Our Navy fit for the 21st century.

How long before the description below comes true?

The Royal Navy is proud of its new fleet of Type 45 destroyers.
Having initially named the first two ships HMS Daring and HMS Dauntless.

The Naming Committee has, after intensive pressure from EU headquarters in Brussels, renamed them HMS Cautious and HMS Prudence.

The next five ships are to be named
HMS Empathy,
HMS Circumspect,
HMS Nervous,
HMS Timorous
and
HMS Apologist.

Costing £850 million each, they meet the needs of the 21st century and comply with the very latest employment, equality, health & safety and human rights laws.  The new user-friendly crow's nest comes equipped with wheelchair access.

Live ammunition has been replaced with paintballs to reduce the risk of anyone getting hurt and to cut down on the number of compensation claims.

Stress counsellors and lawyers will be on duty 24hrs a day and each ship will have its on-board industrial tribunal.

The crew will be 50/50 men and women, and balanced in accordance with the latest Home Office directives on race, gender, sexuality and disability.

Sailors will only have to work a maximum of 37hrs per week in line with Brussels Health & Safety rules, even in wartime!

All the vessels will come equipped with a maternity ward and nursery, situated on the same deck as the Gay Disco.

Tobacco will be banned throughout the ship, but cannabis will be allowed in.

Also out has gone the occasional rum ration which is to be replaced by sparkling water.*

Condoms can be obtained from the Boatswain in a variety of flavours.

Saluting officers has been abolished because it is deemed elitist and is to be replaced by the more informal "Hello Sailor".

All information on notices boards will be printed in 37 different languages and Braille.

Crew members will now no longer be required to ask permission to grow beards or moustaches - this applies equally to women crew members.

The MoD is working on a new "non-specific" flag because the White Ensign is considered to be offensive to minorities.
The Union Flag has already been discarded.

The newly re-named HMS Cautious is due to be commissioned soon in a ceremony conducted by Captain Hook from the Finsbury Park Mosque who will break a petrol bomb over the hull.
She will gently slide into the water as the Royal Marines Band plays "In the Navy" by the Village People.

Her first deployment will be to escort boat loads of illegal
immigrants across the channel to ports on England's south coast.

The Prime Minister said, "While these ships reflect the very latest in modern thinking, they are also capable of being up-graded to comply with any new legislation coming out of Brussels."

His final words were, "Britannia waives the rules.

*The start of the slippery slope.

An Oldie in film

 

Now there are a couple of things wrong with this.

Firstly, the warship in the clip is a British type 42 destroyer, Note the Large bedstead radar, the for’d ray dome, The two Scot communication domes, and last but not least, the Mk8 4.5” gun mount on the pointy bit (Bow).

Secondly, I’ll let you tell me.

Worrying

This video dates back from April. It shows the British Type 23 Frigate, Iron Duke, firing warning shots near an Iranian speed boat in the Gulf as it turned to close the frigate. One day soon there could be a serious incident.

 

The shots were fired  probably from a GPMG and not the Mk 48 mini gun pictured. These events are becoming more prevalent.

H/T to Stormbringer

Good does not mean expensive.

In relation to my last post about the expensive MRA4 debacle, I cannot understand why we always seem to go for expensive weapons systems suited for the cold war, that has been over for some time.

Now I was at sea for a considerable number of years and saw a tendency for the ordering  of very expensive high tech warships but few in number. The problem as I see it, is that those ships cannot patrol all our vested interests. To give you an example we had one Frigate/Destroyer and a support Tanker in the Caribbean undergoing counter drug operations, disaster relief, and protection for our Dependencies. We had another small warship in the Falklands along with a support tanker.

Now we have one minor war vessel in the Falklands, most of the time no warship in the Caribbean, and one support tanker trying to cover both areas.

In the past after the Falklands conflict we normally had a Type 21 Frigate and a cheap and cheerful Rover class tanker in each area of operation.

This gets me to  the point I would like to make. Why don’t we either build/buy some cheap and cheerful frigates armed with a gun on the front, a point defence missile system, and a reasonable anti submarine detection system.

Another idea would be to build more “Wave Class” Auxiliary Oilers (AO) which have proved themselves in the Caribbean by the very fact that with their fuel capacity, their facility to carry a Law Enforcement Detachment  Team from the US coastguard, Helicopter, weapons, etc, they have become a range extender for the coalition in the fight against drugs. (Incidentally I was on an AO out in the Caribbean, where we intercepted 32 Tonnes of Cocaine being shipped to Europe). Present armament Two 30mm powered mounts, two Mk 48 miniguns, and five GPMGs. Plus active decoy systems, ECM, and ESM. Plus the provision to fit CIWS phalanx.

Pic is of a minigun.

Armament could be enhanced by buying something like THIS. That would be quite sufficient.

Lets think numbers, rather mine’s bigger than yours.

And don’t get me started on Eurofighter Typhoon.

Marine Engineering 101, Part 2

The saga continues.

Glossary:

FE.......................Filthy Engineer (Me)
Bow....................Pointy bit at the front end of the ship.
Stern..................Blunt bit at the back of the ship.
Poop Deck.........At the back, and the only place to have a fag.
MCR...................Machinery Control Room.
HQ1....................Part of the MCR where firefighting and DC incidents are controlled from
DC.......................Damage control.
R.O. Plant..........Magical fresh water making equipment.
Down below.......Nautical term for Downstairs.
Up Top...............Nautical term for upstairs.
Smokoe..............Strange name meaning Tea break.
Bilge....................A sort of drain trap for fluids.
UMS....................Unmanned space.
OIC......................Officer in charge
BA........................Breathing Apparatus
FRPP...................Fire and repair party post.

Well we had got to 1630 hadn't we?

