Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by jonas
Cheers Jonas!
Enough of sea stories from me, back OTI cannot see a thing today too misty, so I still can't confirm if the skid has taken place.
Pymes I hope u haven't updated your blog yet
Cheers Jonas!
Just remembered a few more things he told me at the timeWere you still heading towards the bottom of your Corbieres when you wrote these posts?!
"As it is, i suspect the Type 45 is sent down South mostly if not exclusively because it is currently the only escort in the navy which has the legs and endurance to deploy to the South Atlantic with no / minimal external support.
But once the Type 26 comes, the navy will have other hulls with the same (if not even better, the 26's endurance requirements are absolutely impressive) legs and it will be better able to plan for complete Task Groups while also keeping up presence in the South Atlantic."
this suggests that there is a money issue here as seems cheaper to send 1 T45 as pose to a T23 plus RFA Tanker(which are a dying breed at the moment)
N.B currently all ships that have departed south have travelled around all the countries south including the Caribbean islands ,not just the Falklands ,which they stay around 2 weeks at the most.
True a 8 strong T45 fleet would be better, even better would to have T22 not been scraped ,but replaced with a upgraded T26/45 comb.This would gives us more ships with longer range to be deploy all over the world, But that would mean the Gov. of the day increasing the present fleet to meet these deployments which they are currently not interested in ,but still want the deployment to go on.
{SDSR2010 claimed saving around £200million for 4 more years service for T22'S same cost as in the F35B to C back to B debacle}
LOL! Not yet...Enough of sea stories from me, back OT
Pymes I hope u haven't updated your blog yet
Been busy adding pages for US forces (I think the Carrier/Expeditionary Strike Group ones might be useful to look up what US forces are already forward deployed in the event of a future crisis plus I wanted a better understanding of the US Army's organisation following the change to BCTs).
:this suggests that there is a money issue here as seems cheaper to send 1 T45 as pose to a T23 plus RFA Tanker(which are a dying breed at the moment:
I would hardly call them a dying breed when we have just ordered four in number 37,000 ton state of the art tankers !!
winder if LB04 is connected to the rest of the hull? Would like some photos please ACA
:Anyway back to the main topic,...Crowsnest I think it'll be in service in time for QE's sea trials either that or Sea King will soldier on until it is replaced :
I don't think so.
UK to launch Crowsnest AEW assessment in 2013
By: Craig Hoyle London
04:12 22 Nov 2012
Source:
The UK Ministry of Defence will launch the assessment phase for its planned Project Crowsnest effort to replace the Royal Navy's Westland Sea King 7 surveillance helicopters during 2013, only three years before the current type's retirement from use.
"The Sea King Airborne Surveillance and Control (SKASaC) aircraft will be retired in 2016 when the Sea King fleet exits service in entirety," says minister for defence equipment, support and technology Philip Dunne. Assessment phase activities on a replacement capability will begin next year, he adds, but declines to estimate the programme's likely cost ahead of a main investment decision.
Responding to a parliamentary question on 19 November, Dunne said £18 million ($28.6 million) has already been spent on "relevant development work under predecessor projects".
With little time available to deliver a new system, the likelihood is that the UK will experience a capability gap - potentially of several years - in its ability to deliver organic airborne early warning services from its surface fleet. "If Crowsnest were not available immediately on retirement of SKASaC, other systems could provide a surveillance and control capability until such time as Crowsnest came into service," Dunne says.
The RN's Fleet Air Arm has an active inventory of 13 Sea Kings equipped with Thales Searchwater 2000 radars, says Flightglobal's Ascend Online Fleets database. Primarily developed for airborne early warning activities, the sensor has also delivered significant utility as an over-land surveillance asset in Afghanistan, and was employed during last year's NATO operation to protect Libyan civilians.
One of the aircraft recently deployed aboard the RN's new Type 45 anti-air warfare destroyer for the first time, with the surveillance asset operating from HMS Diamond in the Middle East.
