Is that wise on the part of Brazil??? As it gets much of its Carrier Equipment and Training from France and the United States. I doubt either would be happy with Brazil assisting China with its Carrier Development…………..

Brazil is not helping china develop (a) carrier(s). As the article states, there will be an exchange of navy personnel. Which is quite common among friendly navies. The Brazilians have not excluded their carrier from the vessels on board of which chinese mariners would be staying.

AGÊNCIA OF THE NEWS XINHUA – CHINA

Chinese sailors will realise practices in Brazil

BRASILIA, 19 may (Xinhua) — The Navy of Brazil will offer training to officials of Navy of the Popular Army of Liberación (EPL) of China, especially in the operation of aircraft carrier, today informed the minister into Defense of Brazil, Nelson Jobim.
The minister said east Tuesday to the press that the cooperation was decided during the visit commander of Brazilian Navy, Carlos Soares de Net Moura, to the Asian country in April, by the celebration of the 60 anniversary of the foundation of the Navy of the EPL. ” Admiral Net Moura was in China, and we committed ourselves to receive officials Chinese to train them in the Brazilian ships, and including in the Sao Paulo aircraft carrier ” , Jobim said. ” China wants to retake its Navy, but precise instruction, therefore it remembered that they would come Chinese to train, to learn. They mainly are interested in portaaviones” , he added. In last March, the minister of Defense of China, general Liang Guanglie, put of manifesto the necessity that China owns an aircraft carrier, because it is the unique country between the main powers of the world that does not own it. The Brazilian minister stood out that the naval-army cooperation can be the departure point for others initiatives in the defense area. ” With China which we have in the field of Defense it is that possibility. And you know that he begins with that, later the things go away sucediendo” , he indicated. Jobim anticipated in addition that opportunely he himself will go to China to define the details of that general agreement. China maintains a Strategic Alliance with Brazil from 1993, that includes a flood cooperation in the technological area, and this year happened to be its main commercial partner, surpassing to the United States. During the visit to Peking that president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva initiated east Monday was decided in addition a loan to 10,000 million dollars granted by the Development bank of China for oil state Petrobra’s. With the referred credit, oil Brazilian prentende to extend the petroleum exploration in I milk submarine continental Brazilian.

“Indian Navy – News & Discussion”

Could we all please at least try and stick to the topic of this thread? Thank you.

I know what the ships are Wan!. The point being made by Maskirovka was that this boat, and the handful of others in Swedish service, prove that FAC(M)’s are more than just seaborne missile trucks.

The comments you have made above actually support my position that whatever additional capability they mave have its extremely modest and limited.

So, even if you accept Maskirovka’s very tenuous premise, and believe the modest number of Swedish designs are generally representative of the types of vessel labelled FAC(M)s’, it still requires a great deal of imagination to see the vessels as much more than floating missile trucks!.

Fearless Class Patrol Vessels, Singapore
The first six vessels are armed with triple tube 324mm B515 torpedoes launchers from Whitehead Alenia. The torpedoes are the A244S also supplied by Whitehead Alenia. The first six ASW vessels are fitted with Thales Underwater Systems TSM 2362 Gudgeon hull-mounted medium frequency active sonar.
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/fearless/

Laksamana Class ‘Corvettes’, Malaysia
The ships torpedo system is the ILAS-3 torpedo launcher from Whitehead Alenia of Salvanio, Italy. The triple launchers are installed one each side on the main deck. The A244/S anti-submarine torpedoes use active, passive and mixed mode homing to a target range of 7km.
The ship is equipped with the ASO 94-41 hull mounted active search and attack sonar supplied by Atlas Elektronik.
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/laksamana/

Flyvefisken Class (SF 300) Multi-Role Vessels, Denmark
For ASW roles, anti-submarine torpedoes and depth charge launchers will be carried. Saab Systems CTS 36 hull-mounted active search high frequency sonar is fitted as standard. Thales Underwater Systems TMS 2640 variable depth sonar is fitted for the ASW role.
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/fly/

