I’m in the Royal Fleet Auxilary (Oilers, Troop ships ect for the Royal Navy) A couple of weeks ago there was a training operation off Scotland. This involved ships from all over the shop, including the US.
My ship was a Bay Class landing ship, if you are interested google it as I dont know how to link. Sorry. Most of the time we were being protected by one Arliegh Burke class and a ticonderoga. When those things put thier toe down, they don’t half move! They look fast standing still!!!
Thanks for the show!
(To defend the Royal Navy, a type 45 will be impressive too!)
We were told our ship (Aegis class cruiser) would go “in excess of 30 knots”. The exact speed was classified. But, boy it sure moved when we would do full speed runs.
Hmmph, 35 knots isn’t particularly quick for a gas turbine powered ship.
I take it you mean it accelerates to that speed quickly, which would be more impressive.
Type 21’s were clocking 45 knots back over 20 years ago, which we did when our Lynx ditched after the hrydraulics blew and put fluid over the exhaust starting a fire. We turned up the wick full on to rescue the flightcrew, I believe we got near to 48 knots.
You’ll notice in those links that the speeds quoted are X knots +
Anyway, a type 21 isn’t what I would call a large warship.
At under 3000 tons, that isn’t big at all, the Triconderoga is 3 times that, 30 + is pretty good for something that size, but it does have 4 gas turbines and the hull is designed to lift to an extent.
Having been on steamers such as HMS Phoebe and HMS Galatea, whose top speeds were around 28-29 knots, they were massively slower than the type 21’s.
Those Leander class frigates were considered reasonably mobile even at those speeds, the 21’s simply sailed straight past on full power trials.
I had heard that too, but I’ve also heard from budgeting/programmatic types here in D.C. that the ships will go to their first deployment with a mission package and then mayyyyybe swap packages out every few years if a newer/better version of the same mission pack comes out – that is, ships that have an extensive sensor suite and light weapons will always have the most current scouting package. The guys I talked to said that “exchanging” wasn’t the big idea as much as being able to have one hull type and then several useful variants in the fleet, like a car salesman having the four-door Accord available in EX, DX, LX, stick, standard, and hybrid, and with/without a moonroof and floormats.
It may be that I’m confusing their statements with the DD(X) program, and that the new LCS will actually be agile and customizable and so forth.
The development of robotically-guided fighter planes (yes, they are coming) will render surface ships nothing but expensive coffins. In a future war, the movements of ships will be tracked, and air-surface missiles will blast them at the water line-no amount of watertight compartmentation will save them. So even if the ship is radar-invisible and capable of 60 knots, it will be (expensive) toast. We ought not invest in such expensive platforms, until we decide if even risking ship sin a war is worth it. So a future war ain’t gonna be a WWII rerun-it wil be over in hours, and surface ships will be sea-bottom tombs.
I’d rather see the navy concentrate on carrier protection (with a THAAD-type missile defense). Destroers, frigates, cruisers are just obsolete junk!
last summer, an Israeli navy fast frigate was almost sunk by a surface-surface guided missile. Despite having extensive ECM systems, the ship was hit and rendered helpless. So i do think the day of surface warships is about over.
Except, of course, that you seem to want to keep carriers around. Aren’t they surface ships?
Also, you want them protected with a THAAD type defense. Are you aware that the sort of missiles that provide this coverage are carried by destroyers and cruisers? Carriers themselves carry very little armament, and depend on their escorts for protection.
The biggest threat these assets face are from asymmetric attack (think the small boat attack on the USS Cole), submarine attack, and attack by antiship cruise missiles. Rigging a plane with small missiles and sending it out doesn’t rank nearly as high - that plane could be engaged by air assets from the carrier or by missiles from the escorts.
All this makes me wonder when the last time a naval ship of any size actually was sunk. The thing about asymmetric attacks is that would rarely do enough damage to actually send the ship to the bottom. The Cole is a good example – significant damage, but didn’t sink.
And apologies to the OP for the hijack. He (ralph124c) started it!
