What is the status of the Type 45 Destroyer engine repairs?

Balanced!! The Guardian is well known left of centre newspaper. Its about as balanced as the Daily Express. You’re right every paper has its agenda.

In general I think it is Balanced reporting. Yes it is Centre Left, but that is pretty close to centre. The Express is clearly quite a far right leaning paper and reports on sightings of aliens! The Telegraph is also a far right paper that prints so many lies regarding Climate Change that it is ridiculous. I have so far not seen many articles in the Guardian that are not true… It even posted an article supporting Michael Gove the other week. Even the traditional right wing press struggles to support that maniac!

The Opinion Pieces are generally utter rubbish, if not harmful.

But their reporting is top notch, and they are pretty much the only ‘free’ (as in freedom) major news outlet left. All the rest have either been bought out, are at the whim of the government (BBC, Channel 4), or too small. And no, Private Eye doesn’t count as while they do a stellar job, they are small and always a degree of satire.

That’s a matter if perspective, they reported on NZ success on containing Covid and compared it to the UK. Whilst I don’t want to get into an argument on UKs Covid response comparing us to NZ is is not credible reporting. London population dwarfs NZ and in fact a population larger than the Auckland commute into London daily. The only motivation for this kind of reporting is a vague attempt to say the Labour government in NZ is doing a great job and the Tories aren’t. The problem us those with an IQ of 3 or higher see straight though it so it becomes irrelevant.

The Daily Express is well known for printing complete and utter rubbish.

I tend to disagree. The Guardian is very biased and not in the slightest open to contrary opinions. You should read the story of how Melanie Phillips was hounded out of the place as she slowly changed in her outlook on life and political leanings. The only aspects of their reporting I like are the science pages and overseas news.

The Telegraph can be a bit myopic, with a glaring focus on the home counties and super rich but the idea it runs “climate denial” stories daily is hyperbole.

I don’t like the term, for instance “Climate denial” its violent and used to marginalise people and shut down debate – as someone darkly pointed out, Komment Macht Frei. One can then throw that phrase about to simply isolate people and stop discussion on any topic the protagonist likes.

I’m sorry for sounding so stroppy but I do find Guardian readers, and the Guardian generally, a bit difficult. They tend to demand people “be kind” but then crucify those they disagree with and yet manage to justify their hypocritical behaviours because their victims are “climate deniers” or whatever pejorative term suits their preconceptions. I find this a deeply corrosive way to live and breeds mistrust between people.

I tend to read both the Independent and the Telegraph – for somewhere between these points rests the truth.

Climate Change Denial is a perfectly fine term for those that disregard facts regarding climate change. It is not in the slightest bit violent!

It is certainly not used to shut down debate. It is used to shut down lies and misinformation. Lies and misinformation should not be used in any debate. If you want to debate climate change based on actual real factual evidence then that is fine. If you want to use information taken out of context or use doctored charts, wildly inaccurate assumptions etc then that is Climate Change Denial…

Perception of bias depends totally on the beholder’s standpoint. If you set aside the tabloid rags which are usually simply factually wrong, the left leaning see the Telegraph as biased, whilst the right leaning see the Guardian as biased. The Times and the late lamented Independent were probably the closest to the centre…..

I agree, the wonderful Times and Independent. Times gets trashed because of its ownership though…..all in all balanced with editorial from both (centre) right and (centre) left

You mean “Facts” such as these I will list?
1966-Oil gone in 10 yrs
1967-Dire famine forecast by 1975
1968-Over population will spread worldwide
1969-Everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam by 1989
1970-Nitrogen build up will make all land unusable
1970-Ice age by 2000
1970-America subject to water rationing by 1974
1971-New Ice age by 2020 or 2030
1972-New Ice age by 2070
1972-Oil depleted by in 20 yrs
1974-Space satellites show new ice age coming fast
1974-Another Ice age
1976-Scientific consensus planet cooling famine coming
1977-Department of energy says oil will peak in the 90s
1978- no end in sight for cooling trend
Do I need to go on???? The list is endless and littered with scientific consensus and “Facts” that turned out to be blatant lies

But thats stuff didn’t stick or your quoting out of context (more likely) , Science definitively evolves, Newton was wrong about Gravity , according to Einstein, but he didn’t lie, it was best description we had for gravity at the time, brilliant, Now we have better one, and even that we know is “wrong” in some circumstances. Science unlike politics moves on.
“1974-Space satellites show new ice age coming fast” space satellites FFS are not exiting without science, try getting that to work using scripture and gut feeling, the earth is still flat according to that.
Cyclical ice ages are a geologically established fact, until we started measuring things more accurately (with satellites and other things) predicting the next one would have seemed fair game for studdy. we move on try to keep up.

