kev 99I know that they built the vessels during sub-building ‘down time’ but what im saying is that they should have pressure applied to become as efficient as they can in submarine production. They can do this by looking at other submarine yards to gain knowledge, i know the USA would be ok with us learning as we could never be in competition with their yards and we could hopefully teach them a thing or two.
Barrow would likely stick to sub building as that would be the best way to go. To do this though they need to establish a building drum beat and governments need to commit to a solid schedule of ordering new subs. When is that going to happen we are talking about politicians and politics after all. Thats what im trying to get at.
I think significant pressure and changes have already been applied, the delegation from Electric Boat was said to have resulted in several changes to the way the sections were constructed.
The drumbeat is effectively in place as far as I know, that’s why Hutton was banging on about getting 7 Astute’s last year, that would keep the yards busy until work on the SSBN replacements starts.
kev 99Kev, Yes i agree with that barrow should expand to enable more subs to be built there. Also the last i checked barrow in the recent years also made ships other than subs. I am aware of them becoming an all sub yard but the simple fact is that they could do both if needed and as they are a large shipyard.
They may not do skimmers anymore but then we should look to the USA and France to see how they do things and also to the Germans and incorporate anything that would be beneficial. I seem to remember BAE having to seek help from GE Electric Boat so we could continue to co-operate with both US yards to improve efficiency at our one yard.
It is still comparable to other yards in the EU in some ways, even if there are few to compare it to.
Yes they built: Albion, Bulwark, Wave Knight and were involved in the fitting out of Ocean, but this was while they weren’t building boats and during this time skills were lost in building SSNS due to no orders being placed. I’m more than happy with the concentration on boats, with specialisation should come greater efficiency and if what I’ve read is to be believed Barrow is a much more efficient and modern place than it was during the Cold War.
kev 99Barrow is important as it is one of the UK’s last shipyards but money should be put into it to make it as efficient as possible if that means some job losses so be it. But it should be offset by the fact that if it becomes more efficient it should be cheaper to build ships therefore more ships will be ordered it would also be more competitive to other European yards.
Rumours are still persistent about shortages in skilled workers at Barrow, if anything it needs expanding because under present plans the yard can’t build any more boats than what most people consider the bare minimum (7) plus the SSBN replacements.
It’s also worth considering that you can’t really compare Barrow to other European ship yards, it’s in a niche market as one a few in Europe that can build nuclear powered boats and the only one in the UK.
kev 99I know we do quite a bit of it especially medical work in Africa, i remember reading a blog about an army medic part of a convoy of 6 trucks that travelled around the small villages providing help. But im talking about bigger and better like building schools, hospitals and other infrastructure to benefit the people. Re-building and modernising ports, airports and things that we can do better. While doing so we can build in all the Green things like wind power etc that can easily be maintained by the locals and help with the whole global warming problem. For instance UK made solar panels could be installed as part of a project to provide power to remote areas which is a better idea compared to generators etc.
Expanding the engineers would be great for this, providing real aid solutions that help people to help themselves instead. This could also have a knock on effect of providing more skilled men and women to the workforce when they leave the armed forces, preventing the need to import skilled labour from elsewhere to plug skills shortages when there are 2 million British people out of work:confused:
On the subject on the NHS (OT much?) – I like it but there is a lot of money wasted, outsourced cleaning is one that really gets my goat right now, there’s a reason why super bugs are rife right now, contractors winning the work on lowest cost bids employing minimum wage labour that doesn’t really give a **** is the reason. The Government can go on about sound bite schems like ‘deep cleans’ all they want but hospital cleaning should be done properly in the first place, the ward where my mother spent her last few weeks of life was a state it constantly stank of p1ss.
On the subject of MRSA Doctors also need to learn that they’re not to important to wash their hands at the appropriate time; nurses take their leads from doctors and if those in the white coats are constantly going on about not having the time to wash their hands then the nursing staff won’t either.
Rant over.
kev 99lol I know but it was frowned upon in university and since then it sort of feels like a guilty pleasure to read and quote it lol. also I sort of fear it, its like George Orwell was saying in 1984, about what the ministry writes becomes the truth. sooner or later whatever wiki writes will become fact! because people will believe it! for example in 20 years Briton might have been conquered in 1069 by the Normans if wiki say’s it was!
I don’t think that will ever be the case, there have been a few well publicised incidents where mischievous people have deceived the masses but the moderators are far to anal to let something mainstream go recorded as wrong for any length of time. The people that update the defence related topics generally seem to know their stuff.
NOte – you’re lucky you had wikipedia at Uni, its a good place to start looking and its articles are often sourced so you can read find the original text to investigate further/find other sources of material. I didn’t even have access to the internet, missed out by a couple of years.
kev 99and just in case you don’t believe me. hate to quote Wiki again but even Wiki know this.
I don’t know why Wiki is actually really useful for stuff like this.
kev 99I a mreally surprised to see them asking france fora mistral does anyone know if this story has any thruth in in it.
