3 New Navy Vessels for Irish Naval Service

roadmaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119375785#Comment_119375785

I seen those photos its like a rebuild they are doing. The 76mm must be going for a service to

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119375785#Comment_119375785

Not sure why you are surprised with the state of Niamh, Róisín was out of service for longer than a year when she had her mid life work done.

Dohvolle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119376115#Comment_119376115

Yes, but that was in the middle of Covid lockdowns.

Dohvolle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119375908#Comment_119375908

76 Pops out regularly for work.

Larbre34

Yep, looks just the same as Róisín did.

So, we've got five ships in service, all in excellent condition, for a total seagoing crew requirement of 250 approx.

In my opinion, if we want to move to the two full crews model, this is the time to start the process, ahead of the return of Niamh to service and the arrival of the Lake Class.

ancientmariner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119375785#Comment_119375785

While trying to calculate a manning strategy it can be based on an average crew per ship and then allow a multiple to cover sea going replacements for every contingency. The ideal would be a ratio of three crews per ship plus the Base and Dockyard's garrison. The submission constructed in 1990/1992 saw the Establishment at 1266 all ranks with additions as we added on further ships. The Department cut that down by almost 200 and no allowances were added for later tonnage. I think the Departments' manning ratio was allowed at 1.5 crews per ship.

It seems for guaranteed operational availability we may have to revert to the modus operandi of Corvette day's. A third of the Fleet on sea Duty as 1st watch, then follow one year later by Watch 2,and Watch 3 in the third year. It would mean each watch would do one year at sea, and two years in lay up other than doing inevitable reliefs in the watch at sea.

ancientmariner

WE also have to give consideration to main engine maintenance for each ship. With 6 running ships ( Niamh back in service) we will have 12 ME's requiring a long service on each engine with 5000 hours running. This would be the equivalent of 208.3 days of 24hrs or 416.6 days of 12 hour running per day. It would require time out as each ship reaches 5000hrs on each engine.

Widdensushi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119376832#Comment_119376832

What's a long service? Hardly some type of overhaul, 5000 hours is too short.

ancientmariner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119376894#Comment_119376894

On P21 we had two engines through a gearbox to one prop. the dockyard was always looking for 2500 hrs between each ME by running on one engine as often as possible. I was anti one engine on FP as the trailing engine wouldn't be as hot when you start a pursuit and under pressure a cylinder on the cooler engine often "Blew". Our average running per day on a 21 day patrol would be around 10/12 hour average. it would take nearly two years to put 5000 hrs (20 patrols) on ships engines. The dockyard would do one engine and our artificers would do the other.

Widdensushi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119378066#Comment_119378066

Are they overhauled after 5000 hours?

ancientmariner

I'm not an engineer , just a driver, they would certainly get relevant maintenance and torqued appropriately. On first departure I gave the initiative to the engineers to indicate all temps were satisfactory before putting trim and ahead 8 on. I only ever blew one cylinder and never again with any ship.

roadmaster

The Department of Defence has announced its found the Navy’s new MRV

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0914/1323408-revenue-shingle/

Dohvolle

Harsh. The idea of towing a rustbucket like that anywhere is a shipwreck waiting to happen. The question is where.

roadmaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119619899#Comment_119619899

How do we get caught with so many rust buckets in our ports. You wouldn’t get to leave your car on the side of the road

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119620436#Comment_119620436

Because we are located next to the main route of such shytbuckets from the Americas to Europe smuggling everything from ciggies to Colombian best.

As long as they decontaminate it in Dublin and then seal her up decently, it should be fine. If it sinks en route to Killala, no big deal.

mikeym

We have a Minister of Defence that lives Ten minutes up the road from the Naval Base and is blind to the current major issues regarding retention, crewing and morale issues in The Naval Service.

There has been some positive changes like the new accommodation for living in personnel. And more foreign trips which is a welcome development for the ships crews.

But unfortunately it’s more attractive for people to dodge sea and those who do go are disillusioned with the system and the system will break down in the future.

Dohvolle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119640889#Comment_119640889

The solution he has planned is to move his house further away.

A quick fix though would be if the NS had the same chance of an overseas trip as anyone in the Army. I see earlier this week a CQMS heading off on his 18th overseas trip. Thats 9 years of overseas pay.

