, and a gun. The French build escorts that straggle OPV and convoy escort capabilities. Cheap to build. Boost numbers but aren’t in the same class as T23.
Finally when the RN looked to replace T22 they wanted a very simple ship. Just a quiet tug for TAS. The Falklands happened and literally blew that idea out of the water. The same could be said of the Halifax. It says a lot about how Commonwealth relationships had diminished that the Canadians built a ship that was in the mould of T23. You can see a hybrid British US look to them. Also consider the close relationship between the T12 and St Laurent class. The Canadian Tribals were well thought out ships as the Canadians shopped for the best parts off the shelf and blended them into a capable ship.
Anyone had a look at the future Canadian Arctic OPV.
http://www.materiel.forces.gc.ca/en/aops.page?
http://www.materiel.forces.gc.ca/en/aops-pg.page?
Tubby said “Finally does the RN typically build in certain amount of redundancy in the crewing of frigates and destroyers (compared to HMS Clyde) to improved damage control?”
Yes. A Fearnought suit isn’t casual wear. I think ship design could mitigate the need a little. Bigger ship say with double bulkheads to contain blast and the heat. Safe zones. Sprinklers. Gas systems. And so on. All ships have a fair amount of redundancy built in.
Are we all in danger of missing the point about modularity
For me, its not about being a frigate one day and a survey vessel the next, just by swapping a handful of modules and their crews.
Instead, it allows payloads to evolve at a different pace to the carrying vessel.
They can be developed off board, upgraded off board and even maintained off board and when it becomes obsolete you do a forklift upgrade.
Look at the Army’s Generic Vehicle Architecture for a similar concept, its not about rapid module swapping to effect a role change but reduces integration costs, drives commonality and the resultant through life costs and allows damage to be repaired relatively quickly.
There are parallels surely.
Where Stanflex and LCS seemed to have gone wrong is they picked the wrong things to make modular, seemingly starting with the most complex imaginable and trying to work back.
So, its about picking where the modular thing is achievable, having manageable challenges and realistic objectives
We also have to be careful about binary arguments
Modular = Bad, Integrated = Good
Is there not a middle ground where the devil is in the details, where sensible specifications and manageable engineering challenges meet?
Same with crew swapping and payload crews being bought onboard as and when, to be honest, sounds a lot like 70’s union rules and a resistance to accept the reality of inevitable and necessary change
@ Tubby
Go look at the Danish Iver Huitfeldt frigates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iver_Huitfeldt_class_frigate
Hulls outsources to Lithuania; a varition on the Absalon hull. Out fitted in Denmark. No expensive GT. GT’s are fine if you can haul them out pop them in the post back to RR when the fail. I think many here could get their head around a ship’s diesel engine (well the small ones which we are talking about) Modern diesels give good speed as well as good range.
Can someone remind me about the medium frequency MFS-7000…
Is it good in the littoral environment?
@ Think Defence
No. I don’t think you have ever been around ship under refit. Brown argued that it is better to build new ships than worry about leaving too much space for upgrades. And I think Leander and T22 have shown that this always enough growth in a good design. I think we left,
“its not about being a frigate one day and a survey vessel the next, just by swapping a handful of modules and their crews.”
a while back and that was a bit patronising. Yep. Have your modular masts if you like. Is that a module or just a sub-assembly in a large structure. Well it is the latter not the former. You could argue GTs are modules as they can get and do get swapped out between refits if there is a need. And as I said the helicopter is the ultimate module. Perhaps the missile in a VLS silo is a module, no problem with arcs. Sonars have to sit at the bottom of the ship, do you think we could have a great chuffing hole so we can have modular hull sonars? It might work if you want an extra medium gun back aft; plate over the hole or stick an exercise bike or three in the space. I think it is you not getting it not us. If was just me talking my usual rhubarb I would give you the benefit of the doubt. But sane people who have actually done this for living are questioning the idea too.
