Defence`s Feeds

Go here to Soldier System Daily to read about the drama with Team Wendy and Hillary Clinton. I tuned into her speech and the critics are right.  She's pushing the assault weapons ban again....

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Want to keep up to date on the SSR field? Once a week, the Centre for Security Governance’s Security Sector Reform Resource Centre project posts pertinent news articles, reports, projects, and event updates on SSR over the past week. Click here to sign-up and have the SSR Weekly News Roundup delivered straight to your inbox every week!  

On 16 June, the former NATO secretary general and the EU high representative Javier Solana will present the main findings of the study on the EU security and defence, which will feed in the future own-initiative report on the EU defence union to be drafted by Urmas Paet (ALDE, EE).
Further information
Draft agenda
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

On 15 June, Security and Defence MEPs will hold a workshop on Russian military presence in the Eastern Partnership Countries (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and South Caucasus). Together with the researchers they will debate the effects of this military presence and future perspectives.
Further information
Workshop programme
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

William asked this question and I thought it deserved discussion among the tribe members. Do you have any clue why the police waited 3 hours to storm the club in Orlando? Hasn't the procedure since...

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Information on these ships here, pics via Damen.com

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On 15 June, SEDE will hold an exchange of views on the security situation in Ukraine and the reform of the civilian security sector with Kęstutis Lančinskas, Head of Mission of EUAM Ukraine, Kenneth Deane, Director, CPCC, EEAS and Mykola Tochytskyi, Head of the Mission of Ukraine to the EU.
Further information
Draft agenda and meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

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Americas

• Boeing plans to test its new Chinook rotor blades this October. If successful, the heavy-lift helicopter will gain an extra 2,000lb for its maximum take-off weight. Using honeycomb composite rotor blades, good news from Boeing could see it form part of the CH-47 Block II upgrades the Army is pursuing, and be open to funding previously denied by the Department of Defense (DoD).

• The ongoing debacle over Canada’s exit from the F-35 program may see Lockheed Martin shift contracts associated with the fighter away from Canadian contractors. Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s election promise to not order the next generation fighter, and government plans to purchase F/A-18 Super Hornets as an interim solution, has resulted in Ottawa not placing any orders for the fighter despite being an original partner nation in the project. With the F-35 supply chain contracts tied to the number of aircraft purchased by partner nations, Canadian companies may see work shifted to other partner nations who have seemingly been pestering Lockheed to do so. To date, Canadian firms account for about $1 billion of the project’s development and production work.

Middle East North Africa

• Two US senators are looking to limit sales of munitions to Saudi Arabia in protest of the Gulf kingdom’s conduct during its military intervention in Yemen. Senators Chris Murphy and Rand Paul, both members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would bar US sales of air-to-ground munitions until Saudi Arabia promises to take precautions to limit civilian casualties and combat terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda alongside Houthi rebels. In November, the State Department cleared a $1.29 billion sale of 10,000 advance air-to-ground munitions to Saudi Arabia.

Africa

• Ammunition destined for use by German forces serving in Mali has gone missing. The crate, containing 880 pieces of ammunition, went missing on a commercial Air France flight transporting troops and weapons from Berlin to Bamoko via Paris on May 28. Berlin police have been notified of the incident. Germany is taking part in the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and also has 200 soldiers in the country as part of a European mission to train Malian troops.

Europe

• BAE Systems is confident that ongoing talks with the UK government could lead to the launch of a fourth flight trial for the Taranis unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator. The first three flight trials took place in Australia between August 2013 and late 2015. Work on the Taranis program was feeding into the Anglo-French Future Combat Air Systems (FCAS) which involves efforts from BAE Systems, Dassault, Rolls-Royce, Safran, Leonardo, and Thales.

• Ongoing bilateral talks between Germany and France to develop a joint next generation artillery are being conducted alongside discussions for a planned replacement of their Leopard and Leclerc heavy tanks. French weapons systems manufacturer Nexter has teamed up with German counter-part Krauss-Maffei Wegmann to form a joint venture, which has been named KNDS, or KMW and Nexter Defense Systems. It’s believed that any new artillery or tank programs will most likely be launched between 2025 and 2030.

