3 New Navy Vessels for Irish Naval Service

Its a general purpose light frigate, highly modular and adaptable, not unlike the MEKOs and other such offerings, including from Damen, so not surprising Babcock made a pitch when they caught the sniff of a contract.

Interesting article above for sure, but the trade papers will have us buying everything short of a Ford-Class Carrier until the Government accepts the pending Houlders recommendation.

They might be leaving it a bit late, also I wonder what current designs might they offer?

There would be nothing to stop any of them taken we say a candian design and building it the same way appledore did.

At least there seams to be a bit of movement on this project.

What way would it work for the east coast crews when the kiwi ships get working. Will crews simply be assgined to the ships or would they be able to put in a transfer request to be bases there if they are from the east coast

When doing a cost comparison with KD, keep in mind her integrated mast (which is modular and can be swapped with that on the Holland Class OPV) retail for €100m each. Stick a standard mast in there and the cost comes way down.

Surely half the price of the four?

The I-Mast serves a purpose for the Dutch Navy, but is serious overkill for anyone else (and is also a completely independent unit within the ship, you just undo the bolts and you can plug the whole thing out, and slot it in somewhere else. It can even operate as a standalone on land, as the ops room is incorporated within). It is its own citadel. You just need somewhere on the ship to stick it in, like a giant lego block.

So basically, for KD, it was a third of the overall cost of the ship. But it permits KD and any of the OPVs (who's days are numbered in NL service- to be replaced by a Damen Crossover possibly) to act as c3 platforms with ECM and Phased Array radar, in addition to their other functionality.

What replaces the I-Mast? An ordinary Nav radar, and a standard Air Search radar, in addition to the standard comms and navaid any vessel of this type would have.

Disgraceful state of affairs.

Its an emergency situation, national service is needed, now.

When the lakes are in DL and working, To get crew particuarly for non married crew they

defence forces should take out a lease on this building so young crew have a place to live. As part of better T&Cs the personal will live free there.

A lot has changed in the security paradigm of Europe in the past 11 months. The Germans are calling it 'Zeitenwende', a turn for the ages.

If I told you 18 months ago Germany and Finland, among others, would be sending MBTs to Ukraine to repel a Russian invasion, you'd have had me committed.

Sacred cows are being slayed all over the shop and Ireland is not immune, because all of a sudden, we have a boat load of critical infrastructure to be protected, not just critical to Ireland but to Europe and to global commerce and communications.

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, when all other solutions have been exhausted, whatever is left, no matter how unlikely, must be the answer.

4 ships operational.

I doubt the new minister of Defence cares.

Can the Chief of Staff not do anything or is he happy being a Yes man?

I know there’s retention issues around the world with other Navy’s but the government could have done something more meaningful years ago and we wouldn’t have had this mess.

Something needs to change or else we can forget about new ships & investment in renovating buildings on Haulbowline.

Chief of Staff doesn’t set the pay so not sure how you think he can change things? And the story of Irish defence is “if we had done something before we wouldn’t be in the “X” state we are in”, given the story on the fight over unspent funds between DOD and DPER I wouldn’t expect DPER to either care or change. Hell they would most likely love the reduced costs of not having a Navy, and for them the best bit is they won’t be blamed if anything happens….

Will comapare to what the government are paying to hotels for refugees its small change. It would pay for itself in crew retenion

That would be DPER. A dept created to comfort a politicians ego, who, now that the financial crash is over, are struggling to justify their own existence.

I noticed that, nothing on the Indo either, RTE might not even notice of course.

Well the one positive if you can call it that is we seam to have strong leaders in the defence forces that are willing to stand up and say listen we dont have the man power to run the ship safely so we are not going to sea. I imagine there was a lot pressure from government to not park up the ships