Great post planeman6000! It looks like you put a lot of time and effort in all those comparisons and they are awesome.

Just want to add my support to the above, great job planeman6000, a great way to start a good discussion, just a shame about fitz.

I do however have to take issue with the methodology of such a comparative process. The ships listed are not designed for the same doctrines but are the products of the perpetual resource versus wish requirement that navies go through. Consequently these are all very different ships designed to do different things, the only two that can really be compared are LCS-1 and LCS-2.

Add Poland and Malaysia for “light frigates” of the current generation (Meko A100s). Which is of course a rather contested market section too that e.g. DCN with the Gowinds has been a bit less successful in, and Navantia’s AFCON has yet to make a sale.

I would call them corvettes, the Gowind is the favorite, if it has not already been selected, for Bulgaria. IIRC Morocco and Indonesia have both ordered Sigma’s from Schelde but you are right it is a very contested market.

Rubbish and lies.

Of the 3 shortlisted proposals for SEA 4000 (hey, where’s the mightly DCNS?) B&V’s proposal was never expected to be competitive in Australia and everyone pretty much knew it at the time. No surprise it fell out early. The only real shocker out of that one was that Australia picked the less capable (cheaper) Navantia proposal over the Gibbs & Cox design it had previously listed as its preferred choice. But hey, Navantia did some great PR on that one – including the around the world cruise – and pulled it off. More power to em’. Personally, I think Australia chose the wrong boat, but I understand why they did. That’s how the export market works – they went for cheaper/less capable/better offsets, not technical ability.

What flawed logic is it exactly that I have supposedly shown that says B&V was a slam dunk for this or any other program? Ineed I seem to recall stating quite explicitly that I was using B&V in the context of what it takes to achieve broad export success. Only in your imagination have I said anything different. Or is this still just part of your master plan to find some new way to trip me up and put words in my mouth for your own personal form of ego appeasment?

Many had expected the GFC to win the Norwegian contract and they nearly did so that was a bit of a surprise. The choice of Bazan/Izar/Navantia was certainly met with a very large amount of controversy in Norway due to the yards government subsidies, and questionable labor practices. The merits of the individual ship designs seem not to have been a factor here but rather the details of the individual proposals. Specifically, Navantia promised to meet Norway’s delivery schedule and budget, the GFC said they couldn’t. Given some of the financial and quality control issues that have come up since building began GFC were probably right but whaddya gonna do? The Spanish government also promised to procure NASAMS and Penguin missile systems as well as other commercial arrangements as part of the offset agreements, opening up a lucrative new market for Norwegian industry. Such are the things that frequently determine export success. But this brings home the point that talking about export prospects just in terms of slapping some sexy new weapons on an existing hull is just the Chimpanzee part of the brain working.

Singapore I did not forget. They just don’t matter. DCNS was practically alone in the bidding for that one, B&V as I recall did not participate. Since you have attempted to make the supposed inadquacies and failures of B&V the subject of this thread, hijacking it for reasons no one can probably fathom, there was no reason to mention it. They weren’t there! Like I said in the last post, the French have tended to succeed where they have no competition – Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Morocco which combined with Singapore result in the lions share of major French naval export success in the last 2 decades. This does not a change in market trends 😮

Since you brought it up, the Formidable’s give another good example of the inefficient packaging of Sylver I mentioned earlier.

Check out the spacing of that VLS installation. I bet you could get at least 2 more Mk 41 modules in there. :diablo:

OTOH Notwithstanding the cancelled order for 10 ships from Chile for budgetary reasons the Thyssen recent order book speaks for itself. 4 for South Africa, 6+21 for Malaysia, whatever Poland ends up paying for, the ANZAC’s, etc, etc, etc,.. (and I won’t count ships built for the home navy).

In the final analysis, and desperately trying to bring this back on-topic… one, or even two or three competitions does not make a trend. Several non-competitions certainly do not make a trend. No one vendor is going to win every contract anyway and no one, particularly myself ever said they would. And finally, none of this has anything to do with export prospects or lack therof for LCS.

There. We managed to get LCS back in there. Successfully back on topic.

They all matter, B&V has lost presence on the export market becouse it has not been able to offer the required designs and it has lost out to France and Spain, fact. The Anzacs dont count as they are effectively previous generation. The only Frigates B&V can claim to have sold is the ships that went to South Africa. The market trend certainly favors france and spain at the moment.

I dont remember anybody saying that one vender won all contracts but you seem to have a habit of arguing against points no one made.

Oh and it was you who raised B&V not me.

You’d know best, you started posting here first.

Exactly, allot more experience of people like you.

