Doubts about the HMS Ocean to the Brazilian Navy

Vulcan

Vulcan

Member
John Fedup said:
Bottom line is Brazil or any other country with a working economy in SA really doesn’t need this capability. As has already been mentioned, the only economic and well run country that might remotely be an adversary is Chile, more or less to the south and on the opposite side of the continent. Supporting a naval group via Cape Horn, how much fun would that be?
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The thing with Brazil is a fair amount of their major procurement is about aspirations rather than actual military requirement. Is the requirement for an SSN particularly clear? They claim it's for protection of national resources, oil rigs and such, but that's surely more of a job for a low end surface vessel?

Carrier capability, while kicked waaaay down the road, is still a 'thing'. They're still 'interested' in a maritime Gripen for the naval strike role, whether they will get it or not is another question.

They want to be the big dog from South America acting on the global stage, one way they see this being achieved is through military projection which is why it doesn't seem to make much sense from a requirement perspective.
 
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George Lowery Karst

New Member
Brazil has what must be a disappointing strategy of penny wise pound foolish. They bought the Foch from France in 2000. It was a terrific upgrade on paper, with catapults for modern jets, BUT they PAID ALMOST NOTHING for it. The ship was in terrible condition and needed a complete overhaul. So the result was a ship always breaking down and needing repairs. Just last year they figured out they'd have to invest big money to get it operational again. So they scrapped it.
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India purchased a newly overhauled former Soviet carrier, and both India & Russia found out the hard way it cannot easily be done for less than $2B, or £1.5B. Guess how much Brazil plans to pay for the HMS Ocean LPH to replace their ship? Only £84 Million. Really?! How are they going to pay for the necessary overhaul for this ship?
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Spain had a Harrier VTOL aircraft carrier they couldn't afford to keep. Brazil should should have tried to buy that ship before Spain was forced to scrap it. As for the new French LPH Mistrals or the the really versatile Spanish Juan Carlos class Brazil cannot buy them because Brazil won't pay real money for a reliable ship. Especially not a new one. But after only 20 years of service maybe the British ship is the best choice for Brazil. They got it for just a song. And with all the economic troubles, political turmoil, and corruption I think Brazil might do well by keeping down their costs.
 
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StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
George Lowery Karst said:
Brazil has what must be a disappointing strategy of penny wise pound foolish. They bought the Foch from France in 2000. It was a terrific upgrade on paper, with catapults for modern jets, BUT they PAID ALMOST NOTHING for it. The ship was in terrible condition and needed a complete overhaul. So the result was a ship always breaking down and needing repairs. Just last year they figured out they'd have to invest big money to get it operational again. So they scrapped it.
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India purchased a newly overhauled former Soviet carrier, and both India & Russia found out the hard way it cannot easily be done for less than $2B, or £1.5B. Guess how much Brazil plans to pay for the HMS Ocean LPH to replace their ship? Only £84 Million. Really?! How are they going to pay for the necessary overhaul for this ship?
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Spain had a Harrier VTOL aircraft carrier they couldn't afford to keep. Brazil should should have tried to buy that ship before Spain was forced to scrap it. As for the new French LPH Mistrals or the the really versatile Spanish Juan Carlos class Brazil cannot buy them because Brazil won't pay real money for a reliable ship. Especially not a new one. But after only 20 years of service maybe the British ship is the best choice for Brazil. They got it for just a song. And with all the economic troubles, political turmoil, and corruption I think Brazil might do well by keeping down their costs.
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There's a fairly major overhaul bundled into the price so they're going to be fine for four years - there's also FOST training with the RN for the incoming crew so all in all, it's a pretty warm transfer and the ship should be easy enough to keep current for the few sea days a month I predict she'll be used for. It's a cheap ship, with some modern sensors and has a fairly low crew requirement compared to the steam turbine equipped predecessor.

I don't think it's a bad deal all round.
 
G

George Lowery Karst

New Member
StobieWan said:
There's a fairly major overhaul bundled into the price so they're going to be fine for four years - there's also FOST training with the RN for the incoming crew so all in all, it's a pretty warm transfer and the ship should be easy enough to keep current for the few sea days a month I predict she'll be used for. It's a cheap ship, with some modern sensors and has a fairly low crew requirement compared to the steam turbine equipped predecessor.

