I really would at this stage advocate, leasing the Port of Spain class OPV from BAE, send 2 of them to the Carib to work out of Barbados doing this same role and waiting for Trinidad to comes to it’s senses.

No hangar. The single most important feature of a ship engaged in counter-narcotics, as with counter-piracy, is the embarked helicopter.

But disaster relief, not counter-narcotics, is currently the primary mission of APT(N), which is why APT(N) has been gapped outside of hurricane season.

What sort of a poxy question is that.
My comment was not based on fact in the first place.
It was a response to somebody else’s posting.
If you want to play that number, where is your evidence that it isn’t?

Easy. We typically have two frigates east of Suez. These are currently HMS Somerset and HMS Montrose. HMS Cumberland is on her way out there, presumably to relieve one of the others, I haven’t checked which is due back first.

Conclusion: RFA Fort Victoria is not replacing a frigate east of Suez.

If it’s there as well as, then it’s likely (not factual and with no evidence to support my assumption, only my personal speculation which i hope wll satisfy you) there’s not enough appropriate vessels available.

So, now that we have established that Fort Victoria is in addition to the usual escort, and not instead of, what vessel do you think would have been a more appropriate addition?

I’ll help you out a little bit here, and say that I think Fort Vic’s real purpose is to support something like this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11250785 during the surge in pirate activity at this time of year, between the two monsoons. The task requires marines, boats, helicopters and medical facilities. What other British units can support a Merlin, numerous RHIBs, accommodate marines and have whatever Role medical facilities Fort Vic does?

On the other hand why would it be unreasonable for me to ASSUME that there are not enough appropriate vessels to do the work in the first place with all that is currently going on in the navy……which was the point of my reply.

“ASSUME”. Say no more. I’m just tired of the refrain that “they’ve sent an RFA to do a warship’s job”. It’s valid for Largs Bay’s brief stint on APT(S), but I’ve yet to see another believable example.

Exempt temporarily, i think i did read. Not for an indefinite time. I guess they can ask a few more years of time, i dunno how much.

However, from 2015 onwards your “legal” single-hulled oil tankers could start being prohibited to dock in certain ports as governments take strict security measures and don’t risk allowing unsafe, old single-hull tankers into their ports.
So, there are still many good reasons for thinking about the need for new tankers anyway.

RFA single hulled tankers are already being refused at many ports. Strangely, the US doesn’t seem to have the same problem with their very largely single hulled fleet. I have *seen* US single hulled tankers in ports that “don’t allow” single hulled tankers.

As regards the future of MARS: if CVF is retained, MARS must follow. CVF is of little use without the supplies to sustain it, and the current fleet of replenishment ships will not last forever. Fort AOR are not the wonderships many see them as: solid stores capability is limited compared to AFSH, liquid stores is just plain limited. By 2018 their fuel cargo tanks will be declared as “bunkers”.

Interesting in the LHD pics is their role in refuelling their own escorts. Much like one finds in Spanish navy flattops (both) and Thai flattop. Have not seen this facility in e.g. Invincible, Garibaldi, Cavour, Mistral, Hyuga, Dokdo etc.

Invincible class (and RFA Argus) can issue fuel through a crane rig, but it is very rarely done.

I wouldn’t put too much store in those specs. By the end of their service lives, only two of the LSLs were really the same (three if we count the first Galahad). Lancelot was the prototype and differed in detail from the following ships. Geraint and Percivale were essentially the same at the point when they retired. Tristram was heavily rebuilt post-Falklands with new superstructure and a lengthened hull. She’s now a special-forces training hulk in Portland harbour. Bedivere was completely rebuilt (they called it a SLEP) in the 90s, lengthened, made taller, new engines. It was so expensive they decided not to bother doing the same to any of the others and built the Bay class instead.

The 1986 Sir Galahad was substantially larger than the preceding ships and heavily redesigned. Tobruk looks a lot more like an original LSL than the 1986 version, the heavylift derrick excepted.

That was indeed the compartment I was interested in. Galahad’s port bridge wing was set up to act as Flyco when required (when operating both flight decks simultaneously).

What is the internal layout on Tobruk? Going from memory on Galahad…

03dk – Bridge, radio room
02dk – Captain & Chief Engineer’s cabins, radio and electrical officers’ cabins
01dk – XO, MEO cabins facing fwd, other officer cabins running aft, hospital on stbd side, EMF officer cabins stbd aft, POs cabins port side.
1dk – Troop mess fwd, crew mess and bar on port side, officers’ saloon and bar on stbd side, galley in the middle.
2dk – Crew accommodation.
3dk – Fridge flat was stbd aft off the trunking. EMF NCOs were each side of the tank deck.
4dk – EMF ORs underneath the tank deck.

Edited to add:

Here is an interesting link to specs of the Round Table class with a pic in which if you look at the following pic of HMAS Tobruk, you can clearly see the former is much smaller.

It’s a trick of the perspective and the fact that Sir Bedivere’s bridge is a deck higher than Tobruk’s. Bedivere has 10m length and c. 1000 tonnes displacement on Tobruk.

