Posted on 06/17/2018 1:05:50 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Britain's six Type 45 destroyers, described as the backbone of the Royal Navy, spent 80 per cent of last year in dock.
The ships, costing £1billion each, need a multi-million pound refit after repeatedly breaking down in the Persian Gulf. But the work is not due to start until 2020.
Two of the cutting-edge warships, HMS Dauntless and HMS Defender, did not go to sea at all during 2017 – which had been hailed by officials and ministers as 'the year of the Navy'.
All six warships, which entered service from 2008, were made with an engine system which cuts out in warm seas, leaving sailors stranded for hours in total darkness.
Britain's six Type 45 destroyers, described as the backbone of the Royal Navy, spent 80 per cent of last year in dock
This led to fears that these key vessels – designed to shield the rest of the fleet from air or missile attacks – had become 'sitting ducks'.
HMS Dragon spent 309 days in Portsmouth last year, followed by HMS Daring with 232 days and HMS Diamond with 203.
HMS Duncan spent the most time at sea, but was still in dock for 197 days.
From January to March this year, HMS Daring, HMS Dauntless and HMS Defender have not left port.
Shockingly, engine-makers Rolls-Royce claim the Ministry of Defence did not tell them the 8,000-ton vessels would spend long periods in warm waters so they were not designed to operate in the heat.
Insiders say a shortage of manpower, Christmas leave for sailors and routine maintenance had also been factors that kept the ships at Portsmouth.
Lord West, former head of the Navy, said: 'It is a disgrace that work on these ships has not been done as a matter of urgency.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
And to think, 140 years ago there was a book on British-Israelism published called THE TWO STICKS, in which it was claimed Britain was God’s chosen nation because it possessed the gates of it’s enemies, namely South Africa, India, Singapore, the Falklands, Kenya, Gibraltar, and other strategic nations.
Now we see differently as Britain can’t rule the waves anymore and has lost several (not all) of it’s foreign ports.
They got a lot of bang for the buck with StuG III’s, too.
As dangerous as the world is today, why would they wait?
I find this crazy.
Those were converted panzer MK IIIs. Good use of an obsolete vehicle. The Soviets built the SU-85s and SU 100s on the T-34 chassis.
Correct
Because it was ugly if nothing else.
Yep. Like a lot of the Brit bomber types, it had sufficient utility value to linger on in unintended roles. I have run across a few memoirs where pilots thought the Stirling was a good airplane that simply wasn't given enough wing to do its intended job. Unlike the failed Manchester which became the famed Lancaster, the Stirling didn't get a second chance.
> You should only have enemies who reside in cold weather climates...like Norway, Iceland, or Canada. <
Or just reclassify these destroyers. Call them ‘icebreaker escorts’.
The radiator is the size of a postage stamp.
I had a '59 Triumph sports car when I was in college in Arizona.
Took a long weekend Memorial Day trip across the desert to California with my girlfriend.
Spent most of the weekend at a gas station in Desert Center because we couldn't keep the car running before the water in the radiator would boil out.
Blew a head gasket as a result and had to have it towed back to Phoenix.
The mechanic told me the British didn't design the cooling system for the heat in the desert southwest.
After that experience, I carried two of those old canvas water bags hanging off the trunk rack to keep water handy. And I didn't take anymore long trips in that car.
Seems the British naval destroyers are not their only creation that doesn't do well in warmer conditions.
Pride before the fall and all that.
I heard that when the Brits first tried to restore an ME 109 they didn’t have machine tools that could give the same tight tolerances as the Germans.
“engine-makers Rolls-Royce claim the Ministry of Defence did not tell them the 8,000-ton vessels would spend long periods in warm waters so they were not designed to operate in the heat.”
SMH
Fishy, indeed. I worked on a contract to deliver fifty 1500-2500DWT short sea ships to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. All of these ships traded mostly in the Baltic and North Seas, and few ever sailed south of Bordeaux.
I had worries as to how they would perform in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf with water temperatures of 28C-32C. However, in nearly every case, the heat exchangers were adequate once the regulating valves were opened up. In the cold seas, the jacket water pump bypasses were opened to reduce flow through the exchangers and keep the jacket water temps high enough. The ships were designed to operate world-wide.
The only trouble I encountered on some ships was that the turbocharger after coolers did not drop the charge air temperature sufficiently, but I was only delivering them to parties who likely did not know the difference, so I made no effort to correct that.
In the case of these RN ships, it does seem that the overheating could be easily addressed by installing larger or additional heat exchangers, which are available off the shelf or can be fabricated at no great expense. Navies, however, are not so keen on simple solutions.
That said, I would like to think of mil specs as robust.
I'm not a ship guy but seems that if the heat exchangers were insufficient in warmer water they could still function at a lesser load? I think they have a large turndown ratio.
The article makes it sound like they were dead in the water?
cuts out in warm seas, leaving sailors stranded for hours in total darkness
Do not forget the oil seals made from leather.
Seems I read years ago about a "heat wave" of temps over 80°F in England and people dropping dead.
Of course, with their new invasion, the heat issue is not a problem anymore.
In Cmdr Edward Ellberg's book Under the Red Sea Sun" he mentions that U.S. salvage pumps started with no problem, but the British ones were pure hell - all kinds of convoluted procedures to go through before they started.
That book is one Helluva read - typical American "Can Do" ingenuity gets things done while all the experts say it couldn't. (Just one of many examples: raises a 600' sunken Italian dry dock in nine days with a handful of Americans, when they said it would take six months and hundreds of salvage people.) Lots of positive reviews along that line.
Hmm...yes, losing the load and going dead in the water can affect one's tactical capabilities. On the upside, there's very little IR and electronic signature that way...
“...The mechanic told me the British didn’t design the cooling system for the heat in the desert southwest.
...
Seems the British naval destroyers are not their only creation that doesn’t do well in warmer conditions. …”
Some of their automotive systems haven’t done so well in cooler conditions either.
During the early-to-mid 1970s, I was a cadet at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. We were allowed to own cars only during our final (First Class) year. Cadets who bought MGs, Triumphs, or anything Italian were afflicted with endless startup trouble any time the overnight temperature dipped into the low 30s F. More precisely, their auto would start, but refuse to keep running until some ten to fifteen minutes of warmup idling had transpired.
In fairness, it was a time of severe upheaval in the automotive industry: safety systems, emission controls, the First Oil Shock, inflation, wild swings in currency exchange ratios, skyrocketing costs all made life difficult for automakers - and cadets trying to pay for newer models.
I stepped away from the herd to purchase a Saab 99 from my hometown dealer (400 ft above sea level); after climbing to 7280 ft above sea level, it refused to run until I had it tuned up.
All was well until February; my roommate talked me into swapping cars for the weekend, so he & four buddies could make a ski trip. Through operator error, they damaged one set of axle boots; I drove his Triumph Spitfire, which came down with inexplicable malfunctions in the slush & snow around C Springs. After we paid the repair bills, he owed me about $70.00 more than I owed him. That Spitfire was - sadly - an all-too-typical example of lackluster British engineering and indifferent workmanship of the time.
Three months later, I had to rescue another roommate, who’d bought himself a FIAT X1/9: hot performer, but no room for luggage larger than a briefcase. Breakdowns left him at the side of the road twice, before we graduated.
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