Meanwhile the NS when they were in the med risking their own lives to save the lives of others had to fight to get an overseas allowance because they were not as the beancounters in DoD decided, in harms way.

P31, P41 or P42 could easily have ended their days as part of Op Atalanta, with crews rotating out to join it, same as every other navy does. The people get their overseas money, and the ships end their days usefully. When their time is up, leave them out there to be used as floating accom or for training local forces.

Larbre34

In fairness to Coveney, I don't think he is blind to any of it.

Whether Defence gets a fair crack from the Cabinet collective, or if he's just talking to the wall, is another question.

Lets see what the first budget of the era of the CoDF brings next week.

Dufflecoat Fanny

6 ships in our fleet and around 1k personnel. For an Island nation with the current global tensions this is a joke. It should be at least 10 times that.

Dohvolle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119643218#Comment_119643218

About 800 now. 5 Ships operational,

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119643218#Comment_119643218

And if you can convince any majority of Irish taxpayers to fund that you are a miracle worker. Let’s not pretend that the state of the DF just magically happened while everyone in the country wanted to stop it. A hundred years of indifference doesn’t happen by accident.

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119643207#Comment_119643207

There is that element, while it’s all well to point the finger at him let’s not ignore the fact that such pay changes have to get Finance and Public expenditure sign off, and Finance has never given two **** about defence.

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119643218#Comment_119643218

60 ships and 8-10,000 personnel?

For comparison, the Royal Navy has 55 ocean going naval ships, including Submarines and 34,000 personnel, plus 11,000 reserves and auxiliaries.

The French Navy has about 100 ships and 10 submarines and about the equivalent personnel.

The more ships you have, the more staff you need on land in support too.

So no, as a small non-NATO nation without any doctrine for overseas naval warfare engagement, we do not need anything like that. We could ensure the security of the island with a modern fleet of about 15 ships, including some multi-purpose frigates, combined with airborne support such as more capable maritime patrol planes, naval helicopters, drones and remote underwater vehicles.

Personnel numbers to match that, including 2 and on some vessels 3 full crews, land based operations support, training, engineering, military police and civilian administration, would be of the order of 2,700.

The Commission on the Defence Forces also envisages a Naval Special Operations Force, for anti-terrorist and commando type interventions, so add another 200 personnel and dedicated aircraft for that.

All told, thats a good €500 million or so annual budget, excluding capital acquisition of ships, aircraft and land based accommodation.

Dufflecoat Fanny

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119643604#Comment_119643604

I wasn't suggesting Ireland have an invasion fleet but one that could defend our waters and land. We don't need a massive aircraft carrier, only quick interceptor vessels with all the mod cons needed for modern warfare. We are one of the most educated and fierce peoples that has ever existed. It would be an insult to our ancestors to not fight as hard as we can. We need to be the best in the Atlantic.

Markcheese

Has the Ukraine conflict shown that anti-ship missiles trump war-ships.? Yes you'd need radar and air defence as well, but what would a couple of 500 million frigates really do for our security ?

Dohvolle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119644680#Comment_119644680

In confined waters, anti ship missiles are great. We don't have confined waters where our potential risk is. We need ships fitted with radar, electro optics and anti ship missiles if we are going to take an interest in defending our waters.

That's what a "500 million frigate" does. (Arrowhead supposed to be closer to the 250m mark though.)

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119645104#Comment_119645104

The worry would be that any nation that's not too worried about your 200km range shore based battery ,probably isn't going to be very worried about your frigate or 2 either ..and next you need an air defence destroyer to guard your frigate ...

I'm not saying we don't need a funded naval service .. ( decent flight capability,decent radar ,and at least some kind of air self defence ),

But we don't really need naval force projection ..

Maybe an airforce ?

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119644680#Comment_119644680

Not really, frankly given the utter shambles from start to finish from the Russian military I don’t think anything really should be taken from the war other than the Russian military is utter ****.

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119645881#Comment_119645881

And then you get back into “why should we have a military at all…”.

We ideally need frigates for both surface and sub surface detection and monitoring.

roadmaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119643207#Comment_119643207

Come January we will probaly have a new minister for Defence