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[Pat-K]

Hi,


Just wondering - we don't seem to have many models of RFA ships about - seen a few on video's at the Dundee model; boat club, I just wondered why that is with the RFA taking on more and more duties of the RN - also some of the ships are quite good looking and generally kept in better condition than the RN counter parts.


TIA
Pat

Additional:
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is a civilian-manned fleet of the UK's Ministry of Defence,
providing logistical and operational support to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines,
including fuel, supplies, and amphibious assault capabilities.
Admin
 
 

[John W E]

hi there,


if this link works, this is a gentleman's model of an RFA vessel.  Sadly, though, the last I heard Mr Bryan Young may have lost his eyesight and therefore unable to pursue his modelling.  I have not heard how his health is these days, I do hope he is keeping well. 


Here is the link.


RFA Gold Ranger


john

[KitS]

What a wonderful piece of work 'Gold Ranger' is. 


RFAs are quite fascinating ships, some having very mixed roles. I was lucky enough to have a guided tour of RFA Fort Victoria when she was under refit in Portsmouth Dockyard (her Captain at the time was my secretary's husband......  ) and the ships capabilities were remarkable, some of which I'm not allowed to divulge...................

[Colin Bishop]

Some good RFA ships but they seem to be having trouble crewing them. I did see that a better pay rate settlement has recently been concluded. The RFA ships are being pressed into duties that should be covered by regular RN warships which demonstrate just how far the Royal Navy has been hollowed out. It is all pretty demoralising really. The RN is a shadow of its former self. There are some good bits but the fleet is weak!

Colin

[dodes]

RFA ships have for a long time taken on RN duties, especially those with helicopters . When I worked out of Great Harbour Greenock with the RMAS, we used to see RFA's with a few warships regularly acted as targets and seeing a RFA turning at high speed was quite impressive, they also took on AGI duties with Rollicker relieving them quite frequently. But like the RN and the rapidly disappearing Merchant Navy, young men do not want to go to sea and be away from home. I gather there is major problem now in manning. I gather from some news lines that this government is going to build a third carrier, they cannot fully man or support the two at sea when they are capable of going to sea. Plus were are the aircraft!!

[littoralcombat]

A Bloke in our Club is building RFA Blue Rover in 1/72nd scale, as she was during her service in the Falklands Conflict.
Nige

[Pat-K]

The Rovers were good looking ships - I had a soft spot for the Owlen Class tankers

[JimG]

I gather from some news lines that this government is going to build a third carrier, they cannot fully man or support the two at sea when they are capable of going to sea. Plus were are the aircraft!!

The only report on a possible third carrier I have seen was an obvious April Fools day spoof.
Jim

[Pat-K]

A question and I know it's political - with Trump being Trump is it wise for the UK to be buying F35's from the state, maybe a unique opportunity to get the British aircraft industry back on track - one step more - fit the carriers with cats and traps - also should we be renting Trident missiles off the States - bear in mind the last two tests have ended up in failures - The Strategic Deterrent is needed now more than ever

[KitS]

The carriers already have the infrastructure for the cats and traps, but it would cost a vast amount to actually do it. IIRC they'd need much more electrical power to fire the EMALS cats than they are fitted with now, which was one of the reasons they didn't go that route originally.


Plus Britain doesn't have a carrier capable aircraft under design as yet, so BAe would have to start from scratch, a BIG job.

[Pat-K]

I agree with what your saying but when is a better time to get the ball rolling and lessen our ties with the US

[KitS]

Twenty years ago? 

[Colin Bishop]

The French seem to have some decent carrier aircraft.

I suspect that the US Military are not at all happy with the way things are going. I have heard reports that they have been quite impressed with the QE class as they need much smaller crews than the US carriers and are considered to be a valuable NATO asset. The Americans have had a lot of problems with their latest Ford class carriers.