Hey, why don’t you regail us with more of your fascinating, if utterly fictional accounts of the history of LCS and DD(X) like you did in post #49. TThat’s great stuff.

Nothing fictional there at all ad seeing as how you have plagerised at least one of my posts before I would stay quiet if i were you.

I could give a rip what Navantia or DCNS did last week. Once again you keep looking at the trees and have no idea where the forest is. I am neither cheering for nor defending Thyssen Marine Systems. Like I said they were used as the most obvious and convenient example of the point I was trying to make, which is to point out that they have the export market well figured out and are better able than any other yard to tailor their product to the needs of the client. Because they have so much real-world experience in the export market, they know the people, they have the relationships, they can back up what they claim with a proven track record, this makes them a tough nut to crack in the frigate export business. American yards don’t have those connections, that history, that experience and with LCS they don’t have the product either.

This demonstrates your problem, we are not looking woodland but at the international frigate market. History there is not as important as you seem to think it is because of the time scales involved. Hence why DCNS and Navantia have managed to take so much ground from B&V in the last few years.

Since you continue to feel the need to deviate from the subject at hand I’ll throw you this bone. Sure Navantia has had a couple of recent export success but only in one of those was B&V truly competitive – and nobody wins them all. The French as they always do sell to markets they already have largely locked up. It is pretty hard to get excited if Morocco or Saudi Arabia buy a French ship. So what? That does not a trend make. What any of this has to do with the exportability of LCS I don’t have a clue. The exportability of LCS will depend on the marketing skills and experience of the contractors (little to none), the particulars of the platform (of which weapons are about the least interesting), price and after sales service and support.

You missed out Singapore, I assume deliberately, then there was the Nansens for Norway. By your own flawed logic they should have walked the Australian AWD project but it went to spain with B&V nowhere to be seen. The one on the horizon to watch is the Greek Anti Air Warfare project.

B+V has been floating a “Meko 200 AAW” in its portfolio – same hull with a 40-cell Mk41, SPY-1F or APAR/SMART-L combo, 2x RAM for CIWS, 8 SSM, one ASW helo, no TAS.

Never seen a price quoted for that though, but i’d suspect that to be at least $180-200 million extra in comparison to the ASW version just based on the sensor outfit.
For a breakdown… say $120 million just for switching out the TRS-3D/16 for APAR+SMART-L, another $30 million for integrating the Mk41 instead of Umkhonto, and $10 million for a new 127mm gun. $20 million for the RAM launchers in place of the 35DPGs. Maybe a decent sonar in place of the Kingklip budget system for another $10-15 million.
A couple other improvements budgeted for up to $25 million – meh, for that we could add TAS and a number of other goodies as well; EDO’s ALOFTS 980 comes at $7 million per unit. Perhaps also a MASS-ISS instead of Super Barricade, another $3-4 million.

Would put this Meko A200 AAW at around $490 to $520 million.

Given Norways experience with the Nansen I would suspect a bit more.;) roughly $600million.;)

Sure. $710 million, Morocco deal. Afaik without Aster missiles. Now take the heavily undervalued dollar at the moment into account, and we’re getting rather close.

LCS2 is projected for a cost of what, around $640 million right now for the prototype? Slap 15% off for unit cost in a serial production run, to be fair.

To bring this to equivalence to a FREMM, let’s say $40-50 million in ASW equipment, and another $40-50 million for at least two Mk48s (without missiles) and CEAFAR. Wouldn’t be quite equivalent, but still not bad for a GP frigate. Add Harpoon. Under FMS, those are around $15 million.

Where are we now… $650 to 670 million. Sure, could be competitive. But that’s a ship that has no growth space left, doesn’t look as “big” as a FREMM (and that is important), is slightly deficient in AAW comparison, and needs good ties to the USA. And of course that B+V would bid against with a fully decked-out Meko A200 with similar specs for $100 million less at least.

—

B+V currently holds 25% of the worldwide frigate export market btw, according to the German government [1]. Not what i would call a “lock” either, but it’s a rather significant share.

[1] – Naval Industry Coordinator Dagmar Wöhrl at this conference

The problem is that Meko has not been doing well lately, they have lost allot of ground to Navantia and Thales/DCNS/France in general. It will be interesting to see what happens when the next big contest comes up.

On the issue of LCS, It is worth noting that the new Barak missile will use Mk-41 and will be intended for Frigate sized ships along with associated radar. This could provide a reasonably priced and effective alternative to SPY-1F.

The only point I would dissagree with you on is the cheaper Meko, I would love to see a break down for comparable systems not the absurdly spartan South African ships.

