New Austral Proposal

The UK’s problem like others is that we need to decide whether we want a defence or an offence force. The UK doesn’t need a lot of our current equipment for defence purposes, but we’re not prepared to pay for adequate means for offensive warfare. This leaves us in the worst situation of all, a hugely expensive military machine we don’t actually need, and without the fire power to take part in over seas expeditionary warfare without begging for gear from the US forces. If the UK accepts our place as a small nation and that our forces should be there to provide defence then we could slash our defence budgets and use the money for other things. If we want to pretend we’re still a world power then we need to spend a lot more. And this criticism is not just aimed at the UK, you can say the same about just about every defence machine in the world outside the USA.

Sadly I have to agree with you Steve, the British government are more worried these days about spending money in any area than actually buying things they need, not only in defence but even the Police and other services- look at the case of the London Bombers, they knew who they were but didn’t watch them because they didn’t have the funding for the man power.

I see the British government as a modern day Ebeneezer Scrooge, hording money in private places and letting no one touch it for any reason. If England wants to stay alive as a country, then they are going to have to wake up to the facts that things cost money. You need to spend it in order to make it, that’s the nature of ecconomics.

SteveO, yes they look good don’t they, if only the government would let the royal marines have a few to go in the new amphibious fleet

🙂 They would make great (and expensive 😉 ) alternatives to the Rigid Raiders and maybe the LCVPs too. Arm them with a cannon, some missiles and a mortar and you’ve got a really useful asset.

Depressingly, I doubt the MOD would get any even if they were being given away free, it seems procurement is all about having meetings rather than actually buying anything 😡

Carrying a few amphibious vehicles on any type of naval surface vessel is a good idea in my opinion, it would be great to see some amphibious engineer vehicles being put ashore when a warship turns up to a disaster zone. It would be fun watching a EFV chasing pirates or smugglers up the beach too :diablo:

Info, pics and films at the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) site http://www.efv.usmc.mil/

Anyhow where would an Australian Corvette be carrying a small cargo of trucks or jeeps.

Tiddles: mate how about initial disaster relief efforts? one of these MRC’s could be on station inside a couple of days with a follow up force of the LHD’s and the right equipment (as opposed to the general stores shipped currently)- this would have the advantage of effiency and productivity rather than comeing back home with store left over that were not needed.

I do see a place for these ships in any major Blue Water fleet, even to some degree a Green Water fleet, but they most definately do need something bigger on them in terms of eapon systems.

If this proposal is looked at as a large multi-role patrol vessel for Police/Coastguard duties with a limited sealift role for minor ferrying ops then I think it is a very promising concept.

SteveO, yes they look good don’t they, if only the government would let the royal marines have a few to go in the new amphibious fleet

Specs. for Austal MRC

Here are the basic specs. for the Austal MRC as per their brochure.
Length oa 72m
Sprint speed 35knots
Range 3000nm [This would be at a much reduced speed]
Deadweight 250 tons
Mission deck 499m2
Flight deck H60
This ship in my opinion could not take much more topweight in any form & I would think it would not carry much payload over 3000nm if the specs. for the Incat Catamaran are any thing to go by.Anyhow where would an Australian Corvette be carrying a small cargo of trucks or jeeps. But I still like the Austal & Incat inovative attempts to produce different approaches to naval vessels

I would think if you where taking chasing down pirates and actually wanted to catch them out then you wouldnt go steaming up and down the coast in anything painted grey, they would just avoid it.. even a 25mm cannon that is radar or even optically guided would make short work of several converted powerboats before that could cause any real harm. I would think that the best way to nail pirates it to obviously make urself look like a big fat target..

Think of a medium sized yacht, the typical playtoy of millionares world wide, cruising through the malacas straight. Looking very much like a floating bank vault thats been left open. Problem for the pirates is that its not manned by stockbrokers and politicians sons but in fact it is staffed with sailors and marines (or the Aussie SAS :diablo: ), The pirates approach thinking its payday and at less than 50 meters all hell breaks loose from small arms, squad machineguns and rocket launchers… as well as air support.

