AOR Replacement & the Joint Support Ship (Merged Threads)

[STONEY]

After reading this thread for awhile i thought i'd chuck in a few points to ponder that & that people should add to their reasoning.
1. The high speed cats for transport as sugested by Kirkhill.  Their hulls are made of aluminum and hence pretty usless in ice. Their propulsion system is water-jet  which involves sucking in great quantities of water & spewing it out the back once again useless in ice.
Their much touted high speed also is a great advantage in calm water but falls off rapidly in rough water and the ride is somewhat like being in a airliner in severe turbulance and have to remain in your seat strapped in with a seat belt .
2. The JSS is first of all a tanker ,and as such, under new international regulations soon to come in force, are required to have a double hull for safety (one reason besides age we are replacing the AOR"S) .  Some of the ships suggested in this thread to be aquired for our Navys RAS requirement do not have double hulls hence do not meet our needs. Also ,as a tanker it has very strict rules where any open flame is allowed because fuel fumes go Boom hence putting air defence missils all over them with flames shooting out of them when they launch may not be a good idea. The British Navy is having to get rid of several tankers not because of their age but because they don't have double hulls. The double hull requirement may also be a factor in not having a floodable well deck in JSS and to opt for a stern ramp & mexifloat system.
3. The LPD17 saga is still ongoing earlier reports of cost overruns were just the tip of the iceburg and the cost for the first of class is now well over a billion although subsequent ships of the class may well be cheaper. She has just recently been reluctantly accepted from the builder with a long list of defects & shoddy work that will cost still more to rectify. Still this is to be expected with a first of class.
4. The Brits are in the process of aquiring new Carriers and they are too large to be built  in any one shipyard in Britain so they are going to build them in 4 or 5 different yards in mega building blocks then join them together at another location. So the discussion weather Canadian yards are large enough are moot .  Case in point the Hibernia oil platform which is a huge structure was put together in a bay in NFLD. 

 

[Kirkhill]

Interesting Stoney:

Just a point on the cats - I wasn't suggesting that the cats would be functional in Northern waters.  It may have been in another thread but I recall asking if we need to be tied to two identical fleets on the east and west coasts.  The west coast is suited to a different range of vessels than the east coast.  Some vessel requirements overlap.  At the same time the different environments offer opportunities for different vessels to operate.  Icebreakers are more suited to east coast operations.  Cats and Fast Patrol Vessels could find employment on the west coast.

This wider range of available platforms and competencies could put Canada in a position to contribute more broadly internationally.

WRT SAMs on Tankers - point taken.

Cheers.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Also ,as a tanker it has very strict rules where any open flame is allowed because fuel fumes go Boom hence putting air defence missils all over them with flames shooting out of them when they launch may not be a good idea.

I think I mentioned that before as well.

 

[cobbler]

Problem with fastcats is they are fuel guzzlers, and they outrun all of their escort and support vessels.

HMAS Jervis Bay did some really good work in the Timor situation, but we found we had to string frigates and destroyers all along her route with each excort handing off responsibility to the next ship along the line.
Escort was vital with all those Indonesian aircraft, ships and submarines about with unknown intentions, we did do it, but if the destination was further away than timor It might not have been possible to cover the Jervis Bay's journey.

 

[Allen]

I'm surprised nobody has commented on this yet:

http://www.news.gc.ca/cfmx/view/en/index.jsp?articleid=258089

This means the teams headed by Irving & BAE are now out of the running.

I don't know the BAE JSS site (if any), but here is the Irving (JSS Canada) site: http://www.jsscanada.com/

The 2 finalists: - Thyssen-Krupp (CANAMP)  http://www.canamp.ca/ (Site seems to currently be down)

                      - SNC-Lavalin (Team JSS) http://team_jss.snc-lavalin.com/

So this means the ships will either be built by WMG in B.C., or Kiewit in Nfld.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

It's a pretty bad sign when you're two finalists can't even keep a website up & running....


M.  :

 

[ringo]

Royal Schelde is part of SNC they are currently involed with a very similiar ship for the Neterlands, I give SNC a slight edge.

 

[Navy_Blue]

So Irving is not in this??

Kind of pleasantly surprised.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

That's too bad I was hoping Irving would be building them in Halifax so we could watch them in the progress.
It sure would be a shot in the arm for NFLD though if they got it. ;D

 

[Navy_Blue]

After seeing who was selected and seeing their sites info I'm really excited.  I'm hopping Shield gets it just because they have been building on the same hulls for awhile now and they seem keen on Pod drives for propulsion.  Being an electrician means the boat will be more focused on our trade.  Not to mention the savings in space you have cutting out shafts and gearboxes and the equipment supporting that gear.  I would really like to be on the commissioning crew but with it being built (possibly) out west that would be a long haul to pic up and move the family.  Still the two teams that were picked were the most worthy. 

