If the US can send 19,000ton SSGNs close enough for the SEALs to reach targets, the graduates of the Perisher course absolutely can drive a 10,000ton boat close enough.
I phrased it poorly - I'm trying to ask whether the money being used to purchase and fit Mk41 cells should've instead been used to fit some kind of sonar system.
My question (given my limited knowledge of ASW) would be whether a hull-mounted sonar, or a TAS, would be preferred for the T31 (assuming funds would only stretch for one).
I'm not the person to ask about that either, but my guess would be that HMS is better in situations where quick responses or flexibility is required, but TAS is superior for pure open oceN sensitivity. It takes 20 minutes to deploy or recover CAPTAS-4 for example and the reel is 500m long. That's not really useful for working in confined waters and it can't be turned on quickly like a HMS could be. So for T31 I'd have preferred it to have a HMS as it's more likely to be in coastal regions facing mini-subs or mines. A limited TA capacity using Kraitline could be achieved using small USVs and the HMS for multi-static use too, I imagine.
If you only have funds for one sonar, the question is where you primarily plan on operating the ship.
Correct. The bulb for the hull array would be too be deep for the river the building ways open into.
Agreed.
Unlikely, given both the current government and ongoing production delays & the like.
No problem. The RN has become quite good at symbolic show-the-flag deployments to project strength abroad for the benefit of the few close allies still willing to believe in Global Britain (Australia, Norway, Japan etc) while asking others to fill the gaps at home. That's all most of the British political establishment seem(ed) to care about, though that may be changing.
I thought the majority of T26 equipment is newly built? Artisan for example was rumoured to be being refreshed at BAE and then put back on new frigates, but it looks now like they are entirely new radars. Sonar might be different, but with the huge staggering of T23 OSDs it seems more of a logistical challenge to inherit the stuff than just build new sets.
The reason I think Artisan is entirely new is in the follow-up article to that one:
There is also the point that Artisan on T26 is electronically stabilised whereas on T23 it was mechanically stabilised, which doesn't sound like a change that could be done on an existing array.
Just had an idea for what the AUKUS-specifc tubes might be. Trident diameter but wired around UK/Oz standard 220v. Because Trident, even in the Vanguard boats, operates on 120v.
Holy moly Dreadnought is expensive, I don't understand it. How can each one cost most of the entire Astute programme cost? They'd better be good.
That's the total cost of the programme, divided by four. I then adjusted it down slightly for economies of scale. Even removing programme costs, though, you'd still end up with an absurdly large number.
Stop me if you've heard that one before.
It's customary for some reason to cite the full lifecycle cost for the entire programme. I suspect the reason is that the people quoting its cost are doing so because they are opposed to the UK having nuclear weapons, and financial arguments land harder than philosophical arguments.
For 6 billion £ ?
From an RN perspective I hope we're fleecing the Norwegians for all we're worth on their frigate deal, if we aren't making a profit on it there's zero point.
How much is Norway paying for their ships ?
To put things in perspective, £600 million would be about 15% cheaper than a FDI without the MBDA weapons package (€810 million for the 4th Greek unit)… while the FDI is almost 50% lighter, and is being built at more than twice the production rate.
In an emergency situation, the likelihood is anything that can float will be at sea, cf the Falklands where there was serious consideration of deploying Bulwark, even though she'd been in unmaintained reserve for a year post serious fire damage to her hangar, messdecks and boilers (two separate fires!).
It's also a grossly misused ratio in peacetime operations. It's a rough approximation for the number of forward deployed ships a force can generate under certain assumptions. It's not a bad starting point for a deploying navy, but it isn't a universal law of nature.
Yes. Just like for carriers the ratio can be 1.25:1 if you’re measuring your ability to maintain a carrier at high readiness (80% availability) which guarantees that you can deploy a carrier task force within X days in response to a crisis. Or it can be 3:1 if you want a carrier task force always at sea. Or 4:1 (ideally 5:1) if you want a carrier always forward deployed on combat ops.
I'm just basing them off equivalent FREMM costs, which are admittedly a little higher, but not by much. A FREMM is roughly a T26 analogue in terms of role, capability and scale. But I admit I was a little overzealous.
Here, I'm considering a peacetime scenario, given we don't really know which vessels in maintenance could be readied reasonably quickly.
The 3:1 model (1 vessel deployed, 1 vessel back from deployment in shipyard, 1 vessel getting ready to deploy) usually assumes that the vessel getting ready to deploy can be deployed early in a surge if needed. The closer that vessel is to the scheduled deployment rotation the more ready it will be, but I'd argue that any time after halfway through the ~6-8 month "getting ready" time period the ship would be ready enough for deployment.
It's a rule of thumb that's somehow been extrapolated further than was justified.
I don't think that's really a trick.
But that got fixed with Trident.
The fact they're all going through a major engine refit due to Northrop Grumman screwing the pooch on the recuperator design might have something to do with it.