Why noone has done this before really leaves me wondering

Maersk?

Yes, well actually AP Moller, the parent of Maersk 🙂

I’d swap those Humvees for some Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles 😀

An inert one yes. Well actually it didn’t, the missile went straight through. Practically it doesn’t protect well and the biggest problem is when it catches fire. It doesn’t easily do so, but once it’s getting warm enough, it does and then it’s big big big trouble to get it extinguished.

they have added another weight saving measure buy buildint the hull out of Aluminimum thus there is basically no top weigth to speak of really.

The disadvantages of this metal in the design is that it offers lkittle to no resistance to any sort of weapons fire. This is also a reason there are no missiles aboard (the booster flame would melt a hole in the deck).

Didnt USS Stark have a aluminium superstructure, it survived a direct hit by a exocet did it not?

Maersk?

Even around the Indonesian archipelago most piracy is bands of opportunists looking for easy targets who avoid law enforcement if at all possible. I spent years out there off Indonesia and East Timor managing semi-subs and organising supply boats, anchor handlers etc. and although we had big problems with piracy we never had anything that the presence of a patrol boat didn’t stop. And I’ve seen the internal company reports on the problems in the region (the company I worked for was one of the worlds biggest ship operators, one of the few that you could say is well known outside shipping circles) and their reports wanted OPV’s and coastguard vessels, not battleships.

Nigerian pirates are indeed not so well armed and naval forces are mostly not in the area. That is also the reason why everyone is avoiding their terminals (I think they have 1 LNG terminal and some oil terminals). Same counts for Somalia, where there is no Navy except for US and NATO navies. Although there they do have RPGs as proven by the two or three RPGs that were fired against a cruise vessel this year.
In Malacca the story is different. They are well armed, and some even operate with helicopters from ships themselves (state support???). Last year they even fired a rocket against a tanker when they had difficulties to board. Piracy is a true occupation there, after the Tsunami they seemed to have been washed away, but it only took them a few months to recover. Everytime I pass that Strait, I see those messages of stolen tugs and crew put overboard etc. I don’t think they steal them because I’m coming, so that must happen quite a few times… In Malacca it’s quite ok to have what the Singapore Navy is using, true FACs (and most of the time they don’t carry their Harpoons).
And you don’t need hummer trucks to patrol your EEZ, so getting rid of that deck/replace it with more usefull things, would be a good option.

I was on an oil rig boarded in Nigerian waters in 1999 (I think), not a very pleasant experience, they were just thugs with machetes, but still scary. Over the years I’ve taken a keen interest in the piracy problem, and when I was doing superintendency got all the commerical intelligence reports and assessments, the government reports plus the usual IMO and insurance society guidance, and on the whole the overwhelming majority of piracy is not well armed large gangs but small bands of thugs with small boats, and the large majority of them do everything they can to avoid contact with any sort of law enforcement agency, it is not just a question of whether they can take on a small OPV but also the knowledge that they are very much aware of the consequences if they try and destroy a Police, Coastguard or Naval vessel, they know full well that a frigate or destroyer would be on station with revenge on it’s mind. Pirates tend to be into piracy as it’s relatively safe and easy for them, ratchet up the inconvenience and threat of capture and there are other avenues for these people to practice their avarice, let’s face it the vast majority of piracy attacks get little more than a few of the crews personal effects and some petty cash from the masters safe, hardly like robbing fort knox. In the Caribbean the drug smugglers are very well organised and heavily armed and RFA tankers often chase them down with the help of embarked RN helicopters.
About these ships, in most countries there is a very real need for economical Coastguard/Police type vessels for patrolling the EEZ etc. and they need a cheap to buy, cheap to operate vessel with decent sea keeping and enough clout to chase thieving fishing boats, smugglers etc. Not glamorous, not exotic and unlikely to make any great reputations but needed and required to fill an important role all the same. For decades the RN has operated OPV’s with little more than a token armament, and USCG cutters aren’t that heavily armed.

