“The last time I checked, only 8 out of the original 12 Osprey class minehunters were still in service, but all 14 Avenger class MCMs have been retained.”

Yes with more Osprey to go soon.

But European didnt seem to like you pointing this out.

LOL

I think that the Osprey proved that European designs aren’t always superior. That has frequently been the case in the United States.

The Ospreys turned out to be even slower than the 1950s vintage MSOs. Despite their protracted early problems, the Avenger class MCMs have matured into capable minecountermeasures platforms and good sea boats.

In any event, the actually mine countermeasures systems matter far more than the hull these days. In many cases, a small commerical trawler would suffice if sufficient money is spent on sonar and drone minesweeps.

“At the same time, a number of foreign states issue loans to their foreign partners to buy weapons, and Russia will also use this pattern,” the Russian minister said, adding that Russia “will always make the decision based on that country’s solvency”.

This is a lovely sentiment. It would be nice to believe that this statement is a reflection of policy.

All to often, arm exports harm the economic and national security interests of the exporting nation.

“The USN is currently disposing of the license built Osprey class, although the older wooden clad hull MCM class is being retained.”

Be careful Tin Wing facts and reality dont go over well here.

LOL

The last time I checked, only 8 out of the original 12 Osprey class minehunters were still in service, but all 14 Avenger class MCMs have been retained.

India to have ‘3-carrier Navy’

As the construction of the first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) is on a smooth course, naval engineers have readied plans to construct two additional home-made aircraft carriers to make the Indian navy a ‘three-carrier navy’.

At the Cochin Shipyard Ltd, heavy machineries are being put in place to undertake the navy’s most ambitious project – manufacturing the 37,500 tonnes IAC to carry fighter planes and helicopters – from the scratch in another six years at a cost of Rs 3261crore.

This simply reiterates the announcement made by the shipbuilder last year?

However, there is no actual photographic proof to indicate that any substantial work has been done.

There is also no reason to believe that a 6 year building schedule can be met.

They were offered to the Royal Australian Navy as an interim measure to cover the gap until the Air Warfare Destroyer enters service.

However the RAN has its own instituional memory of trying to operate ex-USN ships that were in bad shape when they were mothballed, and then left to deteriorate (the current HMA Ships Manoora and Kanimbla cost a not-so-small fortune to return to seaworthy state when they were acquired from the USN, leading to significant cost overruns on the project).

Reports from the RAN surveying teams who examined all five vessels apparently pointed out many significant areas that would require major repairs and refitting to bring them back into service, including structural rust and corrosion, metal fatigue in structural members, one ship suffering from hogging, another had developed a twist in the hull along the long axis, internal compartments on one ship had been flooded from a burst water hose and had been left sealed, not repaired, resulting in significant electrical system damage.

In addition much of the SPY system and the CIC electronics had been scavanged to maintain other ships in the class in operation.

The result was the RAN decided that the costs involved, and more importantly the time required to return them to service (a minimum of at least 12 months+ per vessel, not including emergent work of which much was expected to be found) made them a very poor option.

It hard surprising that a design that amounted to a severely overloaded Spruance suffered structural problems. The USN was right to retire these units early in favor of the continued production of the Burke class.

It also understandable that the RAN passed up these units. I can appreciate that the RAN’s long standing AAW capability gap didn’t pose an immediate danger to Australia’s national security.

With regard to the option for the RN to lease Tico’s to cover until the Type 45’s came into service (this was quite a few years ago when the first five Tyco’s were still in operational service) a friend of mine was on exchange duty with the RN and working in the MOD.

He said that the proposal was very attractive to the RN, but British industry was adament that the RN would NEVER operate aegis-equipped ships.

It was being commonly speculated in the MOD that if the RN got their hands on the Aegis / SPY / SM-2 combination, they would never go back to what was then seen as being significantly inferior offerings from British industry.

Probably not totally true, but it has enough elements of truth in it to make me believe there may be something in it.

Unicorn

I do have to wonder if SAMPSON/S1850M was ever meant to equal the capabilities SPY-1A/SPS-49? Radar systems like EMPAR and SAMPSON emerged out of the failed late 1980s NFR-90 program, and the entire point was to produce a viable AAW system that was cheaper than a full on Aegis capability?

So, are 5 Reagan-era, non-VLS Ticonderoga class units superior to a 6 yet to be-in-service Type 45 class units?

AIP wasn’t planned back when this design was being made. First design was ready in 1977 (that was just an improved Zwaardvis), yet the second design, with many revolutionary improvements like Mk48 torpedoes, Subharpoon, TAS etc. Was only ready by 1986. The second design won and became the Walrus class.

The biggest problem of it all, was that the Royal Netherlands Navy decided to give the go-ahead to RDM in 1979… So the design was far from finished. In 1979 the keel for the first of the class was laid, yet they soon found out that all kinds of new calculations and design features had to be done. They even had to make an entire mock-up of the engine room and command post!
Normally she would be ready in 1985, yet in 1982 they already shifted that date by 3 to 4 years.
As far as I know AIP came only about 1988 for Nacken. If you consider that Walrus design was already made in 1979 running through 1986…

In retrospect, it would have been advisable to repeat the Zwaardvis class design. However, the Walrus class was originally intended to be a 6 unit class. A mid-1980s RDM proposal lead to the cancellation of the last two units in favor of the smaller, more exportable Moray class. Oddly, the Moray was scheduled to use a closed cycle diesel AIP system. (The Netherlands had co-developed the closed cycle diesel AIP system with West Germany, but Germany had already abandonned the system in favor of fuel cell technology for the U212.)

Of course, the Walrus class was nearly reduced to 3 units when the lead ship of the class was badly damaged by fire while under construction. The damage amounted to more than $100+ million, a huge amount by the standards of two decades ago. The Dutch government of the day considered scrapping Walrus, but eventually decided to pay for the repairs – which seems outrageous because the sub was still in the hands of the builders when it burnt.

The cost of repairing the Walrus probably ended any chance of the two unit Moray class order. In reality, the fire probably doomed RDM in the long run and rebuilding the Walrus was a costly mistake for the Dutch taxpayers. A life extension of the Zwardvis class might have been more cost effective, or perhaps the Moray class might have acheived export success if the two units had indeed been ordered.

Hmmm :confused: … could be as there are some certain similarities between both ! You think of a British-designed lightweight fighter during the early days of good Western-Chinese-relations before the Tiananmen ???

Was there ever a naval proposal of the P.1563 ???

Deino

It is entirely possible that the British might have pitched a lightweight fighter design concept to the Chinese in this era. It is a documented fact that BAe marketed lightweight fighter concepts to both Sweden and India from 1982 onward, so it is conceivable that this very conventional concept might have been pitched to the Chinese a year or so earlier. It seems peculiar that the events in Tiananmen Square completely changed the west’s view of China as a potential defense customer, but pre-1989 China was viewed as an ally.

I am also puzzled by what appear to be wing folds, which would be superfluous on an aircraft with such a short span – probably less than 8 meters.