Potential options to deliver the Crowsnest capability include a Thales proposal to integrate existing radars with some of the RN's AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin multimission helicopters, and a Lockheed Martin UK Integrated Systems/Northrop Grumman product development for the same platform named Vigilance.
Comprising one or two pod-mounted active electronically scanned array radars, the Vigilance system is due to perform flight trials in the UK with a Merlin from late this month, according to industry sources.
I have increased the likelihood of link up to 95.672%
All joshing aside it looks like its happened and she looks very big indeedy!!
I wonder if, with 2 known systems - Merlin and Searchwater as per Thales proposal- such a system could be developed sooner thus avoiding a gap altogether. The reality is, I suspect, probably not. Trials of these things take an age to complete, and I have no doubt that the MOD will want the all singing all dancing bespoke system and will be prepared to wait, and pay, for it.:Anyway back to the main topic,...Crowsnest I think it'll be in service in time for QE's sea trials either that or Sea King will soldier on until it is replaced :
I don't think so.
UK to launch Crowsnest AEW assessment in 2013
By: Craig Hoyle London
04:12 22 Nov 2012
Source:
The UK Ministry of Defence will launch the assessment phase for its planned Project Crowsnest effort to replace the Royal Navy's Westland Sea King 7 surveillance helicopters during 2013, only three years before the current type's retirement from use.
"The Sea King Airborne Surveillance and Control (SKASaC) aircraft will be retired in 2016 when the Sea King fleet exits service in entirety," says minister for defence equipment, support and technology Philip Dunne. Assessment phase activities on a replacement capability will begin next year, he adds, but declines to estimate the programme's likely cost ahead of a main investment decision.
Responding to a parliamentary question on 19 November, Dunne said £18 million ($28.6 million) has already been spent on "relevant development work under predecessor projects".
With little time available to deliver a new system, the likelihood is that the UK will experience a capability gap - potentially of several years - in its ability to deliver organic airborne early warning services from its surface fleet. "If Crowsnest were not available immediately on retirement of SKASaC, other systems could provide a surveillance and control capability until such time as Crowsnest came into service," Dunne says.
The RN's Fleet Air Arm has an active inventory of 13 Sea Kings equipped with Thales Searchwater 2000 radars, says Flightglobal's Ascend Online Fleets database. Primarily developed for airborne early warning activities, the sensor has also delivered significant utility as an over-land surveillance asset in Afghanistan, and was employed during last year's NATO operation to protect Libyan civilians.
One of the aircraft recently deployed aboard the RN's new Type 45 anti-air warfare destroyer for the first time, with the surveillance asset operating from HMS Diamond in the Middle East.
Potential options to deliver the Crowsnest capability include a Thales proposal to integrate existing radars with some of the RN's AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin multimission helicopters, and a Lockheed Martin UK Integrated Systems/Northrop Grumman product development for the same platform named Vigilance.
Comprising one or two pod-mounted active electronically scanned array radars, the Vigilance system is due to perform flight trials in the UK with a Merlin from late this month, according to industry sources.
It'll be very interesting to see the time lapse camera update tomorrow....
After the skids all done, what do we guess the next block lift will be? UB01, SP01 Aft, SP08 Fwd, LB05T, Forward Aircraft Lift? So many options!
Oh, and any news of CB04C and D being shipped up? Have they even been built yet?
I think we might be all done with lifts untill February, thats seems to be the date floating around for the delivery of the other CB04 blocks and the Forward Island, we might get SP01/GTA lifted on or LB05 lifted in but right now I think most of the man power will go into welding the 2 half together.
They're due to be shipped in February. Therefore, I would guess that they will be in an advanced state of build/fitting out.
Very interesting stuff CJ!
I do find it strange that a ship of this size would be laid down with a distorted keel. The shipyards certainly had plenty of experience of constructing larger vessels by the end of the war and also with the keel being the first pieces of steel to be laid down, would have been easy to see.
I'm suspecting that she was simply un-needed at wars end and the financial situation of all European countries precluded expenditure of this kind?
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