Naval Pictures X: Underway on Nuclear Power

[chanman]

For starters ROK navy is for the most part coastal force and have a lot of patrol and missile boats, where they expect to enact this folly. SK armed forces and society in general are very hirearchal, with seniority counting for everything, so the brass would rather seek solace in technological mysticism rather than improve the conditions of the enlisted personnel they despise.

Uh... The ROK Navy surface fleet is comparable to the Royal Navy. No aircraft carriers, but more amphibs, more frigates, and more destroyers with more on the way...

[chanman]

Type 055 Xianyang (108) and Type 052DL Nanning (162) at Vanuatu for resupply and shore leave.

The Type 055 displaces 12000-13000 tonnes at full load; some 5000 tons more than the 052D at full load, and is 23m longer and 2-3m wider (180m long, 20m wide), making it very similar in length and beam to the old California or Virginia-class CGNs.




The super-jumbo air defence destroyer seems to be the way things are going. The Dutch-German Future Air Defender project (status in limbo I think) is supposed to be 10,000 tonnes and 160m in length, putting it around the size of the Kongō-class of the JMSDF. Fincantieri is working on the DDX project for the Marina Militare and I think the current estimated displacement is already up to 14,500 tonnes which is getting damn close to USS Long Beach. DDX doesn't look like it has that many VLS cells (I've heard 80?), but the main driver of weight seems to be the radar systems they want to use. Also, any ship that big will have lots of room for the requisite guns.



The DDX requirement is for 2 ships to replace the existing Durand de la Penne-class destroyers which were commissioned in 1993 and have definitely odd armament for the period with FOUR (4) guns: 1x 5-inch Otobreda bow gun, 1x 3-inch Oto Melara Super Rapido on top of the hangar, and then two more 3-inch Oto Melara Super Rapido forward wing guns (!)

[Wrangler]

Funny thing about the Italian/French ships is their Ota Melara 76mm guns are so accurate that their used as CIWS work vs a specialized system.

US Navy dropped using their guns accusing them not being accurate enough. If reporting was correct.

[chanman]

The article mentioned the time in service as only twenty months.

That's an absurdly short time to have a sailor in a professional navy as anything other than deck force, where Boatswain's Mates can do attitude adjustments. When I was at twenty months total, I'd had a year of training time, and was in my first patrol. I wouldn't even be in homeport for another month. Of course, that's the difference between a blue-water force with a cultural expectation of long term operations and longer terms.

IIRC, the shortest pipelines were around three months RTC and A-School training. Many were closer to a year with schools included. The only people when I enlisted who had shorter terms were under a program called National Call to Service, with two years Active Duty followed by a mandatory Selected Reserve term (4 or 6 years).

A couple friends commented that an all or mostly-officer crew sounds an awful lot like Starfleet. Even the characters of Lower Decks (both the TNG episode and the animated series) doing drudge work are ensigns.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Yeah, that was Gene Roddenberry's idea.

[glitterboy2098]

Heinlein did it in Space cadet before that (1948!). even had a justification for it in one chapter, which i've always pointed at when people ask why Trek's Starfleet only had officers, since the basic logic involved seems to fit Starfleet's situation.

heinlein's justification though revolved around dedication to ideals, skillset flexibility, and decision making at all levels, which doesn't really apply to the korean navy's situation.

[Wrangler]

South Korean navy has essentially Social Generals running it apparently.   While the Army is not having the same issues since they treat their enlisted fairly in comparison from what I've read.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Heinlein believed a lot of silly things.

[Cannonshop]

South Korean navy has essentially Social Generals running it apparently.   While the Army is not having the same issues since they treat their enlisted fairly in comparison from what I've read.

One might suggest that may be because S.Korea's ARMY has the DMZ to remind them that, yes,virginia, they're still at for-real war and enjoying a brief respite from it with occasional interruptions to remind them.

Meanwhile S. Korea's navy really isn't pulling that kind of "always on the edge of horror, defeat, and destruction" on a psychological level.