Hello, somebody else called Jon. I have a degree in astrophysics and know that it’s all down to the Man in the Moon, and that Venus was only tipped because it gave good service.

All papers are biased, because everyone is biased, and catering to prejudice sells papers. Whatever you think of a newspaper’s accuracy, they all select their facts to fit their bias.

Totally agree its playing to the audience. If the Guardian or DE started publishing articles contrary to their readers views they’d stop selling papers which mean no advertising revenue and redundant reporters.

I’m afraid whatever your opinion on climate change is, this attitude of denigrating someone who doesn’t agree with you is a very dangerous and growing issue.
When I was taught science, our teachers always taught us to challenge and think critically. That’s why we were taught things like separating water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis. Not to be told we were ‘science deniers’, merely people with the capacity for thought and gathering evidence.
Insulting people does not shut down lies and misinformation, it only encourages division.

“one of the more balanced ones to me”

The flag of the United Kingdom should be removed from Athletes at the Olympic games as it is “Divisive”

GCHQ is an enemy. Snowden a hero.

Scrap the armed forces altogether.

Just 3 balanced articles I recall.

The DM and the DE are no doubt equally trash but at least they seem to support their own nation at least.

The Athletics Union Jack piece was indeed trash and stupid. However they have never called for the Armed forces to be scrapped. The article I think you are referring to was an opinion piece (Always a bit rubbish no matter which paper you read) And was actually referring to shaping our defence for the modern world. I disagree with the opinion of the author but it was more to promote discussion than a call for a scrapping of the armed forces.

I believe that supporting your nation includes criticising it when it is wrong and patting it on the back when it is right. Supporting the nation to change in order to make the best nation possible is crucial not something to be deemed as treason. Both attacking everything about the nation not matter what and supporting it no matter what, are not helpful and are not actually being supportive at all.

For instance supporting your children involves both praising them when they do good and telling them off when they do wrong. You end up with either a bunch of chavs or something akin to Rees-Mogg if you just tell them everything they do is fantastic. And no decent person wants their child to grow up like those…

I see lee1 you support cientism besides the destruction of liberal society.
Otherwise you would not call “deniers” so making them at level of holocaust deniers, to other people that things different than you.

you get the right wing equivalent nonsense from the telegraph

“The flag of the United Kingdom should be removed from Athletes at the Olympic games as it is “Divisive”

Nothing to do with government opinions. Its just self loathing and a chip on shoulder about history that cannot be changed or airbrushed. Nor should it.

Marxism is a primitivist ideology – no checks and balances, no separation of powers, no individuality – whose objective is to destroy the liberal society..And that always have been The Guardian objective.

Its because XR and other climate groups are leveraging climate but have a left wing agenda. Although, I do struggle with the terms left and right these days.

Many of Le Pens policies in France are closer to those championed by Labour at the last election. But I guess if you keep going left you end up on the right. 😀

No Fwd thinking there in the planning , and updates when required

Thanks Guns.

I’m getting peed off with predictive txt

Amuses us though Tommo. Tried it once & never used again, never will. My problem is fat fingers-tiny keys & being a night owl, posting early in the morning forgetting to spell check.

I haven’t the problem such as yours but my little problem is that I’m using m yleft arm which is unnatural to me but I’m glad it,has, brought amusement to the cyber world Frank

I’m not sure what you mean?
If you mean that a real attack is unlikely, then there is no point spending the money on the repairs, the ship or indeed a navy.
Its not being prepared and capable of dealing with reasonably foreseeable threats that can get you into serious trouble when you are least prepared for it.

Gfor, your post stated, about Not as scary as Dead in the water, no power missle attacks,and enemy aircraft popping up over the horizon, my reply was Real World or exercise Because the Last time that,happened, was HMS Glasgow 1982 the ship with the Hole I was there but not on Glasgow that was all maybe you had been in Corprate ?

Right Gunbuster Prior preparation, is the key knowing Pusser its Heath Robinson all the way Job done kidding

Piggybacking on this. How different is CAMM to the ASRAAM? If they’re roughly the same could the later be adapted to fire from a RAM style loader? Then they could be paired with the Phalanx’s.

Why RAM?
If you have a VL system you don’t need a trainable launcher.
Trainable launchers add complexity, maintenance and top weight.