At the moment the US Government is being run by a bunch of bungling, incompetent Trump cronies who don't understand what they are doing. The military professionals must be horrified, especially when the top brass are communicating security information  on a glorified Whats App with schoolboy emojis.

A ship with a big deck is inherently very useful and can be used for different roles. When the Invincible Class came into service they were rubbished and there were proposals to sell one or more to Australia but over their careers they proved themselves to be very useful assets in ways that were never envisaged when they were designed.

We can only hope that the current US administration will come to its senses sooner rather than later. A four year presidential term is short compared with the expected 50 year service life of a QE carrier.

Colin

[dodes]

Hi Colin, your mention of the Invincible class was a class never really improved during their lifetime. The harrier was innovative  when they came into service, but when faced with conventional aircraft as when in the Falklands showed their i.e. too slow to engage. When she was diverted to Kosovo, the Americans after the first night, said she was too big a craft with small capability and kept her to the South out of the way, as she carried only one harrier. But she did manage to burn up sufficient fuel that most of the R N vessels were kept in harbour with the fleet practicing cruise drills tied up alongside with no gangway and the crews carring out seawatches etc, She was in the Gulf for nearly 6 months and only managed one take off, due to sun and extreme heat. Though as my elder brother who was in the mob , said to me "they half a dozen of them for convoy escort duty as Destroyers and frigates are too slow to catch nuke subs". 

[KitS]

What was the relative kill ratio between the SHARs and any of the Argentinian aircraft during the Falklands War then?

[dodes]

I have no data to date, but the Harriers made a distance line of defence, as they could not compete for speed with the French built jets, they would form a line and fire their missiles while the Argies screamed past. But they were far better than none.

[gingyer]

What was the relative kill ratio between the SHARs and any of the Argentinian aircraft during the Falklands War then?

I think you will find it was 23 aircraft shot down without loss in air to air combat.


We did lose aircraft but NOT in air to air combat.

[Colin Bishop]

gingyer is right. Score 23 - Nil to the Harriers. They proved their worth in the Falklands.

Like so many RN warships, the Invincibles were a compromise. I visited more than once on Navy Days (remember them) and was surprised at just how small the hangar was.

The RN has always been cursed by building ships that were designed down to the minimum current requirement to 'save money'. Consequently they were unable to accept technical upgrades during their service lives.

The initial Type 42 destroyers were built too small and the later ships had to be built longer to be effective. There was an improvement of sorts when the Type 45s were designed with larger hulls capable of accepting upgrades but money was 'saved' by not giving them adequate power installations so they have now all had to be cut open at enormous extra expense to fit increased propulsion and power upgrades.

The Type 23 Frigates have proved to be effective and versatile ships with their upgrades but they are now coming to the end of their service lives with several decommissioned due to hull and structural condition failures but they are still the best we have pending introduction of the Type 26. The RN would give and arm and a leg to have retained three of the class sold off to the Chileans. (to save money of course). HMS Albion and Bulkwark are now in the process of being flogged off to Brazil despite one of them still being in decent condition as there are no crews for them.

The RFA Bay class are large, versatile and effective ships and have been standing in for the RN in many peacekeeping roles but our daft Government sold one of these off to Australia (to save money).

Those responsible for new designs seem to often overlook the basic physics that a modest increase in external dimensions can give a disproportionate increase in carrying capacity and thus the potential to accommodate the inevitable upgrades during service life. Building the ship a bit bigger entails very little increase in structural costs and increased length often results  in better hydrodynamic efficiency which means that little if any extra propulsive power is needed. This means that you have a ship which can be upgraded rather than have to scrap it and build something new to carry the latest weapon systems.

It is no different to our models. Build your boat a bit bigger and it will accommodate all the internal batteries, R/C and other gubbins much more easily than a fractionally smaller boat.