I don't think it's a bad deal all round.
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Indeed I think you are correct. I think Brazil got an extremely good deal. Their pinching pennies this time is the same as before. But instead of an extremely sophisticated but ailing ship like the Foch limping into their navy they are getting a simpler ship with no planes but with more reliability.
 
K

kaliban

New Member
Garibaldi is a different ship than the Ocean. For the needs of Brazil, probably Garibaldi would fit better (faster, better armed, multi-role) but it was not for sale, Brazil has good relations with UK and got the Ocean for a good price.

Ocean is primarily an amphibious assault ship but will be used also for Area Control missions (ASW and ASuW) besides its low speed, making good use of a dozen SH-16 ASW and Caracals armed with Exocets that Brazilian Navy have. For the South America region, these helicopters can perform very well against other surface ships without air support and submarines. There is, however, a lot of debate on the available frigates to operate with Ocean in the future. Except of one newer light frigate (Barroso), all other frigates (2 Type 22, 6 Niteroi, 2 Inhauma) are to be retired in the next 5 to 10 years.

Brazilian Navy is expected to spend some USD1.5bi in 4 light frigates with 3D radars and Sea Ceptor missiles to substitute part of these older ones. The main justification for these frigates is the need of modern escorts for the Ocean and other amphibious ships.

I personally believe that it would make more sense to simply add a VLS for Sea Ceptors in the Ocean and depend less on escort ships for protection against antiship missiles and other air threats (it has a Artisan 3D that works very well with Sea Ceptor). By no means, the Ocean can perform missions against an enemy with Air Carriers or air antiship support from land, so the threats will antiship missiles fired from surface ships, submarines e isolated aircraft (very few South American countries possses aircrafts able to launch antiship missiles). Frigates will continue to be needed in order to form a task force but you will need them more for ASW then for AA coverage - in fact, even second hand frigates can be acquired for a bargain price for this lower requirement.

I understand that RN never considered such possibility to better arm the Ocean because it was supposed to deploy with a good number of escort ships and/or air support, but the South Atlantic scenario is much less intense than North Atlantic.
 
ngatimozart

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
kiwipatriot69 said:
Just noticed this article, yes i would think this would have looked good in RNZN colours. A much better fit than HMNZS Canterbury. But whether we had enough crew for her or maintain her...
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Wouldn't want to touch her with a 50 ft barge pole. Think we could've ended up with an expensive proposition fairly early down the track.
 
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Exkiwiforces

New Member
ngatimozart said:
Wouldn't want to touch her with a 50 ft barge pole. Think we could've ended up with an expensive proposition fairly early down the track.
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Come on Paul, where’s your sense of adventure now as I know you love all things British Built especially Her Majesty Ships, or has NZ finally ran out of No8 wire due it’s WHS Laws?
 
ngatimozart

ngatimozart

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Staff member
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Exkiwiforces said:
Come on Paul, where’s your sense of adventure now as I know you love all things British Built especially Her Majesty Ships, or has NZ finally ran out of No8 wire due it’s WHS Laws?
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Cobber, I owned two pommy cars when I was young and stupid. Never again. Drive a tea totaller to the demon drink they would. :D No 8 wire still exists here but the amount required to keep pommy ships seaworthy would have all the cockies up in arms because there wouldn't be enough left for high precision fencing, especially along the long paddock. My own view about pommy gear is that if there was an illogical, unreasonable and / or difficult way of installing things, they'd find it and do it. Having said that the Leander Class frigates, were great ships when acquired brand new. But not so great when acquired second hand off the RN. Well loved would be an understatement. Pretty stuffed might be closer to the truth.
 
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Rob c

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
KiwiRob said:
I’ve had 4 British cars and never had problems with any of them.
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Ya get lucky sometimes. I am in the Ngati camp regarding their cars and aircraft. Had 3 pom cars and all required work and rusted at an early milage. my Humber 80 was rusting at 4 years old and leaked water on the floor replaced the drivers floor at 8. their aircraft I worked on all leaked oil and hydraulics and when the motorbike shops all had drip trays under new british motorbikes, it was not for show.
 
