[Arctic_Menace]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Seeing as we've been told recently that the Joint Support Ship (JSS), a combination fleet replenishment ship and army command/control ship, is too expensive, why not build something like the Danish Absalon class Command and Support Ship? http://www.casr.ca/id-danish-naval-projects-absalon.htm

That would allow us to buy a pair of much cheaper refueling ships to replace the existing AORs, while also getting the Army command/control ship into our fleet as well. When not in use by army brass, I think it could also be used as a command and control ship, much like the existing DDHs are. With each one roughly $565 million, we could easily afford three or four of them.

Might not be a bad idea, but just to play the devil's advocate here. Where are you going to get personnel to man 4 warships vice 2 and how big a budget hit would DND take for maintenance of these ships as compared to 2 multi purpose ships?

Like I said, not a bad idea, if they could use these as an interim measure while they waited for the budget forecast to improve. The only down side would be that they'd have to keep the AOR's going till then to.

It shouldn't be too hard to operate. The AORs have about 265 sailors per ship, while these use 100, therefore, theoretically, we could have man five of these with the same number of sailors. With a $565 million price tag, they come to just over $2 billion (for four), with about $1 billion leftover for two smaller tanker ships. If the tankers cost more, scale it down to three. The good thing about these ships is that they can replace the DDHs too, meaning more personnel and cost savings.

I like the way you think.

[Freakinoldguy]

bootlegga bootlegga:

It shouldn't be too hard to operate. The AORs have about 265 sailors per ship, while these use 100, therefore, theoretically, we could have man five of these with the same number of sailors. With a $565 million price tag, they come to just over $2 billion (for four), with about $1 billion leftover for two smaller tanker ships. If the tankers cost more, scale it down to three. The good thing about these ships is that they can replace the DDHs too, meaning more personnel and cost savings.

Once again I'm going to play the devils advocate. When the hell have you ever seen a Canadian Warship at it's full complement unless it's going into a combat zone and even then they've robbed peter to pay paul with numerous pierhead jumps for alot of the crew.

I sailed on the Provider and we had a complement of approx 150 and that was on a good day. I also sailed in Training Squadron and on a ship with the wartime complement of 225 we sailed with 140 including Naval Cadets.

So don't believe everything that's written or the hype from some politically correct Admiral looking for a cusy government job at retirement telling you that all are warships are at full complement and there's no problem with manning.

I still keep in touch with people I sailed with and each and everyone of them aside from the Fleet Chief who works for the Admiral, has told me that they don't have the bodies so claiming you could take some of the 265 sailors, who's exhistance is questionable to run the new ship just isn't feasible.

[bootlegga]

Well, like I said, these ships fully loaded are 100 crew, so even with our depleted ranks, we could still operate them, maybe only three instead of four, but they still would work (150 sailors x 2 AOR = 300 sailors, which equals 300 personnel for 3 of these ships).

I agree with your point of low personnel numbers. That was why these ships were really interesting; multi-role, low personnel to operate, affordable, with a fair bit of firepower. I'd say all round, they are pretty awesome.

Hell, if it was me, I'd buy a dozen (or two) and just retire everything else in the fleet (DDHs and FFHs) as they come online.