TD and X
“I don’t think you have ever been around ship under refit. Brown argued that it is better to build new ships than worry about leaving too much space for upgrades. And I think Leander and T22 have shown that this always enough growth in a good design.”
Brown is not god, not infallible and not right about everything. T22 was indeed built with growth in mind, Leanders not so much, hence Batch III “Broad Beamed” and having served on one of them post-conversion to Exocet / Sea Wolf, well I have visited oppos on Subs who had more room !
TD – ships are in fact inherently modular. Got a hangar big enough for a Merlin, well then you can carry a Wildcat plus a UAV or a brace of UAV’s. Got a hardpoint on the deck for a tripple torpedo tubes, take the tubes off and replace it with a gun, etc
And I dont think TD’s remark was patronising at all. The Danish experience with stanflex was that in the end the modules were hardly ever swapped about within the operational fleet BUT when the time came it was very easy to move said modules between old ships and new ships (Absalon). So a common hull across roles provides many potential benefits across roles, and a common hull can be utilised because of “modularity” of payloads; even if a M equipped MHPC is never, ever re-roled as a H equipped one. And if push comes to shove, and you have enough of the “modular capability” in the form of the right kit, then should you need to surge your MCM capability, you could take the boats off a couple of PC equipped MHPC and re-role them; even if its absolutely NOT standard practice to re-role the specific hulls on a regular and frequent basis.
“Sonars have to sit at the bottom of the ship, do you think we could have a great chuffing hole so we can have modular hull sonars” – mmmmm’ no but you could have big chuffing deck space back aft, which can carry multiple RHIBS, or containerised active / passive VDS / towed array if required – not exactly rocket science, and much easier then the full rebuild required to take out the LIMBO ASW mortar and fit a TACTASS to a Leander !!!
Well, ship refits happen all the time, so it’s just doing something that already exists. As long as you don’t expect a 2 hour refit, it should be fine.
“A OPV is a simple ship with the utter minimum of armament”
Well.. oops… we missed the memo, so our OPVs ended up with Harpoons, torpedos, mini-VLS and a UAV. Think it’s too much? :P
Have you seen what the Finns pack into their hamina class:-)
@X
Thanks for your response – so it would be fair to say that tonnage aside a OPV lacks offence capabilities while a Frigate has offensive capabilities in at least one sphere (ASW,ASuW or AAW)?
Presumably as OPV’s get bigger and increasingly designed to deal with a asymmetric warfare there will be some sort of convergence where you have ships classified as OPV’s that are really 2nd tier frigates.
Presumably there wouldn’t be much of a cost saving if we decided to build a “fitted for but not with” frigate optimised for sea keeping and deploying operating its RHIB’s and helicopters, equipped with bare minimum systems – say CODAD power generation, 4.5k to 5k tonne range, with say the Scanter 4102 for sea and air surveillance teamed up with a cheap 3D air defence radar to cue CAMM should it need to be fitted, a basic EO turret, a basic ESM system, link 11, then fitted the same main gun as procured on the T26, along with a couple of 30 mm, and then made sure there was the “plumbing” and spare operators consoles with appropriate software to allow us to upgrade the basic frigate on via the UOR if we went to war (so for example we would leave space for decoy launchers, harpoon, light torpedoes, CAMM and a couple of CIWS)?
Observer said “OPVs ended up with Harpoons, torpedos, mini-VLS and a UAV”
Though as I said terms vary navy to navy what most take an OPV to mean is pretty standard. Good sea keeping. Longish range. Built often to civilian standards. Designed for constabulary tasks such as FP and EEZ patrol.
