Here is the story about HMS Astute being able to detect the QE2 leaving new york harbour. It doesn’t say that it has done this only that it is possible.
The Astute, the first attack submarine to be built in Britain almost two decades, has a listening system that can detect the QE2 cruise liner leaving New York harbour from the Channel.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6589838/Astute-submarine-launched-into-high-seas.html

This item is also mentioned in a BAE press release.
With a radar signature equivalent to a dolphin, it can remain undetected thousands of miles from home and hundreds of metres underwater. In the right conditions it can detect the QE2 leaving New York harbour from the English Channel.

Now it says that HMS Astute has the same radar signature as a dolphin. I’m not sure this is relevant as don’t you detect nuclear submarines using sonar and listening devices? It must be one impressive dolphin if it can pump out 110db of noise. I would think if the submarine is to be compared to anything it would be a blue whale.

Some of the stories say that it won’t need it’s reactor refuelled in its 25 year service life and some say it’s 35 year service life. Anyone know which is accurate? I’m guessing that if it’s 25 years and you run it for 30 years without refuelling the reactor would just provide a little less power as it went past 25 years? I’m no nuclear expert so i’m guessing here.

I’m pretty sure its 25 years service life for the reactor.

Re: the noisey Dolphin, I’m pretty sure from memory it was something to the effect of “Makes as much noise as a baby Dolphin”.

A more sensible route than a dedicated COIN carrier is a normal aircraft carrier that can carry and reasonably operate aircraft that are ideal for COIN. Yes I know that I’m almost certainly stating the blindingly obvious.

Sounds like the mantra behind every arms race that ever existed.

I remember you posting something but couldn’t recall if that was the official name. It’s getting to the stage where it looks like people at the MOD are having competitions to come up with the crappiest possible anachronisms, surely they’re turning the act of making up instantly forgettable project names into an art form?

Swerve makes a good point. The C3 needs to be a seperate programme in order to rule out that sort of cost cutting exercise.

The C3 wont ever carry out shore fire. It needs the gun to deal with pirate skiffs, drug vessels and possibly cargo ships it wants to search but dont want to stop 😛

The C3 has been separated from the FSC programme for some time now, I’m not even sure its still known as C3, its probably got another completely different name by now.

But C3 has been identified under the Future Surface COMBATANT umbrella.

Yes but since its original inception the C3 proposal has been very carefully removed from FSC. The MOD has been quite careful about not calling it a combatant for several years now.

Yes, but that’s a bigger hull. In this case the difference between the light ship & the full load of the heavy ship is 2000 tons, which is a percentage difference of 30% of the smaller ship, vs 20% for Spruance & Ticonderoga. I’m no expert, but that seems a lot.

Well yes but I’ve already said as much.

BTW we don’t actually know what the weight of the FSC C1 is yet, the only quoted figure is 6000 tonnes but we don’t know if that’s empty weight, light or full, so really it’s difficult to compare to a T45 when we don’t know if we should be comparing that to Whatever it is empty, 7200 (light) or 8000 (full) tonnes.

looking at the image realy places it to scale as a it looks like most of a T-45 is in the background you can realy see what huge ship its going to be when completed.

I think that’s just one of the middle hull sections, but you’re right it does look pretty damn impressive all the same.