If you’re gonna fit ASM and SAM capability, you’ll need the radar and combat management equipment to make it effective, it’ll cost a lot and the ship will grow in size and cost substantially, which will take the design far beyond what it is intended to be. There is a huge problem in most modern navies with rising costs and a lack of economical to build and operate Coastguard/Police type vessels.

Correct on that one, Harpoon is indeed overkill, but some Poliphem or just some anti-tank missiles would do just fine. There has once been the idea to use some Sa’ar 5 craft outfitted with Polyphem wire-guided missiles and Phalanx for US Coast Guard.
I thought that wasn’t a bad idea at all (be it a bit expensive, but of course it’s US).
I’d opt for Phalanx as a self-defence, it’s ok to counter small surface craft too.
So all in all it would look like this:
-57 or 76mm gun
-Anti-tank missiles
-Phalanx.

Nothing too complicated nor overly expensive and still strong enough to take on smugglers, pirates and fishing boats.

btw, they aren’t that scared of helicopters, once a Chinese fisherman threw a broom in a Helix’s propellor, making it crash nearby. With an RPG and the idea of survival they might try to take it out after all.

I’m fully aware of modern piracy and have experience of it at the wrong end.

Which end is the wrong one for you??? 😀

Most pirate gangs run at the first sign of professional naval units, and whilst a 76mm OTO might be useful, very few pirate gangs will take on a helicopter or a naval vessel, and you don’t need Harpoon or Excocet to sink a small boat with an outboard engine or converted fishing boat.

That is not 100% true. It depends what you call a “naval vessel”, Pirates now depend a LOT on land support, they have people everywhere telling them what ships are in which condition etc. If they know this silly thing is coming after them, they’d probably not consider it a naval vessel and know what their chances would be against this. Of course most of them will indeed try to run, as they always do when you sound the alarm, but some of them are really hard headed (3 or 4 boarding attempts happened in more than one occasion).

I was thinking more in terms of a lightweight radar, nothing too advanced, perhaps even a simple Sea-RAM system (which uses the Phalanx units radar), and a small surveillance radar. Longer range targetting would probably have to come from a UAV, but that is not a bad thing. The basic problem is this – navies do not want ultra-cheap patrol craft (not very military), and coast guards are often low funding priorities, so cannot afford new ship like this one.

The niche this vessel is supposed to fill must be defined, and baby-LCS is probably not a bad option, and the most basic step would be to fit Netfires and Sea-RAM, at least giving some level of offensive/defensive capability. Add in something like the Bluefin-21, and you have at least some mine hunting capability (okay, not much, but some).

Okay, from the posts so far, we can work out what changes need to be made:

Gun – probably something a bit larger, at least 35mm (Millenium gun) or 57mm
SSM – a few Harpoon missiles, and perhaps a Netfires box or two
SAM – some RAM missiles, and perhaps an ESSM system, preferably quad-packed in Mk41s
ASW – ability to carry a couple of torpedoes, and perhaps a lightweight sonar

If you’re gonna fit ASM and SAM capability, you’ll need the radar and combat management equipment to make it effective, it’ll cost a lot and the ship will grow in size and cost substantially, which will take the design far beyond what it is intended to be. There is a huge problem in most modern navies with rising costs and a lack of economical to build and operate Coastguard/Police type vessels.

Okay, from the posts so far, we can work out what changes need to be made:

Gun – probably something a bit larger, at least 35mm (Millenium gun) or 57mm
SSM – a few Harpoon missiles, and perhaps a Netfires box or two
SAM – some RAM missiles, and perhaps an ESSM system, preferably quad-packed in Mk41s
ASW – ability to carry a couple of torpedoes, and perhaps a lightweight sonar