Asia Pacific

• As many as five South East Asian nations are in talks to purchase the BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missile. News of the interest was reported by Reuters after seeing an undated note from the Indian government to BrahMos Aerospace ordering the manufacturer to accelerate talks to sell the missile to Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Chile, and Brazil. The note also mentions 11 other countries in which to carry out further talks including Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines.

• Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) plans to purchase two refurbished C-130Ks from UK firm Marshall Aerospace has raised some controversy over costs and previous history with the company. The former RAF aircraft were apparently sold to Marshall as scrap metal for $2.5 million each. A deal to modernize and resell the aircraft to the SLAF, however, is coming at a combined price tag of $35 million. According to an expert within the service, buying the plane in its original condition and having a refurbishing company bring the aircraft back to flying status would cost only an extra $6 to 7 million each.

Today’s Video

• GoPro footage of Kazakhstan Air Force EC-145 2-ship flying demo:

American Bell AH-1W Super Cobra Attack Helicopter

Rheinmetall Air Defence will showcase its new remotely controlled, autonomous, network-capable air defence system, Oerlikon Revolver Gun Mk3 at Eurosatory 2016.

A series of ten Project 12418 missile boats are being licence-built at the Ba Son Shipyard for the Vietnamese Navy.

Battelle and Halyard Health have been contracted by the US Office of Naval Research (ONR) to co-develop a medical device that can help reduce the loss of tissue in severely injured limbs.

The UK Ministry of Defence has confirmed a further £642m of funding for the Successor submarine programme, bringing the total spend so far to £3.9bn. With the programme’s assessment phase totalling £3.9bn and opposition remaining strong, how feasible…

Germany-based ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) has received a service order worth €40m from Peruvian naval shipyard SIMA to support extensive modernisation work on the Peruvian Navy's four HDW 209/1200 (Type 209/1200) class submarines.

The US Navy's newest Pathfinder class oceanographic survey ship, USNS Maury (T-AGS 66), has successfully concluded its first voyage.

I've been monitoring the terrorist attack in Orlando this morning and as much as I want to avoid it, the debate must be had. First, the media. MSNBC is focusing on the weaponry instead of the...

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Portuguese Joao Coutinho Class Corvette

The UK then joined France and Italy in the Horizon-class class of air-defence destroyers frigate program; however, differing national requirements, workshare arguments and delays led to the UK withdrawing on 26 April 1999 and starting its own national project Type 45 destroyer. The class is primarily designed for anti-aircraft and anti-missile warfare and is built around the PAAMS (Sea Viper) air-defence system utilizing the SAMPSON AESA and the S1850M long-range radars. The Type 45 destroyers were built to replace the Type 42 (Sheffield class) destroyers that had served during the Falklands War, with the last Type 42 being decommissioned in 2013.

The six Type 45 Daring Class destroyers, which cost the taxpayer £1bn each, are the backbone of Britain’s combat force at sea and are among the most advanced missile destroyers in the world. They are the Royal Navy’s first all-electric ships and are driven by two Rolls-Royce WR21 gas turbines and two Wartsila diesel engines. The WR21 is designed to deliver significantly improved operating costs by using an intercooler recuperator, which recovers exhaust and recycles the gas into the engine. But, as a rule, power turbines slowed down in warm temperatures.

But the engines powering the Royal Navy’s cutting-edge fleet are unable to operate continuously in the warm waters of the Gulf. Responding to questions about why the power systems failed in warmer waters than the UK, John Hudson, managing director of BAE Systems maritime, said the original specifications for the vessel had not required it to sustain extremes. “The operating profile at the time was that there would not be repeated or continuous operations in the Gulf,” he said.
Tomas Leahy, of Rolls-Royce naval programmes, said the destroyer was now operating in “far more arduous conditions than envisaged in the specifications”. “This is not the fault of the WR21,” said Mr Leahy. “It is the laws of physics.”

But the Type 45 was designed for worldwide operations from sub-Arctic to extreme tropical environments and continues to operate effectively in the Gulf and South Atlantic all year round. It also emerged that some of the difficulties were rooted in late-stage design changes demanded by the US Navy, when it was leading development of the electric propulsion system. However, the US Navy pulled out of the programme in 2000, when it was taken over by the UK’s MoD. Mr Leahy said that only 1,900 hours of testing had been carried out on the system after the design change, while the problems only emerged after 4,000-5,000 hours of operation.