Hi GB, looks like my reply hasn’t come through so doing it again. I was thinking more RAM style launchers for the carriers where maybe there’s less of a foreign debris issue. There was at one stage a Seastreak /Starstreak launcher which looked pretty useful. I wonder why this didn’t get up and we’ve just gone with the Phalanx’s? And yes I still harping on about the carriers lack of defensive armament even when there in a CSG environment…Lol 😁

Know what you mean Quentin the old Hermes had Seacat more exhaust than missile . Quad launcher Local or Radar guided god did it burn the paint work

But boy they look the dog’s Bxxxxxks, with 2 drill on the rails when entering harbours in Alpha

CAMM/Sea Ceptor, has a number of differences. Think of it as an ASRAAM Mk2. The main difference is that the primary sensor is an active very high frequency radar, whilst ASRAAM uses an imaging infrared (IIR) sensor. The reason why it is considered a Mk2 version, is that the majority of the internals are different, in that they use more modern componentry, circuit boards etc. ASRAAM will be getting a mid life update. This will include most of the components used in Sea Ceptor, except it will still use an IIR sensor instead of radar. The IIR sensor is also getting updated, where its pixel count is quadrupling over what it has at present.

Radar blind Acrs?

“Is there an option of putting extra Camm silos on the hangar roof?”

What is the point of adding CAMMs to a Type 45? (In fact, what’s the point of fitting CAMM to ANY ship?)

For starters, CAMM AFAIK has only been tested against a subsonic Mirach drone. And I have no idea how stringent (or not) the testing was.

Secondly, if you want to take out subsonic missiles then a modern CIWS and/or 76mm or 57mm gun could perform that job far cheaper and such guns have good magazine depth.

Thirdly, if you ARE going to fit CAMMs to T45s, then at least quad-pack them in Sylver or Mk41 cells.

Fourthly, what T45s really need are SM-3 and SM-6 missiles. Aster 30 Block 1NT is another option. T45s are meant to be dedicated AAW ships after all.

Hi Gunbuster,

Ah, yet another helpful and informative post. This is the first I have read of software upgrades, unless me memory is letting me down [again]. I was wondering how the RN had managed to get the T45’s to be level of availability they have been achieving in recent years.

Thanks again

CR

Thx for clarifying this issue. Very helpful post.

Today is Thursday?

Yup, my bad ! Not getting much sleep at the moment with a new pup. First steel being cut today (Thursday).

I was wondering if the program was slipping before it had started!!

Let’s hope it goes well and T31 proves to be a great platform delivered to budget.

If it is then I can see the fleet growing.

“I was wondering if the program was slipping before it had started!!”

😂 No mate, me just being a bit stunnned.

I’m with you on getting these out on budget (and time), they may not be the vessel’s that we fantasise over but this is what we’re getting.

Hopefully all is tightly agreed, but I wouldnt be surprised if there are additional costs that were not properly defined in the contract and the ships end up being much more expensive than planned.

We’ll see eh ? My understanding is that the £250M is before they’re fitted out etc so the final cost will be more but Babcock are working to a prearranged budget. Its a novel way of doing it, at least for the MOD so while I get (and share) your cynicism I’m in the ‘wait and see’ camp, at least for now.

The point was to keep it a pretty austere and well defined fit.

Leaving plenty of space/power etc for other systems to be fitted later. It will have space for canister launched and should have a slot for a Mk41 VLS unless the hull space was reassigned as the Danish version has a VLS fitted.

Keep it simple = well understood = on budget.

Yeah agreed, in theory it sounds like a great approach, but until they are actually in service for a year or two, we won’t really know how it plays out in practice. Just a shame it took ordering massively cut down capability wise ships to get it right.

“Just a shame it took ordering massively cut down capability wise ships to get it right.”

It probably makes sense to try this new approach with less expensive units. Its also a second production line effectively so not all the eggs in one basket. If it all goes to rat shit then the T26’s will still be rolling off the line in the Weedge. I think both Babcock and the MOD have got a lot sweating on this, Babcock get back into building warships, and in decent numbers with the T32’s to follow and the MOD to get cheaper warships if this new approach works.

Yeh, saw it thx; the perils of being at the bleeding edge I suppose.

With that level of redundancy the modded Type 46s could potentially be the most reliable in terms of power availability…
enough to spare for a laser perhaps? 😏

I wouldn’t say that, as the Babcock representative kept referring to the model as the Type 31 as well as the Arrowhead. Jumping to conclusions maybe, but it shows what the T31 may look like after its been delivered – fingers crossed. Funny howe this model doesn’t show the two DS30s mounted either side of the Bofors 40mm (ala T26), that was shown on their presentation?

Type 31 isn’t getting any DS30s

To qualify as ‘totally invalid’, Babcock ought not to have I.D.’d the vessel as T31 on the flight deck; in addition to fitting it out in virtually all other respects, apart from the 24/8 fitment at this juncture, as a T31.