As-Siddiq class large missile boats, Saudi Arabia
Armament: 4 Harpoon SSM, 1 76 mm OTO, 1 20 mm Phalanx CIWS,
2 20 mm, 1 81 mm mortar, 2 40 mm grenade launchers, 2 triple 12.75
inch torpedo tubes
Sonar: SQS-56/DE1160B hull
http://www.hazegray.org/worldnav/mideast/saudi.htm

Leave for a couple of hours and I come back realising I’m getting stalked by a rabid poodle – now that’s what I find so ridiculous, it’s comical. I’m sure the top admirals of RSN and Israeli Navy would agree! 😀

The hyperventilated yowls of the poor, sick canine are quite irritating so forgive me if my thoughts don’t come across as they should as I try to round up my arguments as to why the FACs are failures, and just as importantly, in what sense they come across as failures.

FACs grew out of the 1870s French Navy’s Jeune Ecole argument for poussiere navale, or ‘naval dust’. Part of the idea that small, heavily armed vessels could take on larger, more powerful warships. FACs embody that idea, by being heavily armed, small, fast, cheap and therefore numerous. FACs were sold by their manufacturers as the nemesis of larger warships like corvettes and frigates. That was the promise. That, was why FACs are such failures. The battle of Bubiyan is concentrated on precisely because that battle proved just how incapable FACs are in handling that task. Granted, the force disparity in the battle of Bubiyan is so great that the final outcome wouldn’t be in doubt. That’s not the point. The point is that the FACs were totally ineffective against the ship-borne helis which could have been fielded by a opponent far less sophisticated and resource rich than the UK or US.

It is undeniable that the Iraqis manning the Kuwaiti TNC-45s and 57s were less than able to fully fight their ship. Even so, the engagements illustrated the inherent shortcomings of FACs that even a well crewed FAC won’t be able to overcome. In some instances the Lynxes hovered less than 3km from the FACs to fire their Sea Skuas. Their sophisticated swedish FCRs were simply unable to track the Lynxes. They were functioning – but they never got a track of the helis to guide some return fire. The threat was deemed so insignificant the UK Lynxes didn’t even bother to mount jammers in subsequent attacks, preferring instead to trade them for a greater Sea Skua loadout. A further proof of this is the total lack of countermeasure response of the FACs to the Sea Spray radar despite being armed with ESM. Maybe the Iraqi crew didn’t know where the countermeasure button was? Not likely, but it is everyone’s right to believe. 😉

So we can see that FACs are ineffective – unless backed up by air support. Add off-board sensors and command and control to that. One then goes back to the original rationale for FACs espoused by their shipbuilders – the ability to handle better equipped warships, on the cheap. Once you factor in the costs required to make the FAC mission-capable, the whole rationale goes ‘poof’. Costs just got displaced elsewhere. On top of that you have paid the additional price of limiting your vessels to your coastal waters. Put another way, if that you had invested that money in corvettes/frigates, you would have gotten much better capability for pretty much the same amount of money. Oh, and remember, money is finite. Canines never deal with money, so that rabies infested poodle didn’t quite take that factor into account. Small point to think of. What advantage does a FAC tasked to take on larger warships have over coastal missile batteries and anti-ship tasked planes?

So are the FACs failures no matter what? There are exceptions, of course. If, say, your goal is simply coastal patrol and other light duties. Then not having the ability to take on larger warships isn’t a problem, and in such cases FACs won’t qualify as failures. Also, if the operating environment is like what Maskirovka has shown, then the shortcomings of FACs are eliminated while the some of the advantages of larger warships and helis are eliminated. In that case, large warships, beware.

By the way, if by some 4 legged logic one comes by the idea that helis require off-board sensors to look out for FACs, then I recommend finding out more about APS-143 and APS-147, just to name 2 search radars mounted on helicopters perfectly able conduct wide area search for FACs. They really can be used, even on ASW missions. But don’t tell that to your poodle, especially if it is rabid. They have a tendency to yelp even more. Just wait and see. 😀

SOURCE

SPECIAL NOTE
“The high point for me was when I saw the Kuwaiti flag flying over its own territory.”
– Commanding Officer, USS Curts