Your one to talk.

And that would all be well and good if weight categories had anything to do with anything. I’m talking about some very specific and unique operational requirements built into the basic design that would be of little to no use to the typical foreign buyer combined with a number of requirements that would be missing that would appeal to the potential foreign buyer. Notwithstanding the fact that a highly automated, sophisticated ship like this is not going to appeal to a fleet whose sailors may be made up of a large pool of short-term conscripts. It is no mystery why ships tailor made for the specific requirements of the larger western navies (USN, France, RN, etc.) tend to do poorly on the export market.

The big export success of the last several decades of course has been the Blohm & Voss (now Thyssen or whatever they are called this week) MEKO series. Why? Because they figured out the secret.

Perviously foriegn buyers typically had a choice of either buying off-the-shelf designs produced for the major navies or buying ships – often from private yards with less naval design experience – tailored specifically for the export market. The off-the-shelf vessels would often be too large, sophisticated and/or expensive for a smaller, developing navy. The commercial vessels had levels of sophistication and accomodation more suited to the needs of smaller navies, often with a more appropriate price tag. They often appeared to be more powerful than they really were. The Venezuelan destroyers purchased from Britain in the early 50’s and the Vosper Mk 5’s for Iran in or around 65′ are great examples of the differences between export frigates/destroyers compared to home-navy practice. The MEKO 360 in the late 70’s would be a more modern example. Less sophisticated and less specialized than typical NATO frigates of the era (jack of all trades, master of none) but visually very imposing. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Vosper Thornycroft and to a lesser extent Yarrow starting from around 1960 started to attack the export market for patrol boats to frigates in a big way offering a range of hull options. Like all ships built up to this time though they tended to be build around their equipment – machinery, weapons systems, electronics, etc., giving the customer a somewhat limited range of options. It was still better than buying a NATO frigate – if you wanted a Leander for example it pretty much came in one flavor only – but it meant extra expense if the yard was going to design each ship to specific customer requirements or equipment choices.

Then B&V came up with MEKO. They did something completely new and different. Instead of offering a range of hulls each with a limited set of equipment choices, or custom designing each ship for each customer (expensive) B&V figured out how to fit major items of equipment – machiney, weapons, electronics, auxiliaries – on pallets of standardized dimensions. The was then built around these pallets, not the equipment on the pallets as had traditionally been done. Starting off with 4 different standard hull sizes (100, 140, 200, 360) B&V could offer the customer just about any configuration and level of sophistication and capability they wanted without having to churn out a fresh design each time. For both the customer and the yard this saved a huge amount of time and expense and opened up whole new markets since there was no need to be beholden to national equipment. That the ships ended up being somewhat overlarge for their capability (being designed to accomodate the largest items that might fit each pallet) instead of being wrapped around the equipment like traditional designs was a small price to pay. This is no bad thing really as steel is (was anyway) cheap, bigger hulls have more room for future growth and are often less expensive to build than smaller ones – per ton.

B&V have had a virtual lock on the export market ever since because they have the experience and are offering the kind of product that the majority of export customers seem to be looking for.

LCS ain’t it. LCS may prove to not even be what the USN is looking for.

Right back at ya baby.

You are awefully tiresome, ad you have yet to provide any reliable figures or sources to back up your claims thus I will be ignoring your above rant.

But b&v do not have a lock on the export market, anyone who follows it knows that.:rolleyes:

It’s not quite the same as either of the American programmes, from what little I’ve found on it is more like an intermediate stage between those two (impressive in its own right, considering it first flew in the 1980s). However, it gets even more complicated than that, because the laser technology used is fundamentally different – AFAIK the A-60 uses a free electron laser rather than a chemical or gas dynamic system.

Regarding its fate, there was a long hiatus in the test programme following the collapse of the USSR, but it resumed flights in either 2006 or 2007 (can’t remember exactly which). There’s also the fact that there were actually two built, one of which was lost to a fire.

Look at it this way: in terms of laser weapons, no other country apart from Russia is even in the same league as the US despite the total collapse of funding in 1991. China, India and Europe are catching up rapidly or have already caught up in many other respects but all of them are a long way behind in terms of laser research. That’s an impressive position to be in.

Has a photo of the A-60 ever emerged, i would love to know what that beast looked like.

SOC, I agree absolutely, for the threat profile it is designed to defeat the current ABM program is overkill and one does rather get the impression that there is a gravy train going on. However the diplomatic value of being able to neutralise the primitive ballistic missiles of regional states can not be easily over estimated. That said when C/B/N is added to the equation the question has to be asked ‘which allies are going to put their faith in ballistic missile defence?