Which in turn may explain the issues leading to N. Korean submarine attacks in the last 20 years being successful.  The best of the recruits, draftees and officers went to the Army instead.

[nerd]

The Italian Destroyers?

They tend to have a lot more guns than US ships of a similar displacement. I wonder if the design for the Mediterranean Sea is part of it. Shorter range, and milder weather. The Israeli Sa'ar 5 corvettes are also heavily armed for their displacement. CWIS, 32 cell Barak VLS, SVTT, Harpoon launchers, and a helicopter on around 1000 tons displacement.

[chanman]

The Italian Destroyers?

They tend to have a lot more guns than US ships of a similar displacement. I wonder if the design for the Mediterranean Sea is part of it. Shorter range, and milder weather. The Israeli Sa'ar 5 corvettes are also heavily armed for their displacement. CWIS, 32 cell Barak VLS, SVTT, Harpoon launchers, and a helicopter on around 1000 tons displacement.

Well, it might just be straight-up pork considering the guns are Italian. Besides that, I think the Italians never went into small-calibre autocannon CIWS, and they have a history of using side-mounted AA guns well into the missile age.

Check out Italian destroyer Ardito (D550) 1972-2006 and its quartet of 3-inch Super Rapidos. Pre-refit, there was a second 5-inch gun in the B-location where the Sea Sparrow is in this picture:


Pre-refit sister ship Audace (D551) and lead ship by a few weeks despite the higher pennant number.


Pre-refit Alpino-class frigate and six (6!) 3-inch guns. A/B forward, and two on each side (what looks like a third turret up front is an ASW mortar)


Andrea Doria-class helicopter cruisers and their eight 3-inch guns

[Wrangler]

I do like me some lots of guns, makes feel like it's armed.   

[I am Belch II]

Andrea Doria-class was a pretty neat ship.
I like the little bit bigger sister of the ship the Vittorio Veneto

[worktroll]

So only one of Australia's Collins-class submarines is currently operational.


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-01/one-australian-submarine-is-fully-operational-aging-fleet/104551528

The Collins-class have always been problems. They're a cautionary tale about submarine tendering in the paperwork sense. In the mid-80s the RAN wanted US nuclear boats, so pitched them, along with a German design - high quality conventional, but without the range for Pacific operations. But they got told "Never pitch 2 designs, always 3. So add one so bad no-one would pick it." That was a bloated upscale of the Swedish Västergötland class. Guess which one got picked ...

So noisy when moving, they couldn't hear a supertanker cruising overhead as they came up to surface. I talked to a mathematician who'd been involved in the project. He said they only ever modelled hydrodynamic flow with the boat stationary, never moving.

(And let's steer clear of the political shoals of the current replacement process, thanks!)

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

How did they even get picked? What theoretical advantage did they offer?

[Colt Ward]

Heck, I was wondering about the pipe coming out the tail end.

[worktroll]

How did they even get picked? What theoretical advantage did they offer?

Let's just say "politics", and leave it there.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Didn’t even bother trying to find something that was better than the other designs?

[chanman]

So only one of Australia's Collins-class submarines is currently operational.


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-01/one-australian-submarine-is-fully-operational-aging-fleet/104551528

The Collins-class have always been problems. They're a cautionary tale about submarine tendering in the paperwork sense. In the mid-80s the RAN wanted US nuclear boats, so pitched them, along with a German design - high quality conventional, but without the range for Pacific operations. But they got told "Never pitch 2 designs, always 3. So add one so bad no-one would pick it." That was a bloated upscale of the Swedish Västergötland class. Guess which one got picked ...

So noisy when moving, they couldn't hear a supertanker cruising overhead as they came up to surface. I talked to a mathematician who'd been involved in the project. He said they only ever modelled hydrodynamic flow with the boat stationary, never moving.

(And let's steer clear of the political shoals of the current replacement process, thanks!)

