They’re 25 years old, and it’s been 25 years of operating in harsh seas, I’m not sure that they’re really ships countries would want other than at the bottom end of the market with countries unable to pay for anything newer. Destroyers and Frigates can have very long lives as they’re so expensive and often don’t spend much time at sea, but OPV’s are not really high value vessels and do spend a lot of time at sea.

I will be interested to see who ends up buying the Castle class vessels, far too handy to be scrapped or shot up.

Call me a cynic, but if it follows usual UK practice then the British tax payer will stump up millions on a major refit/upgrade and then immediately sell them to somebody else for about 5 pence 🙂

Thanks for the info, I guess there will be plenty of time to clear her for EH101 ops. Do Bristow still operate the S61N down South for SAR and stuff? A few years since I was down there 🙂 This vessel does seem to have a lot of promise, I know a lot of people dismiss her as nothing more than a net checker, but the design seems to have a lot of growth potential for future derivatives, good sea going ability, good operating costs and is more than adequate for general Police/Coast Guard duties, freeing up the true surface combatants for duties better suited to them. I think one reason these boats get a bad press in some quarters is that in many other countries they would actually be Coast Guard/Police/civil enforcement agency vessels, so there isn’t that expectation of them being warships that comes from flying a naval ensign.

Oh, c’mon, Turbinia, everyone knows that the Red Chinese are peace loving when it comes to the Republic of China. Never mind the fact that RoC is the only thing that gives the Reds any sort of military purpose since the Reds don’t wanna put their balls on the block when push comes to shove in the international stage.

Yep, them peace loving communists showed their love of peace and justice in that there cultural revolution they had…I bet the Taiwanese are really pissed they missed the opportunity to join in that :p

Oh I don’t know, the Typhoon has that 27mm cannon, the one that’s used as ballast, and the Meteor BVRAAM that’s only being tested on the JAS39 as the 4 nations in EF are refusing to stump up the cash to integrate it into the Typhoon…..hang on, I see your point.

Did the Communists observe law when it usurped the legally recognised government of China by civil war:confused: In which case their claims to some legal moral high ground are a bit empty.

No, it was that toss bag waste of space Rifkind, although now I tend to look back on those 90’s years almost as a halycon golden age for the UK forces compared to what followed 🙂