Yeah I remember seeing Tobruks tank deck for the first time and felt disappointed because I had always perceived it as being far wider! It could hold the Leopard AS-1’s but they were a tight squeeze- now we’ve got the M-1A1 AIM’s there is no way that these can fit- hence why the RAN is getting the new LHD’s and new LCM8E’s (The Army LCM8’s can’t take the Abrams either, someone should have thought about that before buying the new tanks!

The British LSLs could take at least 12 Challengers on the tank deck, but I notice that Chally is about 6″ wider than Leo1 and Abrams is another 6″ wider again. We tried to keep that narrow trunking aft clear for embarked troops to do their PT. The container on the tank deck at the RHS of the pic above was Galahad’s “gym”. There was another (reefer) container semi-permanently on the tank deck to expand the frozen stores.

Looking at that pic with the LCU, how did you handle the interface between ship’s ramp and vehicle carrying landing craft? The LSL ramps couldn’t take the weight of a tank or heavy vehicle unsupported so we used a short Mexeflote Ramp Support Pontoon (RSP) moored underneath the outboard end of the stern ramp. Wasn’t necessary when offloading to a Mexe since it could act as its own RSP, but was needed for LCUs and RCLs. I’ll dig out some photos later.

As is widely common knowledge, HMAS Tobruk (L50 for the complete nerd) is different to the British counterparts, our craft has a 70tonne Derrick forward of the bridge, this was used to lift LCM8’s on and off the forward deck area for deployment aborad.

As mentioned, we handled (and still do on Bays) the landing craft requirement with Mexeflotes, but could also carry an LCVP on deck, though I never saw it done (on an LSL, I have seen it done on a Bay).

During that Norwegian exercise Galahad was primarily carrying 539 ASRM so we had 13 rigid raiders, two LCAC(L)s and an RLC Workboat on the (upper) vehicle deck.

Interesting what you you said about the load plan and it being a Helo carrier, I don’t think many could be carried, at the most four Seakings, with one on the aft platform. Tobruk was capable of deploying with a CH-47 flying off the forward deck area, this wasn’t done often as LCM8’s were more flexible for use in our missions, but she did keep the practice up- C Sqdn/ 5 Regt love doing this drill as it gives newbies in the RAN a heart attack due to the size of the Aircraft coming in- though in recent years it hasn’t been done due to the current operational tempo of the Chinooks.

From what little I remember of the load plan, they packed folded Sea Kings in athwartships and maybe had as many as twelve down there, all on the tank deck. But it’s possible I’m not remembering this very well. I don’t think it was ever done, it was just another possible string in the LSL’s bow.

Galahad, alone among the British LSLs, could take a Chinook on the vehicle deck. I forgot about this when commenting on Chinook operations on the other topic, but I really can’t remember anything about the SHOLs or even whether it could be done whilst making way.

The LSLs, especially Galahad, really had an amazing combination of features and lifting gear. Galahad is/was the only one with a lift (the boat is sitting on it, it’s a 20T scissor lift). She had a 20T travelling crane on the tank deck (you can see a spreader for it in the photo), a 25T crane serving the after hatch/lift and two 5T cranes serving the forward hatch/ramp and the two small holds beneath the forward part of the tank deck. Also winches and gear to secure a Mexeflote on each side, and the bow and stern doors and ramps.

I think the boat photo gives a good idea of how small the tank deck really was, that’s its maximum width. Tiny compared to the Bays that replaced them. There was actually a load plan developed for use of Sir Galahad as an aircraft transport, filling the tank deck with Sea Kings brought down on the lift.

One of my favourite LSL tricks, because it’s essentially illegal under the civvy rules that the RFA pretends to operate under, was to steam along an open fjord at low speed (3-4kts) with the stern ramp open and the end dipped in the water (there are no other watertight doors down aft, the ramp is it). An LCVP would drive up to the ramp and you could transfer personnel over it whilst underway.

An LSL really gave you a large portion of the capability of an LSD in a wonderfully small package.

Dutch LVCP Mk 3: RNthN owns 6, usually carried by RNN LPDs over long distances. I suspect HNLMS Rotterdam (or possibly even a British ship e.g. Albion) carried them to Norway but that they operate independently while in Norway.

Definitely weren’t carried by a British naval unit, no LPDs were available for Cold Response 06 (there was a big issue made of COMATG’s HQ being ashore) and the Bays weren’t in service at that time. The amphibious shipping present during the exercise was entirely British (Ocean + LSLs) except for the NL-LCVPs and whatever Norwegian boats were around. If Rotterdam had brought them, she didn’t participate in any of the exercise. There was some mention at the time of Condocks http://www.condock.de/fleet.php but I don’t think that was in direct relation to the LCVPs.

The RCLs self-deployed to vicinity of Narvik but they are a bit bigger and self-deploy to the Med etc.

The pic with the boat on trailer: is it a Pacific 22/28 Rigid Inflatable (RIBs)?

Nope.