That's 1 more operational submarine than the German navy had back in 2017: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2017/10/20/all-of-germanys-submarines-are-currently-down/

More to the point, it's not that unexpected. Generally you need 4 of a ship to guarantee that one is available (1 in workup/workdown, 1 in maintenance, 1 spare). Start extending maintenance periods because of how much work is needed due to being old vessels, throw in low availability of facilities/parts and it only takes one or two things going wrong until 6 becomes 1.

I think a better question is at which point it becomes worthwhile to just drop a vestigial capability entirely to concentrate on other specialties or core functions. For example, given both budget, and especially personnel constraints, I'm not sure the Canadian navy's 4 submarines justify all the time and expense of having service facilities on east and west coasts and crews all to sometimes be able to put out one sub to cover a ludicrous amount of coastline instead of say, improving the operational readiness of our surface fleet (which also lacks for sailors).

[Colt Ward]

Question is keeping that institutional knowledge as well as facilities for Allied use worth the expense?

[chanman]

Question is keeping that institutional knowledge as well as facilities for Allied use worth the expense?

I don't think USN SSNs are going to fit our drydocks for 2400 ton SSKs. As for institutional knowledge... maybe it's different for the Aussies for supporting operations in their neighbourhood, but the Canadian navy's submarine arm has always been an afterthought (only 3 Oberons were operated post-WW2 and which preceded the Upholders).

[worktroll]

Being an island nation, trade-dependant, in the Pacific, Australia needs long-range submarines. The Oberons were classically good in their day, regularly 'sinking' US CVNs on exercises, but aged and needed to be replaced.

[Daryk]

Huzzah for AUKUS!  It goes at least some way toward correcting the Collins problem... :)

[chanman]

Huzzah for AUKUS!  It goes at least some way toward correcting the Collins problem... :)

Until delivery is completed, the product has passed acceptance, and it's in service, everything is just hopes and dreams. Or thoughts and prayers.

Anyway, the new design is going to encounter all the usual risks of a new design, and the Virginia availability is subject to external factors, so don't count your SSNs before they hatch until they're signed over. Keep receipts.

[Daryk]

The first class of students has already graduated... I'm pretty sure this is going to work... ;)

[glitterboy2098]

Heck, I was wondering about the pipe coming out the tail end.

according to wikipedia, it's a Thales SHOR-TAS towed passive array. added to the class to replace an older type of towed array, but they don't say when.

and i get the feeling that the system has a rude nickname with the crews.

[Wrangler]

Behold, the oldest commission & functionally active service vessel, the Brazilian river monitor Parnaíba (U-17).  She been in service since 1938.

I like paint they gave her in this picture, to think she done patrolling on the coast against German submarines and still going to today as fully active ship is pretty neat.

Some mentioned she has a sister ship is still around as well, but no longer military vessel. I was actually having trouble finding her info.

[chanman]

Speaking of odd looking warships, the new French Frégate de Défense et d'Intervention has some interesting lines.

Model


Greek F601 Kimon artwork:

Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems (TKMS) at Euronaval showing off the Meko A400 air defence frigate concept. Another big ship (~10,000 ton displacement) and fast, probably helped by the length-to-beam ratio.

The hull layout reminds me of the French FDI frigate with the radar arrays over the bridge and inverted bow. Without a bow sonar or the bulbous bow/steep rake of the Zumwalt-class, it does give both the FDI and A400 hulls a bit of a British pre-dreadnought vibe. Also only 64 Mk. 41 VLS cells, although they are strike length, and the topside does seem pretty cluttered. German-preference for the CIWS with RAM both fore and aft.





https://www.navalnews.com/event-news/euronaval-2024/2024/11/tkms-shows-meko-a-400-amd-at-euronaval-2024/

[nerd]

The Germans really like RAM with the MK 49 Guided Missile Launching system. The problem with RAM as a point defense weapon is it requires off mount sensor to engage. The SeaRAM as seen on Independence class LCS and later Freedom class use the electronics from the Phalanx CWIS mated to a smaller missile pod.

[chanman]

JMSDF seems to have just lost the minesweeper JS Ukushima. There was a severe fire with photos of her funnels collapsed and transponder data shows a dive ship heading to her last location.