FlubbaI hope it is more efficent for the sake of the taxpayer but i doubt it businesses try to make money. One thing im concerned about is civvies can’t be ordered to do things whereas RAF/RN personnel can be. Also if the helo’s are privately owned i worry about them being blocked from doing some edgy rescues where the helo is in quite a bit of danger.
PFI is a con in my opinion it’s just about keeping the cost off the Government books as it’s hidden under more red tape and is paid for over time. I wonder what suprises the next government will have when the open pandoras box and see all the T’s and C’s.
Nice got a comment in before i posted, same thinking as me.
FlubbaSwerve is right im afraid co-developments dont really work apart thanks to the export ban. With the USA things are different as there is very little going out i would imagine.
FlubbaMore T45’s are needed and thats a fact most people agree with. The RN will never want to put a C1 somewhere where it should not be without a DDG but the politicians pull the strings and could overrule the RN mind you it would be daft but it happens in other services. The problem is even with a destroyer near by say with an Amphib it only has a bubble about 60nm wide. So if the T45 is busy it cant break off to go help a C1 that needs help if it does then the amphib is in danger. Also even although the Radar system on a T45 is ‘the worlds best’ then it still cant see over the horizon that far.
I know im being unrealistic in ways but hey thats just me thinking about scenarios.
FlubbaYeah some people do and then others dont they just have a look what it says online and whacks it down. I prefer using deadweight tonnage and i always tell people what tonnage. The reason for that is i find it easier to compare ships using it, but i still like to find the Full load tonnage as well.
FlubbaFair point maybe a ship for the Pacific region then with all the small islands. I’ve seen a picture of the phillipines navy one and i dont like that Helo deck one bit. Nice ships though and handy for the isand nature of the country.
FlubbaYes someone does- Parliment!
Yes they do indeed but it was heading North-East at some rate, normally they are nice and quiet. This one was making a racket and going faster than normal.
In response to those thinking about the KD-2 Platform i like it as well, good modern hull that should be easy to produce at low cost. Furthermore quite a bit of the kit on it i would imagine is US in origin (Just a guess). Btw what tonnage is that AOE looks tiny maybe about 10k tons full load?
FlubbaYup Swerve is correct, it was called New Amsterdam until the English captured the city and called it New York. The wall the dutch built to keep us out ran along Wall Street hence the name of the street.
FlubbaShould have tanked them up just before the island and have them fly in supersonically trailing red, white and blue smoke………
Would have been nice to do but maybe a bit OTT, mind you along the same lines i would have done a wee air display over Port Stanley with the smoke going and other stuff. Maybe pissed the argies off by testing the response time of the Argentine Air Force i know that would be politically daft but fun nonetheless.
Talking of weapons, does anyone know whats in store at MPA and how much of it, different weapons for Tonka’s are tiffy’s? Do they stock pile all sorts of ordanance in case of issues? Ground to air stocks?
There are weapons stocks but not a great deal i would imagine maybe a couple of dozen AAM not much but enough to take out the whole Argie AF. I would think there would be the same for A to G stores as well. I doubt they will have masses of weapons sitting down there costing money and manpower to look after. Also there is no need to have lots of weapons down there as MI6 is thankfully a competent enough agency to notice and then inform the MoD the Argies had just bought a lot of new kit. When that happens more will be moved down by ship ready for any fun and games.
FlubbaWhat im trying to say is i think the C1 should carry a longer ranged addition to the CAMM due to the lack of destroyers to provide air defense. The fact that the RN will mostly be operating globally once more rather than mainly the North Atlantic i feel supports the point.
FlubbaAlgeria would certainly be splashing the cash buying 40 AW-101, not cheap helicopters by any means but very capable birds.
Nice to see that the AW-101 should be getting some confirmed production orders as it allows the daft people here in the UK time to think about buying more for the RAF/Army as well as the possible SAR replacement. Why have the Italian navy taken so long for their aircraft to be delivered i would guess the normal delay it to reduce costs BS?
Off topic but what do you think about the idea of the SAR birds being a PFI? I’m opposed to it and would rather the current Sea King helicopters were replaced with AW-101 and run in the same way, maybe with some private support. But then again i favour a proper Coast Guard with a wider civilian SAR role so i cant get it my way.
