Royal Navy cut to smallest size ever - 25 ships !
Discussion
Ayahuasca said:
Dunk76 said:
Fabiao said:
Not sure an old cannon would have the power to penetrate an armoured metal hull.
A modern destroyer would only have to get one shot on target to sink an old wooden ship, though.
The current ones aren't armoured in any meaningful way though are they?A modern destroyer would only have to get one shot on target to sink an old wooden ship, though.
The wooden boats were remarkably hard to actually sink by all accounts.
Victory = 52 iron roundshot weighing about half a tonne in all.
Modern destroyer = one 4.5 inch HE shell
FourWheelDrift said:
Is wood a good reflector of radar or not?If it is the Victory could approach at night. 
Wood its radar absorbent to a degree, another thing that made the Mosquito quite useful as a plane...How many shells does a 45 carry?? change visotry could take them all then still carry on???
FourWheelDrift said:
Is wood a good reflector of radar or not?If it isn't the Victory could approach at night and they'd never see what hit them.
Of course the frigate would have to be stationary and everyone below decks
They'd see the guns through the hull!Of course the frigate would have to be stationary and everyone below decks
Edited by FourWheelDrift on Tuesday 12th October 12:26
Frankeh said:
Are you guys implying that a cannon ball would even dent a modern destroyer?
I think it would, the last destroyer I was on was a GMD, thats a "Guided Missile Destroyer", HMS Hampshire, outer skin was very thin, we were told it was designed to allow missiles to pass through the vessel, sounds a bit dodgy to me, but they were quite thin skinned.I think a cannon ball fired in close waters with either put a big dent in it, or go through it. Wind it back to 2nd WW, battleships then had an 16" armour band around them, (About 40 cm) now that would stop a cannon ball.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hampshire_(D06)
Edited by Vipers on Tuesday 12th October 12:59
dilbert said:
FourWheelDrift said:
Is wood a good reflector of radar or not?If it isn't the Victory could approach at night and they'd never see what hit them.
Of course the frigate would have to be stationary and everyone below decks
They'd see the guns through the hull!Of course the frigate would have to be stationary and everyone below decks
Edited by FourWheelDrift on Tuesday 12th October 12:26
Frankeh said:
Are you guys implying that a cannon ball would even dent a modern destroyer?
Modern warship hulls aren't armoured. They are designed to spot threats and destroy them before they get a chance to attack. Although a stealth ship, like a wooden ship of the line (
) would decimate a tin foil tube quite easily if it got a chance to fire at optium range.They weren't basic cannon firing in a hope & hit manner in Nelson's time either, they had a choice of shot and had the skills to either fire direct at a ships upperworks (in this case the bridge) to destroy command and control, to hit the hull above the water line by direct shot or by skipping the shot over the water like skipping a stone across a pond or even timing the shot to hit below the water line, using the roll of both vessels. I'm not sure if wooden hulled vessels would even register on missile systems so the frigate would have to rely on it's guns, if it had any and they hadn't been taken out in the first broadside.
FourWheelDrift said:
Frankeh said:
Are you guys implying that a cannon ball would even dent a modern destroyer?
Modern warship hulls aren't armoured. They are designed to spot threats and destroy them before they get a chance to attack. Although a stealth ship, like a wooden ship of the line () would decimate a tin foil tube quite easily if it got a chance to fire at optium range.They weren't basic cannon firing in a hope & hit manner in Nelson's time either, they had a choice of shot and had the skills to either fire direct at a ships upperworks (in this case the bridge) to destroy command and control, to hit the hull above the water line by direct shot or by skipping the shot over the water like skipping a stone across a pond or even timing the shot to hit below the water line, using the roll of both vessels. I'm not sure if wooden hulled vessels would even register on missile systems so the frigate would have to rely on it's guns, if it had any and they hadn't been taken out in the first broadside.
Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 12th October 15:49
What's needed is some serious thinking.