Your coastal patrol vessels would in some navies be classed as FAC. Note the low freeboard and pitiful range of what 1000nm? What ocean are you going transit with a range like that? A River has a range of 7800nm. So. Um. No. :)
:)
Yup, think it’s best to just design to needs and let the eggheads decide what to call them later. Opinionwise though, the “long range” requirement used to be the job for frigates, not “patrol vessels”
@ Jed
I am surprised you of all should knock Leander. Accommodation has improved decade on decade. It doesn’t mean the design for the day was bad if the accommodation matched or better the standard of the day. If there had been a return to hammocks and messdeck catering I could understand. Or even better being shackled to your workstation at the beginning of the commission I could understand. That the Type 12 went from ASW to GP, from two Mk10s to a flight deck and Wasp, VDS, Ikara, Sea Wolf, and Exocet shows a lot of growth. Go look at what the Indian Navy did with Leander.
As for “And I dont think TD’s remark was patronising at all.”
I was trying to be funny yet again and it didn’t come out right. I will offer a rare apology. :(
As for Absalon comments go above and see what NaB said. And then go back to what I said about there are already modular systems in modern warship design.
As for your other suggestions….
Well I like the idea of proper ship’s boats over RIBs (we don’t use the H here BTW) why would you want more than two in a modern escort? Isn’t that why ships have helicopters? Most OPVs only have a couple of RIBs. If you want a ramp aft to launch RIBs (a la USCG) then that isn’t very modular is it? But it is probably the best solution.
And as for “containerised active / passive VDS / towed array” so does your ship come with diesel electric propulsion for silent running to make use of that array? Or do new engines have to be dropped in place too? Seems a waste to spend a fortune on an expensive engine fit out and not to fit a TAS full time. Seems a waste to not to have a hull sonar that is permanently deployed and doesn’t need who is ever driving the ship to be a bit careful in case a few tens of millions of sonar body gets float tested? Even if fitted to a T23 the TACTASS would still have impacted on the ship. Far far too big to be shoved into a container. Why do I point this out? Well do we build what is needed or do we build what can fit in a module? Were any Leanders taken out of service early to fit Ikara and VDS? Or were they due to be refitted? An old salt like you must have stood by at least one ship in refit? You know deep refits are virtually rebuilds? Even if ready to go the module will be sitting alongside for 2 years or more. Probably while it’s module hole is rewired and painted.
At what point does leaving volume for a module actually impact on the ship’s structure, design, and cost? How do modules access the sky, ship’s sides, and below the water line. Do they all sit on top? What about top weight? What about EM from other sensors? Uptakes and intakes? Flight deck positioning? No it isn’t rocket science you are right there, it is naval architecture.
The frigates are compatible with the Danish Navy’s StanFlex modular mission payload system used in the Absalons, and are designed with slots for six modules. Each of the four stanflex positions on the missile deck is able to accommodate either the mk141 8 cell Harpoon launcher module, or the 12 cell mk56 ESSM VLS.[4]
No, they’ve stopped?
That the Type 12 went from ASW to GP
interesting you should put it that way – these days it sounds more like going from GP to ASW. but the submarine threat is surely less.
Presumably there wouldn’t be much of a cost saving if we decided to build a “fitted for but not with” frigate optimised for sea keeping and deploying operating its RHIB’s and helicopters, equipped with bare minimum systems
That sounds a lot like lots of ship and crew and target for bugger all, to be honest. if you were going to build a T26-size ship without the good bits, to be worthwhile, wouldn’t it be better to put the dock back in?
Alex said “interesting you should put it that way – these days it sounds more like going from GP to ASW. but the submarine threat is surely less.”
No. How did you get that? The RN went from three single purpose classes (even then they had some capability in all areas) to one class of GP frigates the Leander. And as explained even T42 was a GP ship. That is why I spent 10 minutes typing all that out to explain why the use of the term GP here is wrong. I EVEN SAID THERE IS TOO MUCH EMPHASIS HERE ON ASW ESPECIALLY TAS. What is it you don’t get?
Thank God I didn’t mention that “Type” was originally used for just frigate designs and before that destroyers were name in classes.
Actually thank God I didn’t try to explain RN destroyer development…..
Wow. I thought I had made some progress.