Colin

[dodes]

I think that you guys do get my grith, the Argies lost old type aircraft and prop aircraft, their fast French planes which did the damage were unscathed. But the problem with vertical launch planes(including the F35,s is due to the vertical lift system that lose 30% of lift capacity, that's why only the Tempest were used from Cyprus to the Houthi bombing raids the F35B did not have the range. As to the new carriers, time will tell. But the RN does not have the capacity to supply a full supporting battle group. As to spare empty spaces inboard to up grade, I can remember the time a warship would enter a major refit in a Naval Dockyard were everything inboard would be taken out(including Boilers). As to size etc, the only real difference is bigger the displacement the better capability to maintain speed(example the RFA Reliant left Falklands same time as the home coming fleet and beat them to Devonport by three weeks, as the smaller RN vessels had to slow for sea conditions). But bigger hulls depending on their displacement (despite hull length x Hull co-efficiency and beam )still need more energy to obtain their optimum speed.

[Colin Bishop]

Dodes,

Yes, I agree that the F35B are compromised in range and weapons capacity but that was the trade off with not fitting the QEs with Cats & Traps, but it seems that that option could not be afforded in the short term so we have a degraded capability. It all seems to come down to money rather than protecting the Realm. But things have always been like that.

My RN source tells me that the Admirals were originally given the choice of the Carriers or more frigates/destroyers. They gambled on the argument that if the carriers were built then the Government would be obliged to provide the supporting escorts - bad call as it turned out as to protect the carriers we are now dependent on NATO allies. And whether  the USA is still an ally is becoming problematical.

Still, it is early into the service life of the carriers and there will be future changes of one sort or another. The have now been built so they are floating assets.

Colin

[KitS]

I think you will find it was 23 aircraft shot down without loss in air to air combat.


We did lose aircraft but NOT in air to air combat.

EXACTLY!

[KitS]

I think that you guys do get my grith, the Argies lost old type aircraft and prop aircraft, their fast French planes which did the damage were unscathed.

Not so, at least seven Argentinian Daggers (Israeli built Mirage 5s) were shot down by Sea Harriers, and that was just from a cursory look.

[littoralcombat]

Well that's another interesting subject/topic hijacked by the usual culprit. Invincible Class useless, Sea Harriers useless, Boilers removed regularly during refit (SVG's yes, but not Main Propulsion Kettles), RFA Reliant in the Falklands War......what utter tosh. As per usual of course.
My all time favourite from a while back though, was an entire Invincible Class Gearbox being removed and replaced at Gib Dockyard.
At least we get a giggle occasionally, but it's getting a tad dull now.
Nige

[dodes]

With reference to RN refits, I still remember walking by Leander in the graving dock in Chatham and she was an empty shell, her boilers were in the yard behind No1 boiler house being steam tested and her turbines in the main factory being completely being opened up and refitted. All the wiring was stripped out and would be renewed as required. All her electrical equipment was up at the Electrical factory being refitted and calibrated. Plus any update on equipment would be fitted and out dated gear would be binned. The Yards drawing offices would be redesigning the layout and fit for the Dockyard workers to follow.
Talking of carriers, just been reading an article on the Chinese latest Carrier and her main aircraft for it, all conventional catapult aircraft from 3 in number magnetic cats , will carry at least 40 of these plus Helo's for anti submarine work and unmanned drone/aircraft. Plus she is 5000tons less in displacement and is conventionally powered by steam boilers. Plus they have more hulls than the yanks and are still building at a very fast rate, plus they have built 280 merchant ships with the yards able to switch easily to warships. I would say interesting times ahead, but what I said about the Invincible class was that they would have made superb convoy escorts(like the light carriers in WW2) as Destroyers and frigates cannot hunt with any real success subs as most Nucs will easily out run them, where as the old Nimrods could hunt and kill in a short time and be unseen.

[Colin Bishop]

Interesting Navy Lookout article with diagram on RFA Proteus, Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship.

Would make a very interesting but challenging model.

https://www.navylookout.com/rfa-proteus-begins-operations-as-seabed-warfare-threats-increase/

Colin