The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

FOAC

New Member
You're not kidding -one of the saluting guns for Prince of Wales had to come off Belfast with special permission from the museum.

Seems a bit odd as there should be loads lying around given the change in size of the fleet but I'm guessing most of them went, with their ship, to the scrappers.
Hope then that they put in an offer for Hernes' , before its too late!
 

StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
Who would be putting in an offer for Hermes and why?

Just the saluting guns if they still have them - there seems to be a shortage of them for the fleet. PoW is rated to have six and at one point they had 3 I think. It's bonkers really, we're down from a surface fleet of 30 to 19 so you'd think there'd be this huge warehouse of spare bits lying around.
 

StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
The less fun part for the fleet is the up issue on the qty of 3lb ammo they have to carry, as it INCREASES every 5 years, due to ceremonial requirements, like the Queen's Birthday salute...

They have also 'proved' useful in the Gulf to scare away pirates. Could always stick some 'grapeshot' in the end of the barrel, but I'm sure the lawyers would be all over that....

SA

Yeah, I can't see legal giving that one the nod. Would be fun the next time the republican guard do a drive by - way more entertaining than illuminating them with a flare :)
 

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Yeah, I can't see legal giving that one the nod. Would be fun the next time the republican guard do a drive by - way more entertaining than illuminating them with a flare :)
A bit of grapeshot has never done anybody any harm. Well unless they were French, Spanish, Dutch, or those rebellious colonial Americans and they all deserved a good thrashing with grapeshot.
 

StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
A bit of grapeshot has never done anybody any harm. Well unless they were French, Spanish, Dutch, or those rebellious colonial Americans and they all deserved a good thrashing with grapeshot.
Yah - no real people were hurt :)

I was chatting to a warfare guy and he was super enthusiastic at the selection of the Mk4 Bofors 40mm for 31 and was really hoping they'd show up in some other places - maybe push the 30mm cannons out of some slots as they're a really capable piece of kit.

Particularly if the application of grapeshot has failed to have a sufficiently salutary effect on the target set...
 

Systems Adict

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Yah - no real people were hurt :)

I was chatting to a warfare guy and he was super enthusiastic at the selection of the Mk4 Bofors 40mm for 31 and was really hoping they'd show up in some other places - maybe push the 30mm cannons out of some slots as they're a really capable piece of kit.

Particularly if the application of grapeshot has failed to have a sufficiently salutary effect on the target set...

From a fleet perspective, 30mm cannons are here to stay !

(time/effort/training/available budgets - ALL these mean expensive cost to replace / large deposits of equipment & munitions/stores going to waste)

Aside from that. the mounts at least are - the barrel/gun can be chopped & changed. Last year the RN proved that they could be 'adapted' to fire Martlet missiles, MSI have been doing similar developments for years. It simply needs a customer appetite to pay for them / a specific issue that needs 'THAT' adaptation to help 'cure' the problem.

Most of the surface fleet already have them, as does QE / or at least the ability to fit them.

I have witnessed 30mm taking down 'representative targets', as part of a proving trial in 'air mode', some 20 years ago & at the time it was all about processing power of the command system & the quality of the input signal from the tracking device. Technology has came a long way since then & fully digital axis drive motors married to a good command system means that updating older systems by refurbishing them would be a more 'cost effective' way than ripping out & replacing with alternates.

SA
 
I remember reading that the 155mm advantage over 4.5" was logistics only as the 4.5" flew faster, further and surprisingly had larger HE payload.

I am surprised at RN procurement though. 40mm L70 is fair enough but was there no coordination between 40mm naval mounts and army CTA? And why then acquire 57mm that is not even passingly a NGFS round when you could sneak in with the passable 76mm? Type 31 is a big ship, oto 76mm don't weigh that much and I'm sure the last purchase of 76mm I saw had a sticker price of 6 mill USD including support. Seems that 57mm was possibly about more BAE marketing than being a serious medium calibre gun (2.4kg projectile to 76mm's 6kg).

Hermes was a great ship though. Immense history there.