@Tubby says: January 9, 2013 at 13:19 “Sorry for asking so many questions, I am just trying to work out what a baseline “fitted for not with” frigate would look like in terms of crew requirements and if this is a million miles away from what a modern OPV would look like, as there have been several mentions of simply building a diesel only (CODOD?) version of the T26 with most of it weapon systems “fitted for not with” as a way of stretching T26 buy and fulfilling the requirements for ships to carry out constabulary duties.”
Can’t answer for the RN but there is a manning study you can access here for our expected manning of the new US Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC).
http://www.uscg.mil/acquisition/opc/default.asp
Look on the lower right and click manpower estimates. It will bring up a pdf. The OPC is a sort of minimalist frigate, diesel powered, no ASW or missiles, but with air search, 57mm gun and firecontrol. There is a description of the ship here: http://chuckhillscgblog.net/2012/06/22/offshore-patrol-cutter-update-june-2012/
The
Just to further confuse the “GP” specialist controversy.
Modern systems fitted on vessels as a secondary capability are often far more capable than specialist systems of 15 or 20 years ago in the same spectrum, making it far easier to field a compotent all rounder.
Lots of interesting thoughts about modularity here.
I have to agree with TDs thoughts about trying for a level of modularity that makes refits and upgrades as easy as possible. That level is still very useful, and alot easier than a 1-day-installation level of modularity. (Both in terms of the ship design, and the logistics needed to do it in practice.)
On the other hand… as also mentioned, VLS is a very modular system, as are hanger decks. So if you can strictly limit your requirements to modules that naturally have similar interfaces, and a unit cost high relative to the cost of the module interfaces, then it could be worth it.
…So, how much does it cost to enable the T-26 to support navalised Apache’s, as their land-attack module?
x said: “No it isn’t rocket science you are right there, it is naval architecture.”
Yes, exactly, so why the pedantic view point ?
Yes my first ship was the last RN vessel to be refitted in Chatham Dockyard, and was not complaining about its accommodation in the form of 3 Lima messdeck, I was talking about the lack of space of shoe-horning modern equipment into a ship which had no / limited capacity for upgrade built into it.
The Indian Leanders to which you refer were not old ones that were modded, they were built to their modded spec / design from scratch.
But yes, they were “grown” but at what cost ? You notice that we have not done anything similar to the T23 during its service life yes ???
On sonar – my point was, you dont need a hull penetration to deploy an active sonar, you can tow it. Even for a passive you dont need diesel-electric; it depends upon the processing power of your kit / software and its ability to filter out ship generated noise and the level of performance you are after – which I agree may not be as good for a “modular, multi-role” vessel than it is for a custom designed single role one. All of this being in response to cutting holes in the bottom of ships…….
@ Jed
I am not being pedantic. Accommodation is a not the issue, I laboured it because I wanted to try to be funny about being chained to the workstation for the commission. But the key sentence was,
That the Type 12 went from ASW to GP, from two Mk10s to a flight deck and Wasp, VDS, Ikara, Sea Wolf, and Exocet shows a lot of growth.
And I am afraid that isn’t contestable. Remember T12(M) was actually exported. And the class had a very long life. In some ways, accommodation aside, perhaps on the whole a better ship for their time than T22. Certainly T12 was a lot quieter than T22. Glad to hear you were in one of those little messes tucked out of the way on 3 and not one of the zoos back aft.
Of course you don’t need to penetrate the hull for an active sonar. But you can’t get out past the harbour and charge about with a VDS deployed. Surely part of an ASW escort role is to build an ongoing sub-surface threat picture while making adequate forward progress? How will this be achieved with only VDS. What if there is need for the escort to prosecute the target itself? What if the target decided to target the escort? As for processing out the sound well that is done already isn’t it? Has to be no ship is completely silent is it? But are you really telling me that all that rafting and other acoustic protection is done just to hide the escort and nothing to do with helping detect submarines?