ASSAIL

ASSAIL

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
ngatimozart said:
Cobber, I owned two pommy cars when I was young and stupid. Never again. Drive a tea totaller to the demon drink they would. :D No 8 wire still exists here but the amount required to keep pommy ships seaworthy would have all the cockies up in arms because there wouldn't be enough left for high precision fencing, especially along the long paddock. My own view about pommy gear is that if there was an illogical, unreasonable and / or difficult way of installing things, they'd find it and do it. Having said that the Leander Class frigates, were great ships when acquired brand new. But not so great when acquired second hand off the RN. Well loved would be an understatement. Pretty stuffed might be closer to the truth.
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I’m sure modern British cars are better now that British Leyland is dead and buried and that major British brands are influenced by German engineering.
There was an old adage, the poms invent stuff, the Americans make it work and the Japanese make it so all can afford one, that was true 25 years ago, probably needs amending today.

A tale of two small Diesel engines. I had a ship with a Gardner main engine, a straight 8 cylinder 8L3B, a ten ft long monster producing a mere 250 bhp. It was magnificently engineered, every nut and bolt were selected on sound engineering principles to have the correct torque and size. All joining surfaces were highly polished so that gasket paper was not required, injectors were tucked away out of sight under some fancy plates, in fact a work of art.
The result was that over time all the joints leaked oil so that we had to almost wrap the thing in a nappy, it needed a $5000 toolbox to maintain it because every fitting was engineered to spec so every fitting was different, not only in size but when coupled with the fittings you needed a set of AF, of Whitworth, of SAE and a set of metric to do any meaningful work on it. And finally the dealerships were so poor that if a problem occurred you waited weeks before resolution and any repair or servicing took more than double the amount of time one would expect

Engine number two was a small (35 kva) harbour generator prime mover, a Yanmar 3TL. This engine must have been the auxiliary on Noah’s Ark It must have been used to power every small,junk and fishing boat in SEAsia. It even had a decompression lever and in an emergency it could be hand started. It had gaskets on every joint (the best use for old charts) it never leaked a drop, it could be maintained, totally, with three metric spanners 13mm, 17mm and 19mm, and you could complete a 250 hourly in less than 30 mins, It passed 20,000 hours and was still pulling full power and was still in use until finally it became so old that even Yanmar had trouble finding parts

The dichotomy was so glaring, on one hand we had a machine that was beautifully made, precision engineered and yet it was the biggest pain in the arse to own (Jaguar) and on the other, an ugly little chugger that looked and sounded awe full that simply kept on giving with little bother for decades.(Toyota)

Anyway, just saying
 
K

kiwipatriot69

Active Member
ASSAIL said:
I’m sure modern British cars are better now that British Leyland is dead and buried and that major British brands are influenced by German engineering.
There was an old adage, the poms invent stuff, the Americans make it work and the Japanese make it so all can afford one, that was true 25 years ago, probably needs amending today.

A tale of two small Diesel engines. I had a ship with a Gardner main engine, a straight 8 cylinder 8L3B, a ten ft long monster producing a mere 250 bhp. It was magnificently engineered, every nut and bolt were selected on sound engineering principles to have the correct torque and size. All joining surfaces were highly polished so that gasket paper was not required, injectors were tucked away out of sight under some fancy plates, in fact a work of art.
The result was that over time all the joints leaked oil so that we had to almost wrap the thing in a nappy, it needed a $5000 toolbox to maintain it because every fitting was engineered to spec so every fitting was different, not only in size but when coupled with the fittings you needed a set of AF, of Whitworth, of SAE and a set of metric to do any meaningful work on it. And finally the dealerships were so poor that if a problem occurred you waited weeks before resolution and any repair or servicing took more than double the amount of time one would expect

Engine number two was a small (35 kva) harbour generator prime mover, a Yanmar 3TL. This engine must have been the auxiliary on Noah’s Ark It must have been used to power every small,junk and fishing boat in SEAsia. It even had a decompression lever and in an emergency it could be hand started. It had gaskets on every joint (the best use for old charts) it never leaked a drop, it could be maintained, totally, with three metric spanners 13mm, 17mm and 19mm, and you could complete a 250 hourly in less than 30 mins, It passed 20,000 hours and was still pulling full power and was still in use until finally it became so old that even Yanmar had trouble finding parts

The dichotomy was so glaring, on one hand we had a machine that was beautifully made, precision engineered and yet it was the biggest pain in the arse to own (Jaguar) and on the other, an ugly little chugger that looked and sounded awe full that simply kept on giving with little bother for decades.(Toyota)

Anyway, just saying
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Which is wby in reality I'd go for a smaller build LHD version of Hms Ocean, built in a South Korean shipyard like Aoetearoa is, amazed at how quick that build is coming along too. I think HMNZS Canterbury was cheap fix
ASSAIL said:
I’m sure modern British cars are better now that British Leyland is dead and buried and that major British brands are influenced by German engineering.
There was an old adage, the poms invent stuff, the Americans make it work and the Japanese make it so all can afford one, that was true 25 years ago, probably needs amending today.

