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Zeck180
Post subject: Britain's Royal Navy warships are breaking down because seaPosted: June 10th, 2016, 6:42 am
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Saw this pop up on my facebook feed and thought some of you would like it, or not.

CNN International
Quote:
(CNN)Britain's £1bn ($1.4bn) warships are losing power in the Persian Gulf because they cannot cope with the warm waters, MPs have been told.

Six Type 45 destroyers have repeatedly experienced power outages because of the temperatures, leaving servicemen in complete darkness.
During the Defence Committee hearing on Tuesday, MPs questioned company executives about the warship failures.
"The equipment is having to operate in far more arduous conditions that were initially required," Rolls-Royce director Tomas Leahy said.
Managing director of BAE Systems Maritime, John Hudson, supported Leahy's comments, adding: "The operating profile at the time was that there would not be repeated or continuous operations in the Gulf."

Leahy told MPs that turbines do not generate as much power when they run in a hot environment, which is not recognized by the system.
"This is when you get your total electrical failure," Leahy explained.
"Suddenly, you have lost your main generator on your system and you are plunged into darkness."
However, a spokesperson from Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) denied this, telling CNN: "The Type 45 was designed for world-wide operations, from sub-Arctic to extreme tropical environments, and continues to operate effectively in the Gulf and the South Atlantic all year round."
MPs were shocked when they heard about the failures.
"I'm just absolutely stunned," said Douglas Chapman from the Scottish National Party.
"It's a £1 billion asset that you're putting into a war zone, and we don't know if these people will go in there and come back out alive because there might be a problem with the power system on the ship. I'm just astounded."

The British MoD says Type 45 destroyers are the most advanced warships ever built by Britain and are the backbone of the Royal Navy's air defense capability. They first went into service in 2006, and are due to last 30 years.
The committee also raised fears about the cost of repairing the ships and whether it would delay the release of Type 26 frigates which are to replace older vessels.
"If this were a major war, our 19 destroyers and frigates are effectively 13," Former First Sea Lord Alan West explained in the meeting.
"I think that our nation is making a terrible error in allowing this to happen ... I understand they have a program for resolving it, but it should be being done much more quickly."
West warned further delays would leave the UK "grossly inadequate" for required tasks.
"There is almost no extra money available this year, and we are really strapped next year. The Government aren't coming clean about that," West said.
"We have run out of money, effectively. Therefore, they [MoD] have pushed this program to the right and that is bloody dangerous."


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APDAF
Post subject: Re: Britain's Royal Navy warships are breaking down because Posted: June 10th, 2016, 11:13 am
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Typical... the RN is slowly becoming nothing more that a gloryfied coastguard...


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Blackbuck
Post subject: Re: Britain's Royal Navy warships are breaking down because Posted: June 10th, 2016, 11:29 am
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It's hardly the end of the world APDAF :roll: and I'd rather use Jane's as a source than CNN...

http://www.janes.com/article/61089/inqu ... warm-water

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citizen lambda
Post subject: Re: Britain's Royal Navy warships are breaking down because Posted: June 10th, 2016, 8:11 pm
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Yes, there's no point screaming and wailing based on just that article, except of course for that short outrage high that makes the Facebook feed feel all useful and relevant again ;)

When a Former First Sea Lord comes to a Defence Committee hearing and cites this incident to concluded that "If this were a major war, our 19 destroyers and frigates are effectively 13", you just know that this is some major scare-mongering to troll for budget, or someone has an axe to grind about the Type 45. Give me unavailability figures, and then we can talk about how catastrophic this is, but "repeated" failures in one specific area of the world do not make the complete Daring class useless. These boats have been tooling around for 10 years are have not attracted quite as many pants-down no-onboard-power pictures as, say, the Kuznetsov.
There is clearly a design problem that has to be fixed, and probably a larger need for more flexible surface combatants in the RN, but come on.

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Hood
Post subject: Re: Britain's Royal Navy warships are breaking down because Posted: June 11th, 2016, 8:31 am
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Very true, no need to get too excited but its worth remembering the flipside that when the DNC were responsible for naval architecture and the E-in-C for machinery before all design functions were transferred to the private sector they would have ensured operability in tropical conditions. In fact if you look back at most ship and aircraft specifications of the 1950s and 60s tropical performance was of prime importance. Of course British possessions have shrunk and there no longer any permanent bases but its a fair bet there will always be an RN warship in the Gulf area for the foreseeable future.

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citizen lambda
Post subject: Re: Britain's Royal Navy warships are breaking down because Posted: June 11th, 2016, 9:04 am
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I'm not going to contradict you on the downside of decentralizing the design process (illustrated by the quote from BAe Systems to the effect that the ships were built to spec, so the spec is to blame), but I think your second comment about British holdings hits closer to the nail in this specific case. The Type 45 (and the Horizon it is derived from) is a late-Cold War design integrating lessons from the Falklands, which certainly emphasized North Sea and Atlantic operations as opposed to the Persian Gulf and other tropical areas.

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