——————————————————————————–
Although several Iraqi vessels were engaged before 24 January, the missile boats remained operational. As early as 27 January, the ASUW commander expressed concern that Iraqi naval forces might seek safe haven in Iran, just as the Iraqi air force had attempted. Surveillance regions for maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters, and ships were established to intercept fleeing ships. Coalition ships and aircraft were positioned along the northwest Persian Gulf coast to detect Iraqi vessels leaving ports in Kuwait and Iraq. A barrier of ships and aircraft also was set up along the eastern coast of the Persian Gulf to intercept any Iraqi missile boats moving along the coastline under cover of merchant shipping.
On 29 January, Royal Air Force Jaguars detected 15 Iraqi fast patrol boats attempting to move from Ras Al-Qul’ayah to Mina Al-Saud as part of an apparent combined operation to attack the port of Ras Al-Khafji. Lynx helicopters from HMS Gloucester(D 96), Cardiff(D 108), and Brazen (F 91) located and engaged the Iraqi boats with Sea Skua missiles, leaving two sunk or damaged, and scattered the rest of the flotilla. Coalition aircraft then sank or severely damaged 10 more of the 15 small boats.
——————————————————————————–

SPECIAL NOTE

Battle of Bubiyan: Iraqi Patrol Boat Strikes

On the night of 29 January, a moonless night with restricted visibility caused by weather and oil fires, an A-6E on an armed surface reconnaissance mission located four suspicious vessels south of Al-Faw Peninsula. With their lights out, the vessels were headed toward Iranian coastal waters. The antisurface warfare commander assigned tactical control of the A-6 to an E-2C, which was in the area on an early warning mission. The vessels were identified as patrol boats, but their nationality could not be determined immediately. Several navies operated small boats in the northern Gulf so suspected enemy vessels had to be identified positively before they could be engaged. Time was crucial to prevent Iraqi vessels from escaping to Iran, but fire from friendly forces, or an international incident involving Iran, had to be prevented.
Using available intelligence, the E-2C positively identified the vessels as hostile and authorized the A-6 to attack. The A-6 dropped a 500-lb laser-guided bomb (LGB) and guided it to a direct hit on the leading vessel. The other Iraqi boats scattered, but the A-6 continued to attack, dropping another bomb on a second boat. The second direct hit destroyed the superstructure and caused the boat to go dead in the water. Meanwhile the E-2C located an F/A-18 to assist in the attack and directed it to the targets. The A-6E teamed with the F/A-18 to guide a 500-lb LGB dropped by the F/A-18 to a direct hit on the third boat. By this time both aircraft had expended their ordnance and the fourth Iraqi patrol boat continued its escape to Iran.

The E-2C contacted fighter control which released two Canadian CF-18 on CAP that had just completed refueling from a tanker. The E-2C assumed tactical control of the Canadian aircraft and directed them to the last gunboat. Since the CF-18s were configured for a combat air patrol mission, they did not have any bombs, but attacked the Iraqi gunboat with strafing runs using 20-mm guns. Three Iraqi patrol boats were found capsized (a FPB-53, FPB-70, and a TNC-45). The fourth Iraqi vessel, an Osa patrol boat, later was located in an Iranian port with substantial strafing damage to its superstructure. ——————————————————————————–
The next day, a large force of Iraqi combatants based at Az-Zubayr and Umm Qasr attempted to flee to Iran, but was detected and engaged by Coalition forces near Bubiyan Island in what was later called “the Battle of Bubiyan.” This battle lasted 13 hours and ended with the destruction of the Iraqi Navy. With P-3Cs providing target locations, helicopters, ASR aircraft on alert, and other aircraft diverted from strike and CAP missions conducted 21 engagements against Iraqi surface combatants. By the end of the Battle of Bubiyan, one FPB-57 missile boat and two TNC-45 missile boats were heavily damaged. An additional three Osa missile boats and possibly a third TNC-45 were damaged. Three Polnocny amphibious ships were damaged, two of them heavily, along with one T-43 minesweeper. Only two damaged ships, an Osa II missile boat and a Polnocny amphibious ship escaped to Iranian waters.
On 31 January, Coalition helicopters captured 20 EPWs on the Mina Al-Bakr oil platform after the Iraqis fled a sinking Iraqi Polnocny class amphibious ship, which had been laying mines when Coalition aircraft attacked. During that operation, a Lynx helicopter severely damaged an Iraqi TNC-45 combatant attempting to prevent the capture.

