Jump to content

Martian

Recommended Posts

Where are they going to berth Bristol when Sultan closes and moves to Collingwood?  I can't see them getting it far up Portchester Creek!  Oh, hang on: we don't actually need to train marine engineers on real ships any more ..............

 

And as for basing the Navy's largest ships in the Naval Base with the narrowest and shallowest entrance.....................

Link to comment
Share on other sites

HMS Bristol is an accommodation and training ship attached to HMS Excellent , recently refitted for the role so she will be fine. As to HMS Sultan, this is a conversation I had when I visited there a year or two ago. The officer I spoke to was despairing.

 

Martian 👽

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, iang said:

Is Bristol the last RN Falklands ship?

Certainly in this country. Hermes aka Viraat is still extant in India and there may be some Amazons still in service with the Pakistan Navy.

 

Martian 👽

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Note that she is docked on her port side to have her Weaponry fitted, she will be turned around soon to the more familiar starboard side so they can fit the rest of the weapons and bring the access back via the deck edge lifts and the hanger space

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎27‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 01:19, Geoff_B said:

Note that she is docked on her port side to have her Weaponry fitted, she will be turned around soon to the more familiar starboard side so they can fit the rest of the weapons and bring the access back via the deck edge lifts and the hanger space

Thanks for that, the guide on the boat trip mentioned that she was due to be spun round in a few days but did not elaborate as to what was going on.

 

Enlightened of Mars 👽

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎26‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 19:33, Das Abteilung said:

Where are they going to berth Bristol when Sultan closes and moves to Collingwood?  I can't see them getting it far up Portchester Creek!  Oh, hang on: we don't actually need to train marine engineers on real ships any more ..............

 

And as for basing the Navy's largest ships in the Naval Base with the narrowest and shallowest entrance.....................

Will they never learn.  They did this exercise in 2002 when they were looking to close one of SULTAN, COLLINGWOOD or DRYAD and they proved then that you couldn't fit all of SULTAN's training requirements into COLLINGWOOD.  Fundamentally there are serious limitations as to where on the COLLINGWOOD estate you can build because the land on which it sits is quite marshy.  They proved that when they built the swimming pool, filled it with water and the whole building started to sink.

 

Logically back then, the one to close was COLLINGWOOD as DRYAD had the capacity to take about 70% of the training load with the balance going to SULTAN, but ultimately the people at the top responsible for taking the decision were WEs.

 

Actually putting QE into Portsmouth was the sensible choice.  She would never get around the turn into the Hamoaze to go into Devonport.  The old ARK and EAGLE could only just make it.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

With the amount of dredging of the Pompey entrance and channel they could have straightened out the Hamoaze!  And QE is allegedly far more manouverable.  But I must admit to being surprised that she hasn't got azipods as main propulsion like most modern large liners.  Berthing would be far easier, azipod tugs notwithstanding.

 

IIRC, not everything from Sultan is going to Collingwood.  There's a lot of functional centralisation of "centres of excellence" going on under the Defence Estate Optimisation Programme, including cross-service.  Sadly, I suspect that Bristol is perhaps coming to the end of her days.  Perhaps one of the T23s would be a more appropriate instructional piece now.  I remain surprised that she kept her pennant number.  I recall that when Ajax went to Raleigh years ago she became just a Seamanship Training Barge.  I was doing ship commercial disposals in those days, including selling Tiger.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Working in the dockyard at the moment so see her most days.

 

Is she painted a different colour to the other ships.  Looks much more of a green hue than the blue tinge of the other ships.

 

Or maybe it a reflection from the sea on the outward sloping hull.

 

But definitely looks green when I see her in real life.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
On 1/5/2019 at 8:24 PM, Das Abteilung said:

With the amount of dredging of the Pompey entrance and channel they could have straightened out the Hamoaze!  And QE is allegedly far more manouverable.  But I must admit to being surprised that she hasn't got azipods as main propulsion like most modern large liners.  Berthing would be far easier, azipod tugs notwithstanding.