@ Chuck Hill,
Thanks for the information – I have seen a number of comments that suggest that RN operates their ships with less crew than USN would. Do you think that if the RN was to develop it’s own version of OPC it would have similar crew requirements to the USCG (your post says 100, and the manning guide has 109), or is the extra crew on USN vessels a luxury that no one else can afford?
After a little background reading, I’m sold on APATS’s OPV.
Just wasn’t sure it really needed the 76mm. However, the only cost I could find was $1.5-2.0m, in which case we may as well have it.
Deal done. Ker-ching :-)
@jedibeeftrix, January 8, 2013 at 22:34
“Re: X’s basline numbers:
“T45 = 6
T26 = 12
“CVF = 2
“Amphibs = 3Cdo in overload
“Points + Stuft = follow on brigade
“RFA support = enough for the above
“That is your baseline folks!”
I’m not sure there is a baseline, I remember when the RN’s baseline was 40 frigates and destroyers.
Since WWII, in most of the USN’s use of carriers and amphib forces, the number of escorts made little difference. I heard at one point during Gulf War II one of the US carrier’s only escort was a Coast Guard Cutter, because all the Cruisers, Destroyers and Frigates had been detached to make Tomahawk launches. Currently no escorts are expected to be dedicated to escorting fleet train or merchant convoys (This horrifies me too).
In the case of the RN, a reasonable question would be, “Who are you going to fight alone, that has aircraft and submarines that require the escort of the Type 45s and Type 26s, but is not so powerful, as to make sending in the whole force without allies a folly?” You can’t take on the Russians or the Chinese by yourself. You could probably take on Iran, but its unlikely you would ever do that alone. Intervening in Africa might require aircraft carriers, but the need for high-end AAW and ASW escorts is minimal. Even there you are unlikely to do it alone unless it is a very small operation. Other than a repeat of the Falklands Island, I do not see where you would employ the baseline force listed above, and an awful lot of people seem to think that will never happen.
On the other hand, you have three OPVs and various fisheries enforcement vessels policing the 773,676 km2 of EEZ around the main islands of the UK, but how many ships do you have policing the remaining 89% (6,031,910 km2) of your EEZ?
@ Tubby 19:02 re CODAD frigate.
As a base line say 60% of the costs of a ship are weapons and sensors and 40% is hull and machinery. For a submarine the hull and machinery cost 90% and weapons and sensors 10%. But what you describe in your post is just about what I am saying the RN needs to build up numbers.
Chuck if you continue on that line of reasoning there are some here that will insist you have an office in HIgh Wycombe!! I would I must admit to agree with your line of thinking though.
An awful lot of people seem to think that will never happen.
Thought for the day November 12, 1918?
Um. Thinking about it High Wycombe is very hilly……
I do think a replay of Falklands is possible.
I doubt Argentina is currently capable of a full blown 1982 style invasion of the Falklands. I do think they might take advantage of UK weakness to stage some stunt, just to gain publicity & embarass Whitehall.
I wasn’t saying more frigates are not needed only that there is no discrete threshold where above is OK, below is not.
@Tubby,
Difference between an OPV, maybe better termed OCPV, and a frigate (i.e a proper warfighting FF) is about 8-10knts at the top end. The FF has to be able to dash for all sorts of operational reasons…the OCPV needs to deliver economic cruise performance. A Patrol Frigate is a mongrel crossbreed of the two…frigate weapons/sensors and OPV machinery…so you get a lightfighter thats great for pootling around a threat area at 12knts but cant chase anything quicker than a trawler!.
@Observer
I think we are missing each other in terms of modularity!. In an MHPC context you would have 14 hulls bare minimum…anything less and it doesnt work…and 14 is marginal.
Of those you will have maybe three or four droggy ‘modules’. As stated a droggy module will be a palletised towed array sonar fitted in an appropriate rear facing hole of whatever dimension. It will be a pair of Survey Motor Boats (SMB’s) on davits. It will be an appropriate software load on the ships mission spaces’ workstations. It will be a team of 21-24 ratings plus an Engineer and Warfare officer.
