The Royal Navy say they plan to paint all five second-generation River-class ships with the dazzle scheme in due course to give them a unique identity in the Fleet.
HMS Tamar was recently seen sporting the new paint scheme, you can read more about that here.
Overseas Patrol Squadron vessels are deployed for several years at a time, operating out of overseas bases and ports in areas key to UK interests such as the Caribbean, Falklands, Mediterranean and West Africa.
Commander David Louis, Commander of the Overseas Patrol Squadron, was quoted as saying that the Royal Navy had decided to give the River-class ships a distinct identity to recognise their extended missions.
“Dazzle has much less military value in the 21st Century although there is still value in littoral environments when viewed against the background of land,” Commander Louis explained. It is very much more about supporting the unique identity of the squadron within the Royal Navy as part of their forward presence mission.”
Must buy some Humbrol shares!😉
Nice bit of good news, I’ve long thought we should be moving away from straight up grey for everything.
But it shows up the rust lines so well
I’m a bit confused! I understood that these vessels were under-armed because they were only going to be involved in policing duties! Why combat camouflage when they are not armed with anything more serious than a 30mm canon. They are either policing vessels or serious combat vessels, which is it?
“It is very much more about supporting the unique identity of the squadron”
It’s just a snazzy new uniform. Police have those too.
Yes, I wonder what that unique identity is?
It’s a PR stunt. Last thing you want is a policing vessel to be camouflaged as surely the point of it is to be seen to deter illegal activities.
Yep, blue flashing lights and a dayglo paint job….the RN is getting more like the BBC every day, no idea what its real role is!
No,no,no. It’s so they can creep up to nefarious activities.
Maybe it’s a new funding approach. If you can’t beat them, then join them. Moving into dodging other countries patrol boats, whilst smuggling and drug running.
Combat camouflage?? Don’t be daft.
Care to explain what it is then?
Its good in littoral environments. Also they are going to be used for ‘gunboat diplomacy’ for some years until Type 31 appears, so gives them some extra appeal.
Gunboat diplomacy…..doesn’t that require a gun?
only a very small one 🙂
If they happen upon a rebellious Quaker community😊!
These vessels should be in a coast guard, not a blue-water navy.
Painting them up as ‘Q’ ships is to be saluted in these woke times, just need the L, B etc now…. 😂
Andy P, A Q ship is a very diffrent beast, if I remember correctly a German Q ship sunk a Aussie heavy cruiser in WW 2. Our OPVs are large capable hulls with a armerment that even a WW2 70ft MTB/MGB would outclass.
Yes mate, Q ships were a different beast as you say and some had ‘dazzle paint’ which was my inspiration rather than the role. None of it was to be taken seriously.
https://modelingmadness.com/review/misc/ships/us/ohqa.jpg
Bloody hell Andy, you’ve given me a migraine!
If it doesn’t really matter how we paint ships nowadays, I’m much more in favour of a return to the Victorian style; black hull, white superstructure, and a tan funnel. Bring a bit of pomp and style back to warships.
Now this is a suggestion I can get behind. 👍😃.
Like it, if we could do this paint job on some of our bigger ships I might buy the models. However I do wonder, I know that some paints and colours have diffrent IR and radar reflection ability. Some have rubber in the paint, some reflect more, some absorb and I’m playing around with quartz crystal slither in paint to see how that reacts to light and radio waves etc. Before someone asks, I was a comms engineer before I went into naval history, played with radio signals by the time I was 8 and found out that quarts sends signals in all forms of direction if not cut correctly, so the idea of messing up signals using quarts in all directions seemes a idea to follow up on. So if its just paint then its a good paint job, but has the RN done something diffrent? I know I would at least try.
Does the rubber in the paint make the radio waves bounce off then?
I can here a very faint grown coming from all points of the compas H😂
Are all Batch 2’s having a garden shed fitted. Or are all the others FFBNW?
We can’t afford them. My understanding is, they will be fitted for but not with! 😂
That’s not a garden shed, it is the new sauna. A pile of small pine branches will be available for self flagellation!
