Yes Scoot it is mate, to tell you the truth not many were happy when the RAN bought the OHP design due to the designs brick wall frontage. They don’t want to go any higher than these and with the USN frequently visiting Sydney harbour all the time many have seen these ships in close inspection and are not happy with them, Asthetically speaking. I guess it’s another reason we didn’t buy the Kidds.

Well most of it does have to do with the electronics suite, and it centers around the Phased Pannelar Radar which you can see with those odd shapes, they take up a lot of room, and for the effective range they offer, you need them up high.

This is changing though, as electronice become more powerfull and smaller we will see a return to lower decks, the Meko offers have the Phased Array Radar on a pylon mounted amid ship and it rotates. this is not as good as the American system simply because it doesn’t provide total coverage all the time, which the American system does.

Always a pleasure my old friend 🙂

Ok guys allow me to clarrify one point:

AUSTRALIA IS NOT INTERESTED IN BUYING ANY OF THIS CLASS AT ALL

We were offered the Ark Royal back in 1980 and then the offer was taken back due to the Falklands war, there is still alot of bad feelings down here over the recinderence of the offer. Besides Aistralia doesn’t buy secondhand defence item any more no matter what it is (as exemplified by the refusal of both Upholder subs and Surplus Arleigh Burke class DDG’s- The US had offered the RAN five original DDG-51’s for the price of three, but the deal was refused on the grounds that these ships had no organic aviation compliment)

Besides the Olympus Tynes would need some serious overhaul by the end of the carriers lives and since we’re are mostly using the LM-2500’s in all our main ships, this would place an undue strain on the logistics we have here. We have no use for these ships, we recognise the historical significance in them but their use is of extremely limited value to us down here, but thanks for thinking of us 😉

Hi Moggy Nice to see you visiting us again!

Yes it’s called a Tally Band and is worn around the mid section of a sailors cap. For those who are of a ships compliment they are required to have the TB of that ship around their caps with in a week of joining that ship. For those passing through may have something just signifying what service they are in e.g the “HMS” TB’s you saw. Down here in Australia we have our own versionsbut still follow the British line due to the Queen still being our head of state.

Examples of Australian Tally Band:

For people who serve in support roles or roles that can’t be mentioned, here in Australia they wear simply “Royal Australian Navy” on their TB’s