MCM the same basic components with different types of sonar/boat/UUV and a larger team including clearance divers. MCO/PC is not even really a module just an augmented aviation dept. plus an RM contingent and stores to support intervention ashore or disaster assist.
With two crews for each module set you have, say, 22 teams and have 10 or 11 embarked on ops or at-sea work ups….4 or 5 shore training on trade/seamanship simulators or learning new kit and the remaining teams on leave/stood down/secondment. I think you’d likely need more than 2 teams per module to make it work as opposed to having crew ‘doing nothing worthwhile!’.
“If you want “modularity” keep it simple, USVs and UAVs on a universal dock system, not contorting the ship everytime something different needs to get done.”
Agreed. See above.
@Not a Boffin
“Where the “capability teams” bit is likely to fall down is when it comes to the warfare / executive split. Is the skipper of a T26 going to willingly delegate command of his ship to the temporary “capability expert” who may know everything about his particular mission, but not necessarily be conversant with the other operating requirements of the ship?”
As I understand it T26 will have a core crew responsible for engineering, logistics, navigation, ship self-defence etc. There will necessarily be a Warfare element in the core crew. The simplest solution to me seems to have a PWO in the capability team report to the executive team no different than the core crew PWO. CO issues orders to the appropriate PWO for the tasking. If its to take an air track inbound on the ship with FLAADS the core PWO responds….if its to hit a shore target 700nm away then the capability team PWO heading the LACM strike planning team gets to acknowledge etc, etc.
I’m a big believer in demarkation in a crew…wear many hats if you have to…but know which hat brings which responsibility!
“BTW Jonesy – you’re not the Jonesy who recently left one large UK defence company for another part-European owned one are you?”
Not guilty!.
@Tubby, January 9, 2013 at 22:10, “@ Chuck Hill, Thanks for the information – I have seen a number of comments that suggest that RN operates their ships with less crew than USN would. Do you think that if the RN was to develop it’s own version of OPC it would have similar crew requirements to the USCG (your post says 100, and the manning guide has 109), or is the extra crew on USN vessels a luxury that no one else can afford?”
It might be that the RN would get by with fewer in the crew, but I would point out that in the USCG the boarding teams are ship’s company not marines and so are the aviation signals officer and tie down crew.
We also expect to be able to launch two boats and a helicopter almost simultaneously.
Difference between an OPV, maybe better termed OCPV, and a frigate (i.e a proper warfighting FF) is about 8-10knts at the top end. The FF has to be able to dash for all sorts of operational reasons…the OCPV needs to deliver economic cruise performance. A Patrol Frigate is a mongrel crossbreed of the two…frigate weapons/sensors and OPV machinery…so you get a lightfighter thats great for pootling around a threat area at 12knts but cant chase anything quicker than a trawler!.
I think this si coming down rather than going up, a lot of FF are now looking at sub 30 kt top speed and the big OCean OPVs are creeping to 23-24 kts. of course having 40kt 11M Rhibs helps chase stuff, though not sure how often we chase 25kt MV, it normally is a tramp freighter, a go fast or a trawler/yacht.
I would not get too excited about modular manning of the T26. The Data sheet lists the Ships Company as 118 and with increased automation this pretty much falls ionto line with other modern Frigates a a core complement.
When I say core complement I mean that the Ships Company of 118 would be able to man and fight the Ship in all environments and in all manning states.
The extra 72 would consist of a combination of, Ships Flight, RM boarding party, technicians and operators for any UAV/USV/Intel gathering mdoules carried. Operationally depoloyed Frigates are often augmented with an extra body in certain areas,PWO/OOW especially if the vessel is going to do a prolonged period at state 2 where keeping on top of the routine paperwork and signals required becomes the biggest task facing a Ships company working 6 on and 6 off.