Difficult to say, almost every time I see an announcement of Russia’s plans re:defence it gets rejected or denied almost immediately, I tend to think a lot of proposals get announced as official policy/plans, the Bulava situation above is a case in point.
kev 99One of the Oil explorers, Desire Petroleum, announced a drilling campaign in the offshore North Falklands yesterday. ‘If ‘ they find oil early next year in any volumes then it will change the game for the RN to a significant extent, so I bet there are a few Admirals praying for oil :diablo:
Explain? Why would it change the game for the RN?
kev 99I dunno. Here are some Sea Skuas –
I did a Google image search to compare about an hour ago and came up with the same image, it doesn’t really look significantly different.
kev 99Work begins on advanced naval anti-ship missile
September 10, 2009
The UK and French governments have announced the start of a joint Assessment Phase to develop systems and technologies for a new helicopter-launched anti-surface missile.
The announcement was made at this year’s Defence Systems Exhibition International (DSEi) at the Excel Centre in London, a biannual gathering of the world’s largest defence companies.
The weapon is being developed for use initially in the naval environment and to be launched from different helicopters, including the British Lynx Wildcat and the French NH90 and Panther platforms.
This co-operative project, which meets the UK’s Future Anti-Surface Guided Weapon (FASGW) and the French Anti-Navire Léger (ANL) requirements, is the latest in a long history of co-operation between the two nations on missile projects, which has most recently included Meteor and the Sea Viper (Principal Anti Air Missile System – PAAMS).
The €50 million (£35 million) project will begin with an Assessment Phase expected to last just over two years and will cost £35M, to be shared between both nations. Work will be undertaken in the UK and France, using industries within their respective supply chains.
This Assessment Phase is fully consistent with the UK MoD’s aims to deepen co-operation with close allies and to take forward the various strands of the Team Complex Weapons initiative.
Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, Quentin Davies, said: “This announcement demonstrates our commitment to deepen the co-operation between our two countries, particularly where requirements are closely aligned, as they are in this case.
“By bringing together industry expertise from across the nations we are strengthening our technical knowledge, allowing us to equip our forces with the best highly-advanced anti-surface missile for them to use for years to come.”
The Assessment Phase will investigate appropriate technologies for a future anti-surface guided weapon that meet the capability requirements for the system. In addition, any previous research will be taken into consideration, along with the opportunity to re-use technology from other programmes. By the end of the Assessment Phase, sub-system technology will be matured sufficiently to progress into full demonstration of the overall system.
The joint Assessment Phase is being undertaken through the Team Complex Weapons (CW) enabling contract placed with MBDA (UK) last year. As well as being a further example of co-operative intent between the UK and France, the contract represents a further milestone as part of the wider Team CW approach towards weapons procurement which was announced at the Farnborough Air Show in July 2008.
http://www.shephard.co.uk/news/3840/work-begins-on-advanced-naval-anti-ship-missile/
kev 99You forgot Thailand, and USA:eek:
kev 99Iran taking RN sailors prisoner is a pretty terrible example to use as an example for them not ‘fearing’ us, the republican guard have been playing chicken with US destroyers and cruisers several times over the course of the last couple of years, does that mean they don’t fear the US either?
If the Iranians don’t ‘fear’ us now how much less would they fear when we’ve ditched our nuclear deterrent and they have ballistic missiles that can reach our shores?
Number of destroyers was an example that doesn’t work.
You keep saying the world has moved on and I agree, since the end of the cold war the world doesn’t really seen to be that much of a safer place, in fact I’ll wager the UK armed forces have been involved in many more war zones than most would have expected in 91.
kev 99Ok a question – which would you have 4 x SSBNs or 2 CVs with 12 DDGs and F-35s of some sort? We will be lucky if we get one option, we’ll never get both! I wish we could, I really do!
Well we’re not getting 12 DDGs now anyway and there’s no guarantee that we would of done if we had of ditched the need for Trident replacement anyway so I fail to see your point.
Is a limited counter strike ability provided by SSGNs enough? 2 SSNs with 12 VLS tubes = 24 missiles, say 75% get shot down = 6 x 500kt on target. Is that enough of a deterrent? And yes I agree they are significantly more vulnerable than SLBMs.
But we’ve still got to design another sub to do that roll which will cost a fair amount of wonga, plus we don’t get to share costs with the US, then of course there’s designing the delivery weapon unless we ask the US to modify Tomahawks which aren’t really that stealthy or fast…………….
kev 99Not even the most expensive RN programme around. Type 45 is more.
Ironic that a number of those naysayers advocate that we bin CVF and buy more T45s instead, and never mind the question “what are you buying those destroyers to protect then?”
kev 99It says the Koreans have (presumably paid for) a licence to build & export them. There may be restrictions, such as only for export within a specific region.
In which case it seems rather daft for a German yard to bid for the contract, surely they can’t hope to beat the price that the South Korean yards would charge?
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