Regards Florida - Covid is probably just the start of a long list of infections following shore leave. At least they don't have to march anywhere.
 

Systems Adict

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
.... And why then acquire 57mm that is not even passingly a NGFS round when you could sneak in with the passable 76mm?

Naval Gun Fire Support - is a difficult subject to quantify & requirements change every time you goto a different area / coastline.

While it is appreciated that a larger gun, firing larger rounds may be able to stand-off the coastline being 'softened up' , a greater distance than that of a smaller gun, the 57mm should not be underestimated, as 4.5" fires around 20 - 25 RPM, with this number reducing as time goes on, as the barrel heats up, especially during continuous firing. The 57mm has a max firing rate of circa 200 RPM, so does have an ability to put a great amount of explosives 'down range'.

IMHO, it may purely have been down to the costs, as the options offered in the design data explained that the Type 31 design (offered by the supplier), could be versatile & accept several different guns. With each variant of gun being offered, it is a certainty that the complexity of the design & integration into the hull for each different gun, would have increased costs, due to the time & resources needed to design the bow section / block of the ship forward of the bridge screen. Implying that the BAE 57mm 'marketing' was a reason for the down-select for this gun, when the ship is designed & built by a competitor to BAE, with many of the other systems that BAE provides also being 'replaced' by the shipbuilder, doesn't quite ring true.

It should be remembered that Type 31 design started AFTER Type 26, with the first hull to be in the water & effectively operational, before the FIRST Type 26. The ships are designed to be 'simple workhorses' for the RN fleet to take the strain away from Type 45 / Type 26, These facts compress the time available to complete that task, which can be alleviated by making the ship design 'simpler' & in many ways cheaper & lighter.


SA
 

At lakes

Well-Known Member
Royal Navy officer in charge of submarine nuclear weapons arrived ‘drunk’ for duty

HMS Vigilant strikes again. The Weapons Engineering Officer rocked up to work still under the influence of the demon drink carrying a doggie bag of left over BBQ Chicken from the previous night. He has been sent home.

First it was the Cocaine and Pro’s from about 3 or 4 years ago, then the crew with Covid recently and now this. The boat is either cursed or its true Pommie Submariners like to party a lot.
 
Naval Gun Fire Support - is a difficult subject to quantify & requirements change every time you goto a different area / coastline.

While it is appreciated that a larger gun, firing larger rounds may be able to stand-off the coastline being 'softened up' , a greater distance than that of a smaller gun, the 57mm should not be underestimated, as 4.5" fires around 20 - 25 RPM, with this number reducing as time goes on, as the barrel heats up, especially during continuous firing. The 57mm has a max firing rate of circa 200 RPM, so does have an ability to put a great amount of explosives 'down range'.

IMHO, it may purely have been down to the costs, as the options offered in the design data explained that the Type 31 design (offered by the supplier), could be versatile & accept several different guns. With each variant of gun being offered, it is a certainty that the complexity of the design & integration into the hull for each different gun, would have increased costs, due to the time & resources needed to design the bow section / block of the ship forward of the bridge screen. Implying that the BAE 57mm 'marketing' was a reason for the down-select for this gun, when the ship is designed & built by a competitor to BAE, with many of the other systems that BAE provides also being 'replaced' by the shipbuilder, doesn't quite ring true.

It should be remembered that Type 31 design started AFTER Type 26, with the first hull to be in the water & effectively operational, before the FIRST Type 26. The ships are designed to be 'simple workhorses' for the RN fleet to take the strain away from Type 45 / Type 26, These facts compress the time available to complete that task, which can be alleviated by making the ship design 'simpler' & in many ways cheaper & lighter.


SA
I suspect your right. I was possibly abit hasty there. But BAE has alot of "influence" and I tend to default to that when looking for a reason. And they are the competition.

