Despite carrying fewer airplanes, the CVN sits 4 inches lower in the water because of new ship’s kit added to the CVN. It will be a challenge to add 6-8 UCLASS UAVs in 2018 because many of the spaces used to support the CVW 25 years ago are being used for ship’s kit today.

Which is why you need to introduce a new class of ship occasionally to take into account changes in technology and optimise the ‘packaging’.

The Marines are part of the Navy. It could be very successfuly argued that their “organic” air cover would be the Navy a/c on the CVN. All those Amphib ships that people have been (of late) saying “belong” to the Marines, are NAVY ships. They are commanded by NAVAL officers.

Actually, I seem to remember that Naval ships and task groups *have* been commanded by Marine officers in a small number of instances in the recent past.

Can’t remember where I read it though…..

In peacetime, I’m sure the government could and would if there was a problem but wouldn’t as it suits them to farm out as much to the private sector as they can….getting all the unknown developement costs etc. off their books and just pay for the service.

At the end of the day, any government can do what they like changing laws to suit, it’s more that they don’t, well not in this part of the World.

In a case like this though, where the government may have through its own negligance been completely conned out of large amounts of money by the consortium, it should be something they consider.

The conversion of these aircraft is hardly something that required a large R&D investment and it was not exactly experimental.

Identical aircraft had already previously been converted for service as tankers in the RAAF.

As for changing laws, I doubt there is any need for it, did the government have to put acts through parliament when they have previously nationalised companies? The only difference in this case is that the assets would be transferred to RAF control and the company liquidated.

The Hawk isnt a cheap aircraft, and that price may include an unspecified number of years worth of technical support.

Well to play devils advocate was any of the issues with the Collins class to do with up-scaling a prior design?

Most of them stem from that.

Major issues as far as I can see were:

1) Defective welding

Specifically the parts of HMAS Collins fabricated by Kockums

2) Noise due to the nose being changed to accommodate a different sonar, model tests were done with the old design but not revised when the changes were made to sonar fit

Also related to the scaling up of the design.

3) Propulsion system

Related to scaling up the design. In order to get enough generating capacity to get the required charging rate an extra engine had to be shoehorned in, with a clean sheet design the engine room size constraints may have been avoidable.

4) Periscopes and masts – RAN requesting a dubious redesign of the periscope from base design to allow the optical view when the scope was raised

No comment.

5) CMS – the biggest problem in many ways and utterly avoidable if they had gone for an off the shelf system (as they did in the end)

A beyond state of the art CMS when the project began that was never worked out completely and ended up obsolescent. Rectified through refitting with the Virginia class CMS.

Aside from point 2 none of these issues are due to scaling up the design and I would argue point 2 was utterly avoidable if they had done hydrodynamic model testing of the redesigned hull.

You sure about that?

Scaling up and scaling down submarines is a fairly common process and if managed properly should not throw up too many issues.

Not to the extent that it was done with Collins. Collins was three times the displacement of the original base design. The largest displacement of the Type 209 submarine was by comparison 50% heavier then the lightest displacement varient.

Edit: @ Pioneer, more spacing please!! Wall of text = not cool.

Wouldn’t that make their submarine fleet more numerous that then major surface combatants?

Acquiring 30 subs over the next 10 years doesnt mean they’ll have 92 (63 +30 = 92, not 100).

They will presumably have to decommision some of their older submarines in the same time period.

That and I posted pics of Western subs looking even “rougher” – and of course the excuses flew that the Western subs were just fine 😉

No, you posted an image of a Trafalgar returning from deployment with some of its sound deadening tiles missing.

All *I* personally was commenting on, was how the metal work on the sails of those subs didn’t seem as neatly finished off as I expected, when compared to both western ships and some of Russia’s new surface ships. The ‘plates’ seemed to be to large to be Anechoic tiles, however if they were, that would explain the rough surface.

You/Clampipe were only banned because you started to make personal attacks on other members of the forum, including myself.

Edit: Anyway, back on topic. I likes the picture of the frigate on the previous page, it looks very neat. Any other closer images so we can compare fit and finish with the T45’s and Burkes? (joking)

Cockney Jock,

Thanks for posting those photos, they are just about the only reason i’ve been visiting this forum lately.