The first of the four RN/RFA LSD’s has finished its trials and the RN/RFA are apparently happy, despite a long history of problems with the build of these
Personally I think these ships are a not very good compromise compared to the Dutch vessels, because they have limited over the horizon ability due to the small dock (and hence small landing craft) and having to use mexafloats. They also don’t have a hanger and so have restricted helicopter facilities.
Because of the small dock and the mexafloats they will take a long time to unload vehicles and will almost certainly have to sit exposed close to shore during a significant part of a landing rather than over the horizon as originally planned.
Still they offer a distinct advantage over what went before so they will prove useful. Now if only the RN were allowed to procure a 5th one as a casualty clearing hospital ship as they wanted then they would fill another gap in their capability 🙁
Incidentally I don’t know if anyone has noticed that one of the vessels they were due to replace, LSL Sir Galahad , is apparently now to be held in reserve as a parked training ship, no doubt as a “just in case” they find one day they need to do an old fashioned beach landing :rolleyes: She was originally to be sold and she is hardly ancient. Not sure what is happening to the rest of the class
By: Turbinia - 18th August 2006 at 07:10
At one time the RFA vessels were basically just regular dry cargo ships and tankers, but they’re far removed from that now. I think economics will dictate building the hulls in Eastern Europe or possibly Asia (I imagine the Asians might also offer some face saving deal for our politicians if the contract was worth really going for) but I think it a little sad. The Wave class tankers have probably added to the pressure to outsource hull construction as they were expensive boats, and UK ship builders (like other Western/Northern European yards) just can’t compete on lower value contracts without major subsidy.
By: Super Nimrod - 17th August 2006 at 11:28
Agreed, Whichever country in that part of the world they selected it could be viewed as an EU accession sweeteners so it would be easier to sell as an EU project then
By: EdLaw - 17th August 2006 at 11:16
Getting the hulls built in somewhere like Romania would be acceptable – it could be ‘sold’ to the public as a NATO friendship measure, where building in China would just be seen as sending jobs overseas. It would be a hard sell anyway, but it is not necessarily a bad idea – especially if you could ‘twin’ shipyards (i.e. a UK shipyard connects itself to a Romanian shipyard, and can use many of the UK workers as ‘team leaders’).
By: Turbinia - 17th August 2006 at 10:52
I can imagine the hulls will be built in Asia or Eastern Europe and maybe fitted out in the UK, although given the politics that’d be a hard sell for the government to justify. In my last job we were getting a lot of steelwork done in places like Romania and China to be towed to places like Norway for fitting out for offshore drilling/production, it does save a lot of money. With regards the tankers, a small commercial parcel tanker adapted with RAS gear and possibly a heli-deck may make a lot more sense than trying to go down the one size fits all common hull route. I can see the attraction of a common platform, but for this type of vessel the extra costs of design and inherent compromises in working around such a common platform may well outweigh any advantages.
By: Super Nimrod - 17th August 2006 at 08:22
I bet they don’t build the hulls in the UK. They may do some fitting out here but things being so cost driven these days a far Eastern yard must be favorite. However, having said that, the cold hand of Politics will no doubt intervene should one of the major UK yards be short of work until the Carriers or another major project comes along :diablo:
By: Turbinia - 16th August 2006 at 15:34
Last I heard they wanted a common platform multi-role hull to provide a basis for replacing the rest of the RFA fleet (except I presume the Diligence), but when the funds are available is anybodies guess. Diligence could probably best be replaced in the same way she was aquired, buying an offshore industry DSV off the shelf.
By: Super Nimrod - 16th August 2006 at 13:34
Yes, they certainly are more warlike than they used to be. Its a bit of a paradox isn’t it ? That is partly why I used the description of the vessels operators as RN/RFA above as I struggle to see the difference sometimes.
Has anyone seen anything on the net yet about what they are going to do in the future to replace the rest of the RFA fleet ?
By: Turbinia - 16th August 2006 at 11:15
On the subject of the RFA, it still amazes me that when they’re building LSD’s and arming their vessels with CIWS and carrying military helicopters etc. they’re still considered civilian vessels on the merchant shipping register.
By: Turbinia - 13th August 2006 at 21:31
A bigger dock would have been nice, but these are still a major capability improvement for the RFA and the UK amphibious capability. I don’t see the lack of a hangar as a big concern as in a major operation these boats will be part of a task group with aviation support vessels like HMS Ocean or the light carriers for helicopter maintenance and support.
On the current Sir Galahad, the original LSL’s had a much better reputation in the RFA, there were some serious build quality issues with the new vessel.
By: EdLaw - 13th August 2006 at 21:31
It is a great pity they did not go for an LCAC – as proved during the opening stages of OIF/Telic, the UK could not move any light tanks ashore due to the mining, yet an LCAC would have avoided this. If they had fitted the LSDs to carry LCACs, then they could have remained a greater distance offshore, and thus a lot safer. Also, an amphibious task force with 2 LPDs and 4 LSDs (each with 2 LCACs, each with 60 ton payload) would enable 720 tons of supplies to be brought ashore in each movement, with the ships up to 100 miles offshore!
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August 13, 2006 at 9:14 pm