1630. Fire detection alarm starts sounding throughout the vessel. (Vessel is another name for a ship). It's the weekly exercise.

FE heads rapidly to the FRPP, it looks bad if the OIC is the last to arrive, when he is probably the head of all matters dedicated to firefighting and damage control. (HQ1 would disagree).

First job is to commence a muster of personnel, in order to ensure that no-one is missing. Not as easy as it may appear, most seaman are loud except when they are being mustered, then they seem to lose their voices.

The FRPP consists of about 20 persons and all have been allocated various tasks by the FE. OIC(FE), 2IC, Incident board marker, Communications number, Two 5 man BA teams complete with control number, and a few spares. (The glossary in case you've forgotten)

(if you're bored, please feel free to leave, unfortunately onboard ship we can't leave)(I saw you sneaking out Mummylonglegs)**

By this time the location of the pretend fire has been broadcast over the ship's system and the incident board marker is doodling on his incident board for me to peruse.

First rule of shipboard firefighting is to send the first two BA men dressed to the scene to assist those who are initially attacking the fire. This strategy is called an aggressive rolling attack. It's accepted doctrine that if you cannot control the incident within 8 minutes from the start, then you are completely f*ck*d. Then you send the rest who hopefully put the fire out.

One of the biggest problems with the above is the amount of equipment that the teams have to don. Firesuit, boots, BA, thermal imaging camera for the team leader ( we have more on this one ship than most county fire brigades have), wedge for propping opening doors, torches, Helmets with built in communications. All this has to be checked before FE can release the teams into the wild. It gets very close to the 8 minutes.

The worst part of it all, is that once I have despatched the teams, is the thought, did I send them fully briefed, equipped, and have I sufficiently trained them? Being the OIC is a shit place to be.

For the sake of brevity, this exercise went well. We train hard as in the worst case scenario we have a major fire, in force 10 weather. Where do we go? A lifeboat in those conditions is suicide.

"Bump in the night" will be resumed in part three "FE the movie"

** Shameless plug.

Marine Engineering 101

You may or may not have read a previous post, where I jokingly described part of my day as a marine engineer.

I'll now tell you the true tale

Glossary:


FE.......................Filthy Engineer (Me)
Bow....................Pointy bit at the front end of the ship.
Stern..................Blunt bit at the back of the ship.
Poop Deck.........At the back, and the only place to have a fag.
MCR...................Machinery Control Room.
HQ1....................Part of the MCR where firefighting and DC incidents are controlled from
DC.......................Damage control.
R.O. Plant..........Magical fresh water making equipment.
Down below.......Nautical term for Downstairs.
Up Top...............Nautical term for upstairs.
Smokoe..............Strange name meaning Tea break.
Bilge....................A sort of drain trap for fluids.
UMS....................Unmanned space.

0645. Alarm goes of and theFilthy Engineer leaps out of bed. (That bit was utter twaddle).

0700. Make a cup of tea.

0715. Down to the poop deck for a fag or two.

All true so far

0745. Down below to the MCR to get ahead by accessing the planned maintenance programme.

0800. Bugger, I'm duty Engineer today.

0815. Handover from yesterday's duty Engineer complete.
a) One of my diesel generators had to be shut down during the night as the intercooler was about to fall off.
b) The running RO plant also stopped mysteriously.

0830. Off for a fag

0832. Start of a set of rounds. This consists of going to all spaces on the ship that contains machinery, and believe you me, that is a lot of distance to cover. I'll just give you a small sample of typical spaces.



Steering gear compartment.
Main machinery space.
Port generator room. (Port is left when looking towards the bow)
Starboard generator room.
Shaft tunnel.
Refrigeration machinery room.
Air conditioning machinery room.
cargo pump room.
Forward pumproom.
Forward stabiliser compartment

etc, etc.

When you consider the vessel is 350 ft long and ten stories high, then you may appreciate how long this can take. About an hour and a half if you don't find anything wrong.

1000. Smokoe at last. Time for a cuppa and a fag.

1005. Pager goes off. Dash to the MCR, look at the alarm panel and note that the fuel pressure to the Port main engine is low.

1015 Finished changing over the fuel filter, old cartridge in the ultra sonic cleaning plant.

1030. Down to the RO plant to see why it stopped. Ah Ha, the SW supply pump has seized up. However we have no spare, so will have to remove the one off the other RO plant, ( That plant doesn't work as a pipe has split and we are awaiting a new one.) and fit it.


1300. Finished changing pumps over and the RO plant is at last making water. What no lunch you say? An engineer's life. At least it keeps me slim.

1310. Commence paperwork that should have been done before lunch. (Yes even marine engineers have paperwork)

1400. Pump out the bilges.(See glossary if you haven't already done so)

1430. commence afternoon rounds. Quick cuppa and a fag first.

1630. Completed afternoon rounds.




End of part one.

Next episode: "What went bump in the night"

Homeward Bound

The time has come to set off for the shores of the UK. Since I last posted we have sailed over the Indian Ocean, through the Bay of bengal, transitted the Straits of mallacca and out into the South China sea. Was it worth it you might ask?

No it was bloody hard work with endless days at sea, sometimes going around in circles as dictated by the Task group Commander, an utter waste of time. All to show the flag to our old colonies, whom I suspect, didn't give a damn whether we were there or not.

To describe how the mighty are fallen, we berthed on one of three berths in Singapore that are leased for the Brits, Yanks, Aussies, and NZ navies in Sembawang. When I first joined a ship in this, that was a premier NAVAL base, we OWNED all of it. We had at least thirty ships stationed there. At the rate our politicians are going, we will be lucky to have thirty ships in our entire navy.

Still, why should I care, I'm retiring after this trip?

But I do.