Irving must have pi$$ed in someones coffee cup up in Ottawa to get passed over for this though.

 

[Sub_Guy]

I find it odd that irving got dropped, I will honestly say that I never gave the west coast shipyard a chance.  I just figured that some place out east would get it (I know that NFLD is still in the hunt)

Anyway I suspect that Irving will benefit from other projects... (FELEX and potential Ice Breaker?) 


I am pulling for the west coast bid as they seem to have some good experience behind them

 

[FSTO]

Very glad Washington Marine Group is in the running. They did a bang up job on the ORCA's and I am sure that they have done this job well to put them in good stead for the JSS.

 

[Torlyn]

It would be nice to see them rolling off out here...  Fingers crossed for WMG.

T

 

[stfx_monty]

Pure speculation, but I wonder if the lack of Canadian content for the Thyssen-Krupp build gives an edge to WMG. I honestly expected Irving and WMG to go head to head.

I'd love to know why Irving wasn't chosen.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I am dancing a jig (and I am not alone in my trade) to see that Iriving will not get their mucky paws on this project.  I have had enough of living with a ship that has had it's two previous refits by these folks.  (To be fair, some of the fault lies with the bean counters who nixed some of the needed repair requests in out last outing)  But, we spent quite an amount of unecesseary effort/money correcting things that had been "refit".  As a sailor and taxpayer I am steamed.  Imagine if you will that you have taken your family vehicle to find it needs extensive repair work, you cannot afford to get it all done and have to settle for a lessor job.  It would be, and is adding insult to injury to find that some of what you had to settle with has been botched as well.

I agree with In Hoc from the stand point that it would have been interesting to see the girls take shape from day to day, but as I am a potential end user I am glad it will not come to pass.  At any rate I will be interested to see the reasoning behind the decisions that are made when they are released for public comsumption.  Either coast is fine as long as the company who gets the nod is not a bunch of fids.

 

[STONEY]

Carefull what you wish for .  How many ships have ever been built in NFLD let anone warships. Fishing vessels yes , tugs & supply vessels but no ships let alone a vessel the size of JSS.  How many of the Navy's current fleet were built on the west coast, None. The last vessels built on the west coast of note were BC Ferry's Superferrys which were world class disasters and had to be sold at a great loss. While IRVING may not be everyone's favorite, remember they built the bulk of the present fleet including both present AOR's and they are still going after over 30 years of hard service. The 2 remaining groups will have a steep learning curve as they have no experience in Naval construction in Canada and this could cause delays & cost overuns. Maybe the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

Cheers

 

[Gus]

Interesting stuff.  Funny thing about WMG, they have shipyards, but don't build large ships here; they have focussed on small-build, large-repair.  For the BC ferries latest large ships, they noted that the contracts went overseas (Germany), but they could have built them, but in their own literature it came out that they wouldn't have built them, they would have assembled them -- huge difference.  The hull sections would most likely have been built overseas (china? s. korea?). 

I think, however, we could take a lesson from the Australians.  They don't have a large shipbuilding industry, so they buy overseas, and retrofit.  Canada used to have a viable, well running, large-ship building industry, but not anymore.  The whole "must buy in Canada" can force us away from already proven hulls, in already proven shipyards (there is a micro-economic argument as well about the cost of keeping "home" industry alive, vs going overseas, and in micro-economics the model (albeit simplified) usually points towards it being more expensive to keep "dying" industries alive.

Nonetheless, not so bad. 

 

[FSTO]

The fast ferries were a political project by the NDP and to compound the mistake they were put on the wrong route. The ferries were well buillt, also many of the steamers were built on the west coast but the men who built them are long dead.
WMG has the capability to build the AOR's out on the coast.

Australia does not retrofit. They purchase the building rights, but they manufacture in Australia.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

The fast ferries were a political project by the NDP and to compound the mistake they were put on the wrong route. The ferries were well buillt, also many of the steamers were built on the west coast but the men who built them are long dead.
WMG has the capability to build the AOR's out on the coast.

Australia does not retrofit. They purchase the building rights, but they manufacture in Australia.

At one time if I remember rightly there was a thought or a contingency paper floating around to see if those Fast Ferries would work for us as ships to ferry troops and equipment. What ever became of that idea? Is that ferry suitable for blue ocean work?

 

[Allen]

Yes, Australia builds locally, with heavy support from the designer.

Hopefully, the experience & guidance of the foreign design companies can help to offset the lack of experience of the Canadian builders. Flensburger has designed & built Ro-Ro ships and German Navy AOR's. On the other team, Schelde has designed & built LPD's & AOR's for the Dutch navy. A JSS-type ship for the Dutch Navy is also planned.

I read a Canadian Defense Review article that said that Flensburger plans to expand Kiewit's Cow's Head, Nfld. shipyard to a level that can build the JSS. Apparently they have built similar shipyards with Thyssen in the past.