A tale of two small Diesel engines. I had a ship with a Gardner main engine, a straight 8 cylinder 8L3B, a ten ft long monster producing a mere 250 bhp. It was magnificently engineered, every nut and bolt were selected on sound engineering principles to have the correct torque and size. All joining surfaces were highly polished so that gasket paper was not required, injectors were tucked away out of sight under some fancy plates, in fact a work of art.
The result was that over time all the joints leaked oil so that we had to almost wrap the thing in a nappy, it needed a $5000 toolbox to maintain it because every fitting was engineered to spec so every fitting was different, not only in size but when coupled with the fittings you needed a set of AF, of Whitworth, of SAE and a set of metric to do any meaningful work on it. And finally the dealerships were so poor that if a problem occurred you waited weeks before resolution and any repair or servicing took more than double the amount of time one would expect

Engine number two was a small (35 kva) harbour generator prime mover, a Yanmar 3TL. This engine must have been the auxiliary on Noah’s Ark It must have been used to power every small,junk and fishing boat in SEAsia. It even had a decompression lever and in an emergency it could be hand started. It had gaskets on every joint (the best use for old charts) it never leaked a drop, it could be maintained, totally, with three metric spanners 13mm, 17mm and 19mm, and you could complete a 250 hourly in less than 30 mins, It passed 20,000 hours and was still pulling full power and was still in use until finally it became so old that even Yanmar had trouble finding parts

The dichotomy was so glaring, on one hand we had a machine that was beautifully made, precision engineered and yet it was the biggest pain in the arse to own (Jaguar) and on the other, an ugly little chugger that looked and sounded awe full that simply kept on giving with little bother for decades.(Toyota)

Anyway, just saying
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Yes, in hindsight though with essentially four new ships coming online in a few yrs, the frigate upgrades, the 'new' dive ship, AOR, probably too much of a logistical nightmare for Nz to consider just yet a ship this size, I would like to see a new built smaller version LHD though to replace HMNZS Canterbury. South Korea to do it too, hopefully before the current Frigates need replacing.
 
John Fedup

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
Too bad Yanmar had to discontinue their diesel outboards, requiring gas for the tender on a diesel trawler is such a pain.:(
 
S

swerve

Super Moderator
Rob c said:
Ya get lucky sometimes. I am in the Ngati camp regarding their cars and aircraft. Had 3 pom cars and all required work and rusted at an early milage. my Humber 80 was rusting at 4 years old and leaked water on the floor replaced the drivers floor at 8. their aircraft I worked on all leaked oil and hydraulics and when the motorbike shops all had drip trays under new british motorbikes, it was not for show.
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My wife's car was made in England. Six years old, & it's been very reliable. She likes it.

It's a Honda.
 
R

Rob c

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
swerve said:
My wife's car was made in England. Six years old, & it's been very reliable. She likes it.

It's a Honda.
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Sums it up very well, would be Jap designed I assume. Honda management has a reputation for achieving good quality were ever they manufacture their products.
 
John Fedup

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
A little off topic but when I was younger I loved British motorcycles (BSA and Triumph, couldn’t afford a Norton at the time) and still do. Oil leaks, no electric start until it was too late and the prince of darkness killed this British industry. Joseph Lucas’s only hot product was a refrigerator ( old joke, cruel but true)
 
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StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
ngatimozart said:
Wouldn't want to touch her with a 50 ft barge pole. Think we could've ended up with an expensive proposition fairly early down the track.
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If you were planning on doing any miles with her, probably a wise attitude, she was a cheaply built ship with an expected life span of twenty years.

She's now 23. The Brazilians will be fine given their expectations will have been smashed so low by their last steam powered, driven hard and put away wet carrier, and Ocean will likely see a fairly relaxed pace of life.

Worked hard and I think things would start breaking often.
 
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