EDIT: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article6850882.ece Found that intresting read about the Helo deal.
FlubbaI dont think it’s still in production as the RN has it’s choppers so does everyone else who has ordered it so far. The only people that were buying them was the VH-71 program but that is now dead.
Who else is considering ordering the Merlin just about every European Nation and many other nations have bought the NH-90 for Naval use and i would guess that more of them would buy the NH-90 in future. It’s the same almost in the utility helicopter area most countries are buying the NH-90 or other choppers. The few orders i can see coming in are for SAR but even then it has competition from the NH-90.
FlubbaThe CAMM has a range of around 25-30Km so any aircraft could orbit outside of that range and launch missiles at the C1. The missile does not even have to have a decent range anything above 60Km is enough to cause problems.
I take it that you think the SAM armament of the Type 22 & 23 was a mistake.
Did i say or suggest that in any of my posts i dont think i did. T22 and T23 frigates were designed to operate in the North Atlantic under land based air cover or as part of a group including a carrier. Furthermore the Seawolf system is more of a CIWS rather than any sort of area system it was designed to mainly defend against submarine launched AShM’s not go after aircraft. The C1 will have a proper CIWS if all goes slightly ok.
“They will also need to be capable of deploying alone (or with an RFA tanker) often for considerable periods at significant distance from the UK, conducting the array of tasks that fall to the Royal Navy short of warfighting.”
As you can see the new frigates are meant to go somewhere alone or in consort with a tanker so better AAW i think is a much added bonus. Furthermore we only have 6 Type 45 destroyers for proper AAW not enough IMHO so additional capacity is something to be thought about.
FlubbaJa sounds a bit like the problem the UK will have with it’s Helo fleet. All our airframes have been thrashed in Iraq and Afghanistan so soon we will need to buy quite a few more Helo’s. The problem is lack of funds but hopefully the next Government sorts this so more people don’t get killed in future. In the UK we will have a hot FLynx production line but the helo’s we need are more larger models and i dont think the Merlin is still in production. Off topic i know but quite a few nations have this problem the USA as well will need to replace worn out assets so looks as if there will be options in future to work with other nations.
Since the ADF will need to replace assets soon what would you pick if you could make the choices? Personally i would use the NH-90 as much as possible for commonality and the fact that it has a hot line and large user base. The UH-60 based helicopters have price and commonality with Australia’s biggest ally the USA. The light helo has quite a few options i like the FLynx for obvious reasons but the A-109 is cheaper to buy and operate.
FlubbaSwerve someone said Spruance and Ja thought the person meant second hand ones but i think the person meant new builds based on the design, basically using a proven hull design and other features. Nice to see you noticed that as well.
A Royal Navy SAR Sea King from HMS Gannet just belted past my house, looks as if someone needs some help.
FlubbaWell 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.
Well i just think that Artisan may be a bit on the light side especially considering what other frigates are running around with would be nice to have a better Radar. Even although it will not have a primary AAW mission it will be tasked with that Job as we only have a pathetic 6 T45’s which are not enough to cover all the taskings. The problem with CEC is what if the T45 is too far away for Sampson to see the target? if for instance a C1 is floating around somewhere doing it’s ASW mission and a aircraft appears on the radar screen the CAMM does not have the range to take it out. So the aircraft will detect the ship and could fire on it with impunity. Giving the C1 Aster 30 is a way out of this problem and acts as an extra store of missiles in a fleet situation.
I can hear people saying but the C1 will be with a fleet so under carrier airpower but we do not have a proper long endurance AEW aircraft to watch for and guide fighters to the threat. Furthermore the C1 may be operating outwith freindly airpower and may need to defend itself. I see advantages either way of having more Aster 30’s in the fleet, it would cost more but not massively more.
Kev same question as earlier, where are the gas turbine exhausts, in fact no obvious deisel mack. look at the type 45 next to it big promenant stacks easily visiable from above but nothing on this C1. Have they figured out how to hide the IR from the engines. wow could be nuclear powered………………………(not)
Yeah this is an intresting point but im sure the funnels are in the structure just forrard of the harpoon launcher as it looks like the block superstructure has some pits in the top. (maybe mt eyesight is crap but hey only a guess:o)
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