On the 29th the FACs were used to escort landing craft, not a job for which they are primarily intended or for which they are particularly usefull. On the 30th they were essentially fleeing. Hardly any thing resembling even an attemp to attack any surface vessels. Therefor, it is a poor example to use to illustrate the (in)effectiveness of FACs. At best, it illustrates that FACs have limited self-defence capability: so what else is new? The Battle of Bubiyan a.k.a. BUBIYAN TURKEY SHOOT is the naval equivalent of the Highway of Death. Besides Sealynx helicopters fixedwing aircraft (A6, F18) were used, besides Sea Skua missiles other ordnance included unguided Mk82 bombs, LGBs, Rockeye cluster bombs and 20mm aircraft cannon.

Uhm Scooter, that Heritage Foundation article is available as PDF and on www. Makes for a lot shorter post. 😎

Again, it wouldn’t have mattered with the platform limitations. They could be proficient in the TNC-42s and it really wouldn’t have mattered one bit. Platform instability and vibrations an dpoor sensor locations resulting in multipathing etc would still have prevented the FCRs from tracking the helis, proficient crew or not.

Well, that’s just not very likely. Besides, “it wouldn’t have mattered” is just speculation. You’re providing no credible material to back up your statement about instability, vibration, poor sensor location, multipathing on the captured Kuwaiti TNC-45s, nor any other navies’ TNC-45s for that matter. I.e. your opinion.

That was the conclusion gained, and why FACs pretty much fell out of favour.

Kuwaiti navy still relies on FACs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_Navy#Present_Fleet

The amount of welding, for instance, has trippled compared to the initially estimated, mainly because of low skills of welders.

You mean they have to redo welds 2 or 3 times, because they weren’t done right the first time?

Because the ships have lower seakeeping performance, and combined with their high speeds, their sensor performance is severely degraded. This was why the Iraqi FACs which were well armed with 76mm and 40mm guns coupled to modern fire control (which theoretically should have been able to take down the helis), ESM and Dagaie decoys were not effective. The UK Lynxes only needed their Orange Crop ESM system to tell them when they were getting painted by the FCR on the Iraqi FACs, and simple maneuvers were sufficient to break lock. Thus the UK Lynxes found that they didn’t even need their ALQ-167 ECM, and so these were sacrificed for increased Sea Skua loads. Conversely, even with ESM the radar emmissions of the Lynx needed to paint the FACs for the Sea Skua never seemed to alert the FACs that they were under threat. No decoys were launched.

I think the reasons for the lack of success of the Iraqi FACs may be quite different i.e. old or unfamiliar ships, poor state of maintenance, low proficiency and insufficient training. It was certainly not the case that most Iraqi FACs were well armed with 76mm and 40mm guns coupled to modern fire control”

During the Gulf War the primary threat posed to US forces by the Iraqi Navy came from its extensive inventory of naval mines. Iraqi missile-armed patrol boats, including those captured from Kuwait, missile-equipped naval helicopters, and coastal defense missiles presented a lesser threat. Styx, Exocet, and Silkworm missiles constituted the inventory available to Iraqi naval forces.
…
The Iraqi surface threat consisted of nine aging Osa I/II Patrol boats armed with the SSN-2A/B (STYX) missile; the missile has a range 25 nm. These boats were poorly maintained, and the number of mission-capable units was unknown at the outset of the Gulf War. Iraqi Osa’s did not train for any type of tactical scenario and had not fired a styx missile since the early 1980’s. Their ability to close and successfully engage US warships was suspect. Even if Iraq had acquired the more advanced Styx, the navy had never practiced over-the-horizon targeting and was probably be limited to line-of-sight engagements.

During the first days of its August 1990 invasion, Iraq captured 6 Exocet-equipped kuwaiti patrol boats (1 Lurssen FPB-57 and 5 Lurssen TNC-45’s), and a cache of more than 100 MM-40 Excocet missiles. The Iraqi Navy was apparently operating at least one of the TNC-45’s, but its ability to successfully fire an Exocet in combat was doubtful, given the navy’s general lack of proficiency and its unfamiliarity with the system. Nonetheless, the threat posed by the captured Kuwaiti boats could not be discounted.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/navy.htm