I have always believed Varyags Boilers and Turbines were fitted before launching (as with any other steam powered ship), simply because there would have been no reason not to fit them at the time. That doesn’t mean they are INSTALLED by any means. If you have ever been in the engine rooms of a steam turbine powered warship, it’s difficult to move for all the pipeworks and plumbing. It’s all this pipe work and other components that I believe were not installed in the Ukraine, allowing the builders to claim she was without propulsion. Technically, the boilers and Turbines would have just been deadweight until they were plumbed in. It’s possible they were wrecked in situ by the builders, but I doubt it. It’s a matter of semantics really as to the original contract with the Ukrainian builders. A bit like the way Warship CO’s could deny they had Nuclear weapons on board, because although they did, they were dismantled until needed, so what they had were the components for nuclear weapons, not Nuclear weapons themselves! (until they have been assembled, they are not considered to be weapons). Similarly, until Varyags Boilers and engines have been fully installed and connected up, they aren’t anything more than ballast.

I agree with Obi here, the turbines and boilers probably went in but the installation of pipework and systems were left.

If the Turbines are anything like the ones fitted to RN ships like HMS Belfast in London they are actually fairly simple devices that are over engineered. I know on western steam turbines they casing can be pulled apart to replace the blade sections. The boilers are a bit more of a concern if they have been sitting getting rusty but China and more importantly Dailan shipyard has plenty of experience of Steam turbine propulsion and for that matter overhauling large Russian ships like the Komandarn Fedko class vessel Quinghaihu which was purchased as an uncomplete vessel.

1) late – It is late but in comparison to other programs like C130J thats not unusual
2) overweight – It is but weight savings have been identified to bring it within acceptable program margins
3) underpowered – Not really, its slightly bellow the expected max power but well within the specificated margins and the development team are delighted with its power output
4) cost – Can’t argue that

One thing i think we can all agree on is that every political party has a definite Sea Blindness but also even worse a blindness to the Armed Forces as a whole. The problem however does not just lie with the politicians but the electorate as a whole, why we see things diffrently only we know. In my opinion the first role of a Government is to protect the people and the nation as a whole.

In regards to the Carrier that’s what i feel they should do as well is get as much work done as fast as possible and try and save some money through efficiency. The idea is to make the carriers a serious problem if they were cancelled and also to make them more attractive to be kept by pushing down the price and getting work done. The problem is this will never happen BAE is too selfish and narrow minded to do anything in my mind, i think they would rather get out of the shipbuilding game as they would rather be a defence systems company.

What are you saying here? are you saying you think the Carriers should be cancelled? If they are and we don’t build the FSC in our yards what will they do, sit there and die?

Stan, Nice to see you found the good old Jumper missile, something like this would be handy for situations where you need limited land attack and fast, you put lots of these on a Herky bird and fly them to a port and get them fitted to a C3. I wonder if it could also attack ships with the laser guidance unit, i dont see why not.

I MOST CERTAINLY think the carriers should be built! My point was scheduling, FSC is the next intended project. If the carriers are cancelled there is nothing else in the books to keep the yards active until FSC…they would have to close through lack of work!

You have opened my eyes to a concept I hadn’t considered that BAE Systems might enjoy getting out of the ship building business…no longer having to keep open expensive yards and concentrate on systems that can be fitted onto ships built in foreign yards. A very sad idea but I can see the corporate thinking!!!

Swerve

Local area defence, going by the briefed comments on the subject, will reside with the frigate force. CAMM, and this is an important distinction to get across, is going to be a transformational weapon system. This is because it will allow vessels, traditionally equipped with point-defence systems only, to contribute to group area defence as a whole – an inner-area missile engagement zone if you want to think of it that way. Huge step forward if it works as proposed.

I agree adding an active missile like CAMM to the frigate force is a game changer for the RN in respect of local area defence. Also why CEC capability has been prioritised for the Type 23 over the Type 45.

For global policing CAMM’s point defence capability much like Sea Wolf (albeit non active for GWS26) is more then adequate. If the RN is drawn into a situation of deploying a fleet the layered aproach offered by F35, ASAC7, Type 45 and Type23/FSC all operating in a common data network via CEC and Link16 will offer arguably one of the best area defence capabilities outside the USN!

On another note I do feel UK shipyards and suppliers are in a race now through to the next election to get as much work done on Queen Elizabeth to make any cancellation utterly perverse and foolish! Whilst I will welcome a change of government (a very hard thing for a Lib Dem to say about a coming Tory government) but some worrying statements have come out of them recently in respect of defence and the current crop of Tories have a known army bias. What frustrates me is with all these talk of cuts in programs from ALL parties is the lack of understanding of the concept of MONEY already spent and KNOCK ON!

For example cancel the carriers and forget getting FSC from a British yard…

Hull plug with flag facilities, and more vls cells, now where have I had this conversation before?

Cost savings from economies of scale will be long gone by the time additional T45s could be ordered, the yards will all be busy with CVF so the window of opportunity will of gone, stupid government.

I know we have all had this conversation so many times!

Type45 7&8 could of been an affordable way to replace Type22 Batch 3 and for that matter the T22B3 could of found ready customers to be sold on to.

Stupid government!!!

Any AESA???

No moving parts? How does CAPTOR Mechanically Scan then?

Looks like a typo by the reporter, the Eurofighter representative was probably talking about the advantages of the M-SCAN CAPTOR then moved onto talking about the future E-SCAN variant. The reporter when writing up from notes later and with no real knowledge about how the radars really worked just put the sentance together.

Just my guess…

Well Artisan is being fitted to the Type 23 and its an improvement over current fit.

Artisan should be fine for C1, in the end C1 isn’t going to be an area anti air platform.

Anyway no reason why the Sampson on the Type 45 can’t cue targets for the C1 via CEC.