 

IIRC, not everything from Sultan is going to Collingwood.  There's a lot of functional centralisation of "centres of excellence" going on under the Defence Estate Optimisation Programme, including cross-service.  Sadly, I suspect that Bristol is perhaps coming to the end of her days.  Perhaps one of the T23s would be a more appropriate instructional piece now.  I remain surprised that she kept her pennant number.  I recall that when Ajax went to Raleigh years ago she became just a Seamanship Training Barge.  I was doing ship commercial disposals in those days, including selling Tiger.

The QE could get into Devonport if river dredged. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Carriers used to be based at Devonport, albeit smaller ones.  Portsmouth drew the Destroyer and Carrier straw, Devonport got Frigates and sub refits (not to mention storage - all over the news today after the PAC's panning of the lack of progress).

 

The Sultan closure and Collingwood move has now been delayed: maybe someone finally twigged that you can't get a training ship up the creek to Collingwood!

 

I stood with the dogs last night looking across Weymouth Bay toward the old naval base at Portland.  I suppose we didn't need 3 South Coast bases now.  There's an old RFA LSL with the pennant number painted out tied up against the outer breakwater.  Been there for at least a couple of years.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Will these carriers be the last big white elephants as the battleship once where?

 

I hear lots of discussions these days how woulnerable the large carrier groups are and that the defensive weapon systems no longer are as strong as 30, 40 years ago. Fewer Ticonderoga class cruisers and no F-14 etc...

 

Wonder what Tom Clancy would have written with the knewledge about the new chinese anti ship missiles?

 

And for sure, an Swedish submarine shot one us carrier out of the water...

 

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/swedens-super-stealth-submarines-are-so-lethal-they-sank-us-18383

 

Cheers / André

Edited by Andre B
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Andre B said:

Will these carriers be the last big white elephants as the battleship once where?

 

I hear lots of discussions these days how woulnerable the large carrier groups are and that the defensive weapon systems no longer are as strong as 30, 40 years ago. Fewer Ticonderoga class cruisers and no F-14 etc...

 

Wonder what Tom Clancy would have written with the knewledge about the new chinese anti ship missiles?

 

And for sure, an Swedish submarine shot one us carrier out of the water...

 

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/swedens-super-stealth-submarines-are-so-lethal-they-sank-us-18383

 

Cheers / André

 

US supercarriers have been sunk by almost any kind of ship/sub/aircraft over the years in exercises but this doesn't mean that a carrier group is vulnerable: exercises are conducted following certain rules in a certain scenario, they are an incredibly important tool to prepare for war but they can't represent a true war. So better take the result of any exercise with a grain of salt and put these in the right contest.

 

Really the defensive shield of a US carrier group is not really weaker today than it was 30 years ago. There may be less ships and aircraft but the lethality of missile systems today is way superior to what it was 3 decades ago. The AIM-54/F-14 combination may have been great but the Amraam displays a reliability that the Phoenix never achieved and the latest variants are now reaching some pretty good ranges.

The web is full of articles discussing the concerns about the vulnerability of carrier groups but a lot is stuff that has been told for the last 50 years... yet the only ones that really had to seriously worry have been the ones at the receiving end of the kind of force that a carrier group can project across the world.

Not that the major navies don't take the threats to their carriers seriously, they sure do, reason why carrier groups are less vulnerable than many think

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Exercises are false because they are designed to provide training.  I used to train ship's command teams and had to explain to them at the start of the training period that no matter how effective their tactics were in avoiding the potential enemy attacks, I would generate attacks, falsely if necessary, towards the end of each exercise in order that their operators gained the experience of tracking and engaging inbound raids as well.

 

Let me give you another example.  During one of the old JMC exercises in the late 90s, we were required to provide our planned nav track every day so that it could be passed to the submarines in order that they could pre-position to attack us so that both sides could obtain training benefit.  By contrast, during the operations in the Adriatic at the same time, the Yugoslavians had, IIRC, 3 submarines at their main naval base.  Through diplomatic channels they were told by the US that a intelligence satellite would photograph their naval base twice per day.  Provided the 3 submarines remained alongside, not action would be taken.  If it reduced to 2 at any point their naval base would cease to exist.  Result: there was no ASW threat to either the UK or US carrier groups operating in the Adriatic.

