Wednesday, December 11, 2013

RN - Indo-Pacific

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21-9-11 Royal Navy Ships ⇒ 5 Years in Indo-Pacific > .
24-2-24 3D - How US Navy Destroyer Ship Works - AiTelly > .
21-9-27 Royal Navy Ships And Subs Explained > .


NATO

In April 2021, HMS Tamar became the first Royal Navy warship to be painted in dazzle camouflage since World War II, prior to Tamar's planned deployment with sister ship HMS Spey to the Asia-Pacific region. On 7 September 2021, Tamar and sister Spey departed Portsmouth to be forward deployed to the Indo-Pacific region for a minimum of five years.

On 6 November 2013 it was announced that the Royal Navy had signed an Agreement in Principle to build three new offshore patrol vessels, based on the River-class design, at a fixed price of £348 million including spares and support. The River class are significantly larger than the Island-class vessels and have a large open deck aft allowing them to be fitted with equipment for a specific role, which can include fire-fighting, disaster relief and anti-pollution work. For this purpose, a 25-tonne (25-long-ton; 28-short-ton) capacity crane is fitted. In addition, the deck is strong enough for the transport of various tracked and wheeled light vehicles, or an LCVP. The class are primarily used with the Fishery Protection Squadron and EEZ patrol.

In August 2014, BAE Systems signed the contract to build the ships on the Clyde in Scotland. The Ministry of Defence stated that the Batch 2 ships are capable of being used for constabulary duties such as "counter-terrorism, counter-piracy and anti-smuggling operations". According to BAE Systems, the vessels are designed to deploy globally, conducting anti-piracy, counter-terrorism and anti-smuggling tasks currently conducted by frigates and destroyers. A £287m order, for two further ships, including Tamar, and support for all five Batch 2 ships, was announced on 8 December 2016.

The Batch 2 ships are fundamentally different in appearance and capabilities from the preceding Batch 1. Notable differences include the 90.5 metres (296 ft 11 in) long hull, a top speed of 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph), a flight deck that can take an AgustaWestland Merlin helicopter, a displacement of around 2,000 tonnes and greatly expanded capacity for accommodating troops. The Batch 2 ships also have a different (full width) superstructure, and a fundamentally different above-water hullform shape (greater bow flare, different and less-pronounced forward knuckle line compared to the Batch 1 ships, lack of the distinctive forward and aft bulwarks of the Batch 1 vessels). The class is also fitted with the Kelvin Hughes SharpEye integrated radar system for navigation, the Terma Scanter 4100 2D radar for air and surface surveillance, and a BAE CMS-1 "Combat Management System".

Batch 2 are also the first Royal Navy ships fitted with the BAE Systems Shared Infrastructure operating system. BAE describes Shared Infrastructure as "a state-of-the-art system that will revolutionise the way ships operate by using virtual technologies to host and integrate the sensors, weapons and management systems that complex warships require. Replacing multiple large consoles dedicated to specific tasks with a single hardware solution reduces the number of spares required to be carried onboard and will significantly decrease through-life costs."

The class has been criticised in evidence to the Commons Defence Select Committee: lacking a helicopter hangar, something that will limit usefulness of the helicopter deck by preventing embarkation of a helicopter for anything other than very short periods; lacking a medium calibre gun (such as 76 mm); and poor value for money. It is argued that because of the lack of these features - which could have been incorporated for the price - the vessels will not be as capable in the ocean-going patrol capacity as claimed. A criticism of the class is that the reasoning behind their commissioning was simply to ensure that public money continued to support BAE dockyards and jobs prior to the ordering of the Type 26 frigate.

The Batch 2 ships for the Royal Navy include some 29 modifications and enhancements over the Amazonas-class corvette built by BAE Systems for the Brazilian Navy. The Royal Navy ships are built to more stringent naval standards, with features such as magazine protection, improved hull integrity and fire safety modifications, as well as greater redundancy.

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