Type 45 Destroyer HMS Diamond is passing through the Suez Canal in order to rejoin HMS Queen Elizabeth’s Carrier Strike Group after 6 weeks of repairs.
The ship initially deployed as part of the UK carrier strike group centred on HMS Queen Elizabeth. However, she was had to detach from the group for repair in July due to reported “technical issues” likely linked to longstanding power and propulsion issues with ships of the class.
Repairs were undertaken in Taranto, Italy and at the end of August Diamond returned to sea.
Where is the Carrier Strike Group?
HMS Queen Elizabeth and her Carrier Strike Group will visit Japan this weekend, the Ministry of Defence have announced.
The UK Government say that the visit will be a powerful demonstration of the UK’s close and enduring partnership with Japan and the UK’s commitment to maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region. A statement reads:
“The visit is part of the maiden operational deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth. The period in and around Japan will reinforce the UK’s commitment to a resilient international order in which open societies based on shared values grow prosperity and champion free trade.
The visit is also an important component of the UK’s renewed focus on the Indo-Pacific, outlined in the Integrated Review. The UK is committed to advancing security, defence and development cooperation with Japan, on the basis of a shared outlook on freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, as well as free trade.”
You can read more here.
Fingers crossed that’s all the bad luck behind her and she can get back to business.
Wow, It’s been 6 weeks already! feels like last week when she hobbled into Taranto!. CSG21 time is flying past! They will be home in no time!!.
Well however bad it was, it seems they have the spares to fix it fairly quickly
Probably cannibalized one of the other 4….
Have they just removed the parts from.Dauntless? Hope they kept them for spares
More likely from Darling!
Dauntless is beening prepared for sea trials with new gens.
You mean old kit being removed and replaced?. Not sure. Sure they would have kept it though.
Why not? It’s spares for the others in the class till they get upgraded.
I’m agreeing! I’m sure they would keep the old kit coming out and use it as spares.
God speed to her and her crew, I bet they cant wait to rejoin the task group…
Just aft of the S180M radar there seems to be a good deal of space, possibly for canister-launched missiles??
Very good news, good to see her getting to sea.
Will she still need to go into Cammel Laird for PIP?
Yes at some stage in the next 4/5 years.
Do you reckon they could potentially put an additional 4 x 6 Camm above the hangar too. Cold launch, not too heavy, or too close to sensitive aerials?
Why not just use the space in front of the Bridge where Canister Launched Missiles ( Harpoon ) already go ? .
Unfortunately the RN seems to have pretty much decided not to put AShM’s on the Type 45 anymore.
You would hope that after fixing up the T45s power issues up that they would maximise their core SAM and secondary ASM/ASW potential. There’s no point sending ships and sailors to see on vessels that are out gunned and out missiled.
Sadly, one of the other type 45 is still sitting in the Cammell Laird shipyard.
There is obviously serious problems with the PIP upgrade to Dauntless after being in CL for approx. 15 months. Until these problems are resolved there will be delays to the T45 PIP. However, CL could accommodate another one.
Thats Dauntless, she should have been back in service by now. She’s been the guinea pig for the power upgrade, but clearly once again the well laid plans of men and mice seem dogged by problems – a UK trademark…….
Yep, I am aware that it’s HMS Dauntless because I can see it from my work and had a quick chat with one of the crew. Also, do you know what the aft up take and down take is?
Aft uptake is normally from the boilers or Powerplant to the funnel. The downtake is normally the battery charging room downtake I believe…..
Thanks
Uptake is the “funnel” for exhaust gas. Downtake is the inlet for air to the engines. Usually with a louvre cover over it and filters to keep nasties out of the GT and DG.
Cheers. It would have been nice if the diagram on another site just said funnel. lol
As well has the funnel the uptakes include all the interior pipe work to get the gases through the ship to the exterior funnel. The power plant is often not directly below the funnel.
Dauntless delay appears worse actually to what happened to Diamond.