Self flagellation H, I know things can get a tad boring on long patrols, but I hardly think the ….. Oh, I’m thinking of another form of self inflicted abuse….
It.s for the public schoolboys when they are missing their fagging duties!
Again, great bit of news and a service that has a clear idea about PR and public perception.
Its also good for morale seeing things change up a bit.. I am all for this.
I expect the crews are cringing at the pointlessness of this.
Wow. I back having these ships in the fleet to augment warships, but this is just daft, it is literally trying to paint over that they have little actual capability.
This paint scheme will not be cheap. Instead of this superficial nonsense how about just equipping one ship in the class with a modestly better armament or a better UAV capability.
Quite, it is there to dazzle (sorry!) people from questioning why a painted fishing boat with a 30mm cannon is doing what combatants have done for centuries.
The money would have been better spent on accomodation or training.
Excellent.
These OPVs really do the same job as US Coast Guard Cutters so I would have thought hi-vis rather than low-vis would be the way to go. Now if the dazzle was red, white and blue….
Looks more like a disruptive scheme to break up the outline/silhouette (which would work better in a cluttered littoral area than empty ocean) rather than a true dazzle scheme that used high contrasting colours to make it harder to estimate range, speed and direction of motion rather than making it harder to see….
Not entirely true. The original idea of dazzle was to make them harder to see, which ultimately turned out to do the reverse in practice and made them much easier to identify (ratio of the ones with the paint job being attacked Vs without wasn’t good), but as you state harder to pin point direction and distance, and that resulted in arguably less being sunk, but this is not fully agreed on by historians.
Don’t like it at all. The Batch 2’s look far more business like in straight Admiralty grey and the uniformity of this emphasises their sleek lines. Waste of money vanity project.
I think that it is pretty awful too. A bit too Action man…..with little to back it up. Reminds me of Lt Gruber’s ‘little tank’ from ‘Allo Allo’
😆 btw did you watch England my England? i had another look.gtreat movie if a little tedious at times.
..or am I confusing this conversation with Chariot Rider?
No geoff….I did manage to catch some of it before my modem started playing up….too much buffering. I was going to buy the DVD but they want £144.00 on Amazon. BT are sending me their latest modem, so hopefully that will sure the problem. I enjoyed what I saw of it…which wasn’t much!
They look more like the Chinese navy than anything else 😂 The UK needs 20 frigates for blue water , 10 destroyers , and 10 corvettes for littoral waters to be take as a serious navy. It’s an achievable goal. Corvettes would fill a big gap to any regional things. 1.5 billion for 10 corvettes. The Chinese use them effectively by arming them well and to harass others in the South China Sea
I disagree. I don’t think we have the mission for all these ships. We have 1 CSG and 1 ARG to escort and then various constabulary duties. Surface fleet is fine with current orders. Money best spent on more SSN/AIP Subs.
“Taken as a serious navy”
How many nations have blue water navies able to deploy with the logistical, basing, experience, and professionalism to back it up? Never mind the history and prestige derived therefrom or assets such as this.
How many? Name them.
The RN is short of escorts but saying they are not a serious navy is plain ridiculous IMO. Sorry.
And I forgot FOST! How could I. Obviously navies sending their people and ships to train with FOST and take part in Thursday war means we are not a serious navy at all!!!
Silly me.
Thank you at last a person that talks up our navy why do so many of you come on here and trash it every navy in the world needs more ships but there is only so much money all the ships in the navy have a roll when you trash the ships you trash the sailors that are proud to serve on them, time for realism and support.
The Royal Navy dosent tend to do much harassing though James ….
I would be happy with four more T26, an up-armed T31 (T32 the same) and Astor NT/ quad packed Sea Ceptor ER equipped T45.
An achievable and well armed force of 28.
Sure I saw a program about our MP and ASW aircraft in the Battle of the Atlantic having lightbulbs on the forward edges which made them very hard to spot.
Maybe the modern day UAVs could have similar?