“With hindsight it would have been good to do another 4,000-5,000 hours of testing on it,” he said. The MoD is having to set aside tens of millions of pounds to fix the destroyers. The plan is to install two extra diesel engines which will require cutting a hole in the hull of the brand new destroyers. The costs of repairing the Type 45 were forcing a delay in the Type 26 frigate programme. Original plans were for the first steel to be cut on the frigates by the end of this year, but this is now not likely before December 2017. The government had already weakened the Royal Navy’s capabilities by cutting the number of frigates that would be ordered from 13 to eight in last year’s strategic defence and security review.

The Type 45 uses a pioneering system called Integrated Electric Propulsion (IEP). There are many advantages associated with IEP, fuel efficiency, flexibility in locating the engines and a supposedly reduced maintenance and manning requirement. In basic terms, two WR-21 gas turbines (GTs) and two Wartsila 2MW diesel generators provide AC power for the motors that propel the ship as well as the power for the ships systems – weapons, sensors lighting etc. The WR-21 GTs were designed in an international partnership with Rolls Royce and Northrop Grumman Marine Systems. The turbines are of a sound design but have an intercooler-recuperator that recovers heat from the exhaust and recycles it into the engine, making it more fuel-efficient and reducing the ship’s thermal signature. Unfortunately the intercooler unit has a major design flaw and causes the GTs to fail occasionally. When this happens, the electrical load on the diesel generators can become too great and they ‘trip out’, leaving the ship with no source of power or propulsion.

The MoD has not revealed how frequently these blackouts have occurred but the first 2 ships, HMS Daring and HMS Dauntless seem to have suffered the most. The first indication of problems was as far back as 2010 when it was admitted HMS Daring lost all power in mid-Atlantic and had to be repaired in Canada. Although the Type 45s have been active, some significant commitments have been missed. An indication that all is not well could be seen by the number of Type 45s alongside in Portsmouth at any given time during the last few years. Historically the RN has never been a fleet of ‘harbour queens’ and today’s over-worked navy can ill-afford unreliable ships. HMS Daring entered service in 2009, it has taken more than 6 years to agree to deal with the problem and it will probably be well after 2020 before the work is completed. It is obviously dangerous from a seamanship and navigational point of view to suddenly lose propulsion at any time. It is even more serious when operating in a high threat environment as the ship would be a sitting duck.

Replacement of the WR-21 GTs is not a practical option. Instead additional or more powerful diesel generators will provide long-term redundancy and assurance that electrical supplies can be maintained in the event of GT failure. The good news is that the large Type 45 design has the space and reserve buoyancy to cope with larger or additional diesels. The rectification work on the six ships will be done one by one as part of the normal major refit cycle. This will extend the length of the refits but should not have an especially dramatic effect on frontline availability.

It is ironic that the RN is suffering with propulsion problems, having had a great history of propulsion innovation and success. The steam turbine was a British invention and in HMS Dreadnought (1906) was the first capital ship to use this leap in propulsive power. The steam turbine drove the majority of major warships for the next 60 years. HMS Amazon (1974) was the first all-GT warship and British engines were subsequently exported to many foreign navies. Much of the world-renowned expertise in naval GT design was derived from an obscure and secretive facility, the Pyestock National Gas Turbine Establishment at Farnborough which tested & developed marine and aero engines until it was closed in 2000. One of Pyestock’s last projects was some of the initial development of the WR-21 done in partnership with Rolls Royce and Northrop Grumman. Reliance on computer modelling signalled the end for Pyestock but with hindsight perhaps there is no substitute for ‘real world’ testing. It is interesting to note that recently Rolls Royce opened a brand new testing facility for the WR-21 and the MT-30 GTs (Which will power the QE aircraft carriers and Type 26 frigate).

There are growing signs that frustration with industry in the MoD has reached breaking point. The Type 45 propulsion problems are just one of many expensive problems with major defence contacts. The cost over-runs of the Astute class submarine have led to Whitehall creating a special project office to manage the Trident Successor submarines and failures will be met with harsher financial penalties. The surprise emergence of the alternative frigate programme, in addition to the Type 26, is also a sign of disillusionment with late, expensive and flawed offerings from BAE Systems.

Source
http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/putting-the-type-45-propulsion-problems-...

Tag: Royal NavyType 45