Yes but her missiles are so fast she doesn’t need to leave port. The official RN website lists the Dauntless as being equipped with missiles that travel faster than 18000 mph. That’s one in your eye Vlad.😁
Um that doesn’t sound right.
What is the aft up take and down take?
I have been involved with ntercooler/recouperator work on T45 before. It took a similar amount of time to repair as this did.
Now the ship is back at sea I suspect that the defect was not a simple GT engine issue but a recouperator defect.
We will know doubt hear something about it shortly.
So max chat now to catch up with everyone.
I understand that the intercooler is a USA made item? Is it often unreliable? Should it take as long as 6 weeks to swap out?
The thing was supposed to last the life of the ship and to degrade gradually. It did neither. To get the thing out a process was developed that allows you to dismantle the engine room in stages to get to the thing. Lots of scaffold up, scaffold down, more scaff up more scaff down, dismantle this, undo that. Changing it out can then be done. You then have to do some welding to put the bits back you removed for access, more scaff builds… Its a Royal pain of a job. It’s also pain because some of the intercooler parts… Read more »
Thanks Gunbuster for the info.
Is it true that some of the hull structure has to be cut into for certain major maintenance tasks like an engine change? Think I heard that once.
Some ships have bolted in soft patches for access. You also have patches that are designed from build to be gas axed out for access. Montrose recently had a double DG Change. The upper deck patch had to be gas axed and the ones below that are all unbolted. Back in the day on T22 you had Macgreggor hatches. Big hydraulic doors in the deck that you could open, deck by deck. You could crane material into the machinery rooms directly from the dockside. Great for access but they sometimes leaked water and there where issues with the frame work… Read more »
I’m sure the RN will be crossing its fingers and hoping she doesn’t crap herself again, and especially in the middle of the Indian or Pacific Oceans.
Might be worth renting one of those Russian tugs their navy uses to shadow their ships hey?
HMS Defender appears to have conducted herself without issue.
Well I suppose one out of two ain’t bad, 50% is a pass mark, hey?
Cheers,
(PS, I’m just yanking you Poms chain, as an Aussie it’s my duty!).
Your welcome for the Pfizer vaccines by the way !
Hi mate,
Yes I saw the news about that, we’ve done a swap deal with you guys, we get 4 million doses of your allocation now and you get the same amount of our allocation in December.
We did a similar deal with Singapore for half a million Pfizer doses too.
Cheers,
☝
At least we don’t have diesel electric subs on order that each cost the price of two Astute’s!
Mate,
Ohhh, was that an attempted smackdown? Very funny.
Clearly you have no idea what dry sarcastic humour is, calm down, hey?
He’s got a point (unrelated as it may be). Ninety billion for the programme, 3-4 billion per, another 145 billion over the programme’s life?
If these numbers are right then wtf is going on with the Attack class?
There is no doubt the Attack class project is not cheap, not at all, there is no simple cheap off the shelf solution for the requirement of producing a very large, long range and long endurance conventional submarine. But comparing the costs of Astute against Attack is not simple or black and white. Astute class is a 30ish year program that started in the mid 1990s and will finish just after the mid 2020s. The Attack class project is also a 30ish year project, underway now and not due to complete until the early 2050s. The oft quoted A$89b is… Read more »
Thanks but you are doing us too much credit. It was one out of six, nowhere near the pass mark. Once Diamond headed into Taranto Defender was the only T45 fit for sea let alone at sea.
As Gunbuster pointed out before if it was a gas turbine issue the ship still has enough redundancy to fully operate it’s just not worth the risk of something else going wrong. If the issue was something else Diamond still went into Taranto under her own power.
After seeing HMS Diamond trying to sneak back to the Carrier Strike group after her breakdown in the Med it should have focused the people responsible for the T45 calamity that a permanent fix is needed right away not in a few years’ time. The T45s on paper should be an outstanding class of vessel but in reality, are under armed, under powered and Prone to breakdowns. If we are to continue to deploy the T45 around the world then these faults must be fixed ASAP and as they are our only Destroyer class, they need to be fitted out… Read more »