Hello Meirion, If it was anouther issue why was personnel from BAE systems and Rolls Royce sent to the ship and were waiting for part for a WR21 to be sent out. The WR21 is the industrial name for the Gas turbine which powers the T45’s. HMS Diamond was able to travel across the Med under her own steam as the crew was able to shut down the main engines before they tripped out so the auxiliary generators were able to take over but at a much reduced out put so a lot of the ships systems had to be shut down.
As I said above these issues came to light on the 1st of class trials back in 2008/9 so the rest of the class should have been modified before completion, the fact that they were allowed to be completed knowing this fault existed borders on criminal intent as it puts service personnel into a situation were they are expected to go into harms way in a faulty ship that cannot perform under full power.
The MoD has been “penny pinching” for most of its existence but when the bean counters are sent to the front line and told to use the equipment that they them selves have insisted the RN/Army/RAF have to use then maybe we will see some real changes.

Again, there is a fair amount of supposition in your response. A GT issue it may be, but that does not mean it was the same issue. Whilst running just on diesel is of course possible, do you have evidence that both WR-21s were impacted?

Hello Peter
It is fact that the T45’s were delivered into service with faulty engines.

It is a fact that if the problem was rectified on the slips we would not have a class of faulty Destroyer’s.

It is a fact that it has taken 13 years to start to rectify the problem.(approximately half of the serviceable life expected from the class)

It is a fact that the T45’s are supposed to be our number one air defence system for the CSG and ASG so are a critical part of the fleet.

It is also a fact that the T45’s were originally designed to carry Tomahawk and anti ballistic missile weapons and the original build was for 12 vessels not 6.

It is also a fact that over the past 13 years the T45’s have spent more time tied up along side than they have at sea so were unable to carry out their fleet protection duties.

More recently,
It is a fact that personnel from BAE and Rolls Royce were sent to HMS Diamond in Taranto but were unable to fix the problem for 6 weeks as they were waiting for a particular part for a WR21 which had to be specially manufactured as there are no spear WR21s held in reserve. The WR21 is designed to be taken out with relative ease but if the MoD dose not stock replacement engines then the faulty part has to be manufactured instead of just swopping out the engine which would then be sent to be reconditioned.

So the supposition element is hoping the MoD can get these over priced, under armed and underpowered vessels working the way they are supposed to work and not put RN personnel at risk knowing that each time these vessels go to sea there is a high probability of them braking down.

Hi Steven. There is a lot that went wrong on the T45 propulsion design, but as I think you are saying, the latest issue does not appear to be related.
Not sure this will help you, but the issue was seen prior to Daring going to sea, it was seen in a test bed. The government of the time decision was to proceed, and effectively gamble it could be resolved in service. It turned out worse than expected, but not as bad as the media would have you believe. Further, whilst in-service fixes have dramatically improved things, there is still a lack of confidence, hence the diesel generator upgrades.
Undoubtedly, engineering issues have impacted availability, particularly on Dauntless and Diamond. (Which in her early years was very reliable, completing a number of gulf patrols.) In fact until circa 2015 when the deployment cycles were changed,(from around 2011) a T45 was almost always deployed to the gulf.
However, the main concerns on availability, are I think around man power. Dauntless and later Daring (plus Lancaster, Iron Duke, Portland and Monmouth) were taken out of service to improve ship shore ratios and to support the generation of carrier crews. Defender, Dragon and Duncan have put in a fair shift over the years, as did Diamond, stand fast the recent issue and her shaft problem that caused an early end to a gulf deployment. So availability is a bit more complex the the propulsion issues.
T45 are fine vessels, with lingering propulsion issues. In a AAW role they are world class. Other systems would be desirable of course, but that would require increased spending, or compromise elsewhere in the defence budget.
So plenty for the MOD / RN to do, but not nearly as bleak as some think.

Hello Peter
I agree that the T45s are an outstanding AAW platform but due to its propulsion issues it has made the RN in the eyes of our would be opponents (Russia, China, Iran, N. Korea) a laughing stock and given them a propaganda gift as every time they (one of the T45s) goes to sea they are followed by the press waiting for a breakdown then when (not if) it happens it is in the media in every country which makes the RN look like they are going to sea in 3rd rate equipment not fit for purpose.
My original statement was about accountability, who gave the go-ahead to complete the class without any modification to the propulsion despite knowing it was faulty after the 1st of class trials. As these people/person should themselves be held accountable to face the music not hide behind layers of bureaucracy.
The damage to the credibility of the RN done by these avoidable breakdowns can be directly attributed to the person/people who made that fateful decision.

Is there someone sitting in the background ready to make similar decisions about the T26s/T31s/T32s.
Look at what the Chinese and Russians are bringing on line, cost affective ships well armed and with a reliable turn of speed and to rub salt into the wound they are cheap because they order a shed load at a time with construction done in 3 to 4 years per unit not 10 year per unit with only a handful per class of vessel.

We can save money by building more vessels per class and quicker, no more that 5 years / unit, as they do in Europe and the USA.
With the money saved we could then have more personnel to keep the vessels at sea longer along with a full inventory of parts for when things brake down.