  • Like 2
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/27/2018 at 12:40 AM, Martian Hale said:

Certainly in this country. Hermes aka Viraat is still extant in India and there may be some Amazons still in service with the Pakistan Navy.

 

Martian 👽

HMS Conqueror is still in storage at Devonport. They chose to open up Courageous as a museum Sub instead of Conx. Incidentally, the QE could enter Devonport if one particular area of the river was dredged - a conclusion drawn after a study by QHM. The only real problem seems to be the actual dredging - namely because of ongoing arguments about where all the dredged material could be disposed off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/18/2019 at 9:17 AM, Chewbacca said:

Exercises are false because they are designed to provide training.  I used to train ship's command teams and had to explain to them at the start of the training period that no matter how effective their tactics were in avoiding the potential enemy attacks, I would generate attacks, falsely if necessary, towards the end of each exercise in order that their operators gained the experience of tracking and engaging inbound raids as well.

In 1990 I was Flt Cdr of Broadsword, and we went with Argonaut to take part in Exercise Nile 90, the first time the two countries had exercised together for many years,  The impact was thus entirely diplomatic - building relationships etc in the region - rather than tactical. The Egyptians were also at the time looking to acquire a couple of frigates (from Spain, IIRC) which would have been their first chance to have embarked helicopters - so they were very interested in seeing the Lynx.  I cannot remember whether they eventually bought the frigates or not.

 

Alas, the day before we arrived in Alexandria the horizontal stabiliser fell off the Gib Flt aircraft whilst airborne, and the entire Lynx fleet was grounded for a few days pending checks.  The Captain totally understood the fact that this was out of my hands and not my fault, but also said “the problem is that the Egyptians might well not believe us and take offence (“you don’t want to share your secrets with us”).... and since you suddenly have nothing to do for a couple of days...”. The Egyptians had offered to take one of our officers to sea in the submarine which Broadsword & Argo were due to chase.

 

Which is how I went to sea for the day in an Egyptian submarine - an ancient ex-Soviet Romeo class, so basically a WW2 U-boat in all but name.  The captain and ship’s company could not have been more welcoming and loved showing off their boat, which they definitely knew how to handle.  However, when it came to the CASEX (combined anti-submarine exercise) NOTHING would persuade them that the idea was to allow everyone to practice... not to ‘win’.  Sonar conditions off the Nile delta are notoriously hideous at the best of times, but the RN units simply could not find any trace of the submarine in 3 hours of burning holes in the ocean.

 

This was because 10 minutes before start time the Captain took the boat to the very top corner of the assigned area (a large rectangle of Eastern Med) and settled her on the bottom. “They will never find us here if we do not move or make any noise...”.  And sure enough, they didn’t.  Of course, the submarine got no value from the exercise either - no sonar tracking, no manoeuvring under attack, no working to get a firing solution, nothing.  But the Captain was chuffed to bits: the modern, anti-submarine specialists of the Royal Navy had not found him, so in his eyes he “won”.  He was bathed in smiles all the way back to Alex.

 

That’s why exercises are deliberately cooked to make sure something happens to benefit all concerned... and stats about how vulnerable everyone is are pretty much entirely meaningless.  After all, in the lead-up to WW2 the prevailing wisdom was that “the bomber will always get through”, and any resources diverted away from Bomber Command were being wasted - Harris seems to have fervently believed this to the end of his days, regardless of all evidence to the contrary.  But it was complete rubbish.

 

Of course the Russians and Chinese are going to say that carriers are simply large targets for their amazing missiles against which there is no defence.  If that is true, how strange that the Chinese are still building their own carriers, eh?

 

Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, especially from people who have a giant axe to grind.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

The Egyptians were also at the time looking to acquire a couple of frigates (from Spain, IIRC) which would have been their first chance to have embarked helicopters - so they were very interested in seeing the Lynx.  I cannot remember whether they eventually bought the frigates or not.

They ended up buying some Knox and Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates from the United States, along with ten Seasprites.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...