In terms of type 31 - that I wasnt aware of how acute the timeline was. That is another impressive aspect if they pull it off which looks very possible. A while back on this forum the issue of high tempo state on state conflict and the issue of replacement munitions came up. I think that extends to replacing losses of hulls. In which case a crash build template of type 31 might be very wise thing to have up the sleeve (a CANZUK light frigate program?).
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
Any hot tempo conflict would severely strain the supply chain. Radars, big marine diesels, and VLS with missiles have pretty long lead times, especially with several allied navies all wanting the kit at the same time. Thanks to COVID ruining commercial aviation, marine turbines might have a faster lead time though.
 

StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
I remember reading that the 155mm advantage over 4.5" was logistics only as the 4.5" flew faster, further and surprisingly had larger HE payload.

I am surprised at RN procurement though. 40mm L70 is fair enough but was there no coordination between 40mm naval mounts and army CTA? And why then acquire 57mm that is not even passingly a NGFS round when you could sneak in with the passable 76mm? Type 31 is a big ship, oto 76mm don't weigh that much and I'm sure the last purchase of 76mm I saw had a sticker price of 6 mill USD including support. Seems that 57mm was possibly about more BAE marketing than being a serious medium calibre gun (2.4kg projectile to 76mm's 6kg).

Hermes was a great ship though. Immense history there.

Regards Florida - Covid is probably just the start of a long list of infections following shore leave. At least they don't have to march anywhere.

The original spec was "a medium calibre gun already in service with an allied nation" - and I really don't think the 57mm is a bad choice.

These ships will be Boghammer plinkers like nothing else the RN has - and no-one is going to do NGFS with these ships tbh.
 

oldsig127

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Tested positive for shed viruses from months ago most likely. Florida managed the virus much better than peer states and most countries in the West.
Yeah, only about 16k deaths to date comparable with nearby Texas but five times that in Alabama.

oldsig.
 

swerve

Super Moderator
Total number of deaths isn't the best measure. Deaths in proportion to population is better.

Deaths per million population:
Florida 750
Georgia 723
Texas 607
Alabama 572
USA 682

For comparison -
Spain 732
UK 647
Italy 607
France 519
Germany 119

I don't see Florida as having managed the virus particularly well. More deaths than the US average, or the major European countries.

But if you look at new cases Texas is doing much worse than Florida, & so's Alabama.
 

oldsig127

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
I don't see Florida as having managed the virus particularly well. More deaths than the US average, or the major European countries.
Neither do I. I was being facetious- no way there's anything positive in the FL record aside from it so far not having killed my friends in St Pete.

oldsig
 

Atlantic Realm

New Member
Neither do I. I was being facetious- no way there's anything positive in the FL record aside from it so far not having killed my friends in St Pete.

oldsig
Look, virus is gonna virus. Mark 2020 as the year ‘experts’ decided to pretend we could hide from a submicroscopic particle for which person-to-person is just one potential vector. And guess what ? You’ve been breathing Covid all year ... and you’re still alive!

@Atlantic Realm

Dismissing COVID-19 as something we just have to live with (suggesting it is essentially a non-event) flies in the face the growing understanding of the bug, the action being taken to control it and the impact it has had on many lives. You need to drop this topic as I suspect it will divert the thread off topic and the comments are contentious in any case.

Regards

Alexsa
 
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oldsig127

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Look, virus is gonna virus. Mark 2020 as the year ‘experts’ decided to pretend we could hide from a submicroscopic particle for which person-to-person is just one potential vector. And guess what ? You’ve been breathing Covid all year ... and you’re still alive!
Maybe where you are, but I'm in Brisbane Australia and not wearing a tight aluminium foil hat.

oldsig
 

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
In this Brave New World wash your hands, stay home if sick and protect the frail elderly is tin foil hat territory.
The Forum doesn't tolerate fake news and false narratives. At the present time this could also be classified as a political statement given the posters location and politics are forbidden on the forum. Any more such incidents from you will result in Moderator action. Consider this as an adjunct to the second warning that you have managed to accumulate in the space of two posts made within 6 minutes. Not a good look for your continued stay here especially as you have attracted the attention of two of the three grumpiest Moderators on here.
 
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