Chuck
Launching 2 boats and a helo simultaneously should not be beyond a capable crew although most FF/DD crews are not particuarly practiced at boat launch and recovery. Of course if you only have 2 boats mounted on opposite sides then creating a lee for both simultaneously in any sort of wx just is not going to happen. It is only now that FF/DD launch facilities are catching up with OPV/Cutter facilities.
An LPD should be able to launch and recover the seaboat/LCVP, fly and operate different craft in each lane of the dock :)
@Chuck Hill
‘I do think a replay of Falklands is possible’
Have you read up on the state of the Argentine Navy and Air Force? They have bugger all to threaten British sovereignty in the S.Atlantic beyond hot air!
Maybe given 20+ years of heavy investment they could get to the stage of mounting the sort of complex air-land-sea operation that’s required for a second invasion, but right here and now I wouldn’t worry too much!
@Challenger: we have no clothes with regard to the FI. If a RO-RO set sail from Ushuaia tomorrow, with what are we going to stop it, exactly?
Gun runs or Brimstone from the Typhoons? We don’t have either, and even assuming we try LGB’s, they aren’t designed to be used on moving targets. SSN torpedos? Chances of them being around are tiny unless a month’s warning is given. Guard ship 4.5? Unless we have T23 down there, we don’t even have that, and the guard isn’t there all the time.
No complex air-sea operation required!
@Challenger: we have no clothes with regard to the FI. If a RO-RO set sail from Ushuaia tomorrow, with what are we going to stop it, exactly?
Gun runs or Brimstone from the Typhoons? We don’t have either, and even assuming we try LGB’s, they aren’t designed to be used on moving targets. SSN torpedos? Chances of them being around are tiny unless a month’s warning is given. Guard ship 4.5? Unless we have T23 down there, we don’t even have that, and the guard isn’t there all the time.
No complex air-sea operation required!
Where is it going to unload? AS for stopping it, well I would suggest sea skua from the guard ship lynx, 4.5, 30MM HE, Milan or even 50 cal would all result in a mission kill, ( it would have no bridge left).
x: The RN went from three single purpose classes (even then they had some capability in all areas) to one class of GP frigates the Leander.
Yes. These days, we seem to think of going from the ASW T26 to the GP T26 as a step down in capability and a saving. In T12M, it was a step up, or rather, several steps up.
Falklands round 2 is not going to happen any time soon. Hell, part of why Falklands 1 even happened was because of the mixed signals the UK government was sending out at that time. They were mass abandoning their colonies and the Argies probably thought they could pick up some of what the UK was tossing out. Of course, the big joke was that if left alone, the FI might have ended up outside of the UK, but once someone tried to invade, there was no way the UK could let it go.
Alex said “Yes. These days, we seem to think of going from the ASW T26 to the GP T26 as a step down in capability and a saving. In T12M, it was a step up, or rather, several steps up.”
Um. Yes I would prefer if they were called or referred to as T26(TAS). I should go check what the T26 says about hull sonars too. :) Perhaps as well as talking about sonars for ASW we should talk about engines and other measures to reduce the acoustic signature to enhance both detection and stealth?
“Where is it going to unload? AS for stopping it, well I would suggest sea skua from the guard ship lynx, 4.5, 30MM HE, Milan or even 50 cal would all result in a mission kill, ( it would have no bridge left).”
There best bet would be to run trawlers filled with rabid nationalist up the beach at Stanley. Arm the nationalists with sledge hammers, chains and padlocks, and some food water. Rabid nationalists break in to houses and properties in Stanley and occupy them. Fill a regional airliner or three with rabid nationalists. Plonk (is that the right term) them on the runway at MPA. Lots of satellites phones and YouTube coverage and South American TV journalists to record it all.