What jobs we want the navy to do v what capabilities we need to do this.
At present its, NATO Falklands, West Indies and East of Suez.
For every ship on task you need two others. One preparing to go, one on task, one coming off task Refits etc.
You then look at specialist forces.
We have the best Amphibious forces in the world (Ignoring the USA) They have cost us a lot to build up and they are reasobably new. Without a carrier to protect them ther is not much point in them.
So we reduce the ambphib fleet.
Sadly HMS Ocean will go. She's never really been right and if we have a Landing Platforem Helicopter capacity with the new carriers - it will go some way to addressing this.
We put one of the two Assualt ships in to reserve. No big deal really. Make smore sense if we run a pair of ships like this. Gives us time to upgrade them, and keep a bit of fat in the system.
The Bay class landing ships have proved most usefual. Perhaps mothballing one on rotation would safe money.
So we have to take these new carriers for contractual reasons.
If so, cheap and ready to use F18 aircraft shoudl be on them, not silly unproven F35 jets.
We need a force of specialsed frigates and destoryers...We have those. So we keep them - Tye 45 and 23s. About 6-8 of each. Those we don't use we don't sell but mothball.
A proper modern mothballed flotilla (Put them abroad with the US Navy on a contract to save money) gives us fat in the system, the ability to replace damaaged ships (Remember HMS Nottingham)
And for the gunboat deployments...we lease cheap off the shelf small warships from builders. You don't need a multi million pound sub hunter to take on a bunch of pirates or drug runners. You need a platform with decent off the shelf weapons with a helicopter and accomodation for boarding parties.
Trident you keep in service for now - worry about it later.
The Sub force - keep it as planned but perhaps look at getting good off the shelf diesel boats to replace the older nuke boats as they pay off.
What jobs we want the navy to do v what capabilities we need to do this.
At present its, NATO Falklands, West Indies and East of Suez.
For every ship on task you need two others. One preparing to go, one on task, one coming off task Refits etc.
You then look at specialist forces.
We have the best Amphibious forces in the world (Ignoring the USA) They have cost us a lot to build up and they are reasobably new. Without a carrier to protect them ther is not much point in them.
So we reduce the ambphib fleet.
Sadly HMS Ocean will go. She's never really been right and if we have a Landing Platforem Helicopter capacity with the new carriers - it will go some way to addressing this.
We put one of the two Assualt ships in to reserve. No big deal really. Make smore sense if we run a pair of ships like this. Gives us time to upgrade them, and keep a bit of fat in the system.
The Bay class landing ships have proved most usefual. Perhaps mothballing one on rotation would safe money.
So we have to take these new carriers for contractual reasons.
If so, cheap and ready to use F18 aircraft shoudl be on them, not silly unproven F35 jets.
We need a force of specialsed frigates and destoryers...We have those. So we keep them - Tye 45 and 23s. About 6-8 of each. Those we don't use we don't sell but mothball.
A proper modern mothballed flotilla (Put them abroad with the US Navy on a contract to save money) gives us fat in the system, the ability to replace damaaged ships (Remember HMS Nottingham)
And for the gunboat deployments...we lease cheap off the shelf small warships from builders. You don't need a multi million pound sub hunter to take on a bunch of pirates or drug runners. You need a platform with decent off the shelf weapons with a helicopter and accomodation for boarding parties.
Trident you keep in service for now - worry about it later.
The Sub force - keep it as planned but perhaps look at getting good off the shelf diesel boats to replace the older nuke boats as they pay off.
Edited by wildcat45 on Wednesday 13th October 11:54
It was interesting watching the news last night - the new Queen Lizzy at 90,000T and approx £350M, essentially a one off and HMS Duncan at 7,500T and £1Bn as a 6 off.
I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
FourWheelDrift said:
Frankeh said:
Are you guys implying that a cannon ball would even dent a modern destroyer?
