I’m pretty sure that D K Brown in his book “Rebuilding the Royal navy” stated that an Exocet would have similar stopping power to a 12″ shell, which does certainly contradict what I’ve heard elsewhere.

I’m pretty sure Israeli has cooled because of the cost, haven’t they transferred interest to MEKO corvettes now?

What kev said. BTW, Club has absolutely nothing to do with ballistic missiles, it’s a family of cruise missiles.

Yes the reporter clearly doesn’t know the difference.

Bangladeshi Navy deal secures 100 Tyne shipyard jobs

A multimillion-pound deal with the Bangladeshi Navy has secured 100 jobs at a Tyneside shipyard.

A&P Tyne will refit two offshore patrol vessels, guaranteeing three months of work for employees and local sub-contractors.

As part of the contract, specialist staff from the yard will also train 66 Bangladeshi naval crew members to operate the ships.

Work will begin in May when the vessels are towed to the firm’s Hebburn yard.

Falkland Islands

Stewart Boak, managing director of A&P, said: “It is a tribute to all the partners involved that we now have the opportunity to carry out the work, securing employment for up to 100 staff and sub-contractors in the face of the recession.”

The Castle Class patrol vessels were built in Aberdeen and first entered service with the Royal Navy in 1982, protecting the fishing fleets and oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

They also did long-term service guarding the Falkland Islands after the war, before being sold to the Bangladeshi government.

The project will include the overhaul of the vessels’ engines and an upgrade of crew accommodation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/8643875.stm

just always look a little dated and hap hazard to me – nothing to do with its perfromance or anything – purely aesthetics

I tend to think that Russian helicopters aren’t particularly handsome beasts, particularly when compared to their Western counterparts.

Good find – the block diagram is more a way of roughing out what is needed to fit into the hull, and how much hull you are likely to need to contain it, than any kind of finished-article design piece. Whats interesting in that is the elements that have been deemed ‘desireable’ to be fit into the hull. I wonder if this is the ‘downselected’ block diagram or one of a number of similar images with various possible loudout permutations.

The thing thats jumped out on me here, and maybe I’m being clinically thick, but why are we looking at a mission-bay on C1?. It was my thinking that C1 was the ASW/GP warfighter and the patrol hull ‘stabilisation combattant’, that requires the mission bay, was the C2?.

Seeing the vessel in these images has a towed array installation and the mission bay are we now looking at the merging of C1 and C2 requirements into a single hull?. Back to square one with FSC or what???.

I’ve seen a lot of people talk on forums about mission bays on C2s but AFAIK it’s always been destined for C1, there’s stuff on Navy Matters about it dating back several years.

Steam catapuilts most definitely do not require a nuclear power plant.

Perhaps the same hold BAE has over Saudia Arabia?

Britain and Oman still maintain vry close military ties, perhaps this is Oman’s “payment” for that support?

The hold a major defence supplier has over it’s clients, that’s the only hold BAE has over Saudia Arabia, even that is somewhat flimsy since they can just decide to buy eveything from the US if they choose.

Britain and Oman may have close military ties, lots of other coutnries do as well, so what? It’s no different from any other alliance and there are political considerations to all sales in the defence Industry, what you stated still doesn’t address the need to replace outdated and worn out equipment.