If they could get two of these to sea,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almirante_Brown_class_destroyer
with well trained and determined crews FIGS could be “managed”. The ARA would ignore the areas where the would lose so no Exocet vs SeaWolf/SeaViper, but the Brown do quite literally out gun T23 and T45. A bit of Argy-Bargy with no shots fired and if shots are fired well two 5in guns and 8 40mm would put the Argentines in a good position (given a comptent crew). Of course any footage of T23/T45 manoeuvring away could be seen as the British running off. Doesn’t Aspide out range Sea Skua?
When do we shoot? Does that get interpreted as British aggression in the South Atlantic? How does it look it to a Third World dominated UN?
A bit OTT all that. A second helping of custard. But you see what I am driving at……
@wf
‘If a RO-RO set sail from Ushuaia tomorrow, with what are we going to stop it, exactly?’
I really don’t want to get into another lengthy Falklands debate, but I think you’re being wildly simplistic.
Yes they could theoretically avoid all of our deployed assets in the area and place a few hundred or maybe even a few thousand troops on the islands somewhere….but then what?
All the while we held Mount Pleasant and could divert a SSN to the area they wouldn’t have a hope in hell of supplying they’re foot-hole or expanding further.
And in any case I really don’t think it’s likely they are going to try anything on at all, it’s all just hot air.
That’s why I mentioned rabid nationalists. If Argentina really cared about the FI there would be all sorts of shenanigans going on. Apart from a few protests and what’s-her-face speaking rhubarb nothing is happening. All they have to celebrate is the return of a ship impounded because they owe money. We have done FI to death. Use it as a measure of capability, whether it be amphibious lift or rapid re-enforcement by air or whatever, but actual real discussions about the islands aren’t worth repeating.
@Challenger: I agree it’s probably all hot air. But we need to have more trousers. Right now, our only actual way of stopping a ship or landing craft are 4.5 from a guard ship that might be there, or an SSN that takes two weeks to arrive.
And guess what, landing a couple of CP30 MRL trucks “somewhere” within 25k will shut MPA. Then they have quite a while to take MPA themselves…at which point it’s game over :-(
@X
I agree, it’s the desperate nonsense of a flagging government and a few fanatics. You’re right that a Falklands 2 can be used as a measure of capability but has little relevance to the day to day ‘bread and butter’ role of the armed forces.
@wf
I take you’re point. I have long felt though that increasing the Typhoon force to a light squadron of 8 aircraft (hopefully by around 2020 with Brimstone and Meteor etcetera) and deploying a full battalion on cold weather/mountain training would be a far more effective deterrent than a lone frigate.
Of course nothing is impossible, the Argentines could theoretically do as you say, I just don’t think it’s worth basing any-more of our defence planning and assumptions around this very, very remote possibility.
Maybe in 2020 we could replace the Typhoons with a few F35B. The short field capability would make them more flexible, could take off “light” from the hard point taxiway.
If JSM is integrated they could launch from over the airfield and hit a TG from multiple directions at 100NM cued by a UAV, satellite, warship or even a suitably equipped trawler :).
@APATS
Yeah id be happy with a few F35B instead, even better obviously if they were JSM integrated.
However whether it’s Typhoon or F35B I think 4 just isn’t enough, 6 or 8 would represent a far more credible force.
I think a battalion on 6 month rotation would be great as well. They could conduct cold weather and mountain training whilst there so as to get maximum effect.
Challenger said: “I agree, it’s the desperate nonsense of a flagging government and a few fanatics” – I’m sorry, are you talking about theirs or ours? ;-)
@Wiseape
Ha-ha, theirs, but fair point!
Challenger,
“However whether it’s Typhoon or F35B I think 4 just isn’t enough, 6 or 8 would represent a far more credible force.
I think a battalion on 6 month rotation would be great as well. They could conduct cold weather and mountain training whilst there so as to get maximum effect.”
Agreed. Use the place for hostile environment training with full air support from the RAF squadron. Also use it to learn how effective combat force repositioning can be by copter.