Modern warship hulls aren't armoured. They are designed to spot threats and destroy them before they get a chance to attack. Although a stealth ship, like a wooden ship of the line () would decimate a tin foil tube quite easily if it got a chance to fire at optium range.They weren't basic cannon firing in a hope & hit manner in Nelson's time either, they had a choice of shot and had the skills to either fire direct at a ships upperworks (in this case the bridge) to destroy command and control, to hit the hull above the water line by direct shot or by skipping the shot over the water like skipping a stone across a pond or even timing the shot to hit below the water line, using the roll of both vessels. I'm not sure if wooden hulled vessels would even register on missile systems so the frigate would have to rely on it's guns, if it had any and they hadn't been taken out in the first broadside.
The 32 pounder fired a shot just over 6 inches in diameter and with a full charge of 10lb 11oz could make an extreme range of 2000 yards.
Sooo if it can chuck a 6 inch shot 200 yards and 10000 and less it would so quite a bit of damage.
Remember these ships of the line had oak hulls 2 foot thick which is what 32 pounders were designed to destroy
tonyvid said:
It was interesting watching the news last night - the new Queen Lizzy at 90,000T and approx £350M, essentially a one off and HMS Duncan at 7,500T and £1Bn as a 6 off.
I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
Probably find that the software (which doesn't weigh a thing) was more expensive than the hull, engines and superstructure combined.I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
dilbert said:
tonyvid said:
It was interesting watching the news last night - the new Queen Lizzy at 90,000T and approx £350M, essentially a one off and HMS Duncan at 7,500T and £1Bn as a 6 off.
I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
Probably find that the software (which doesn't weigh a thing) was more expensive than the hull, engines and superstructure combined.I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
Air is free and steel is cheap - hence why the Type 45s are so large. Reducing the size of a warship is a false economy as the Type 42 demonstrated. 47ft chopped out of the first two batches as a cost saving measure, which was later put back in the third batch due to the poor seakeeping of the earlier ones.Incidentally, Queen Elizabeth is really a modified Vista-class cruise ship - of a class of 11 planned and 9 built so far - so the development costs would be shared. Whereas the Type 45 was originally planned to be a class of 12 destroyers before cuts reduced it to 8 and now just six - therefore the development cost per ship has essentially doubled.
tonyvid said:
It was interesting watching the news last night - the new Queen Lizzy at 90,000T and approx £350M, essentially a one off and HMS Duncan at 7,500T and £1Bn as a 6 off.
I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
Unaccountable civil servants were in charge of procurement for one, a private company answerable to shareholders were in charge of the other. Probably find each square of bogroll on the RN ship costs £500. I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
It is a factor.
Frankeh said:
Are you guys implying that a cannon ball would even dent a modern destroyer?
no, im implying it would go clean through the outer skin and settle somewhere inside the ship...anyhow, to anybody who predicts we will only be fighting terrorist types in the middle of the desert over the next 40 years is a brave/foolish man. anyone who predicts anything over the next 40 years is...
with resources becoming more and more scarce who know where we may have to intervene, and against whom...
one thing is for sure, for the army to get anywhere in any meaningful numbers, you need the navy!
and another thing, at any given time at best 50% of the navy will be ready to go. the rest will be in refit/storage or the other side of the globe... so all of a sudden 6 t-45s becomes 3 for example...
and another thing... ships take time to build; so if we do need them at short notice what are we going to do exactly?
tonyvid said:
It was interesting watching the news last night - the new Queen Lizzy at 90,000T and approx £350M, essentially a one off and HMS Duncan at 7,500T and £1Bn as a 6 off.
I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
developing (from design, test, qualification and final production)a state of the art weapons system costs more than a state of the art bedding/clothes storage solution; whether it weighs 30,000 ton more or not...I know the T45s have all that super radar, ops room, sonar and stuff but the QE3 is hardly lacking in fittings and does have 82,000T more materials on board
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