Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship AOPS

[TangoTwoBravo]

I noticed an AOPS was participating in a RIMPAC. Can you fill me in, if this is most likely a coastal domestic defence ship, what role would it play in a large mixed fleet RIMPAC scenario?

Just to add to Stoker’s response, RIMPAC has a HADR (Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief) portion for which an AOPS would be a good fit.

The AOPS was part of that portion this year.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Honestly I would have preferred a bigger gun if anything to silence the incessant whining from those who think the size of a gun is the ships worth.

I am a big fan of the AOP's and all it's capabilities, but I will continue to incessantly whine about the choice made in armament. I know that it is completely unreasonable that the public thinks that a navy ship should be armed.

 

[Fabius]

HMCS Max Bernays departed CFB Esquimalt on June 18, 2024 on their way to participate in RIMPAC 2024. She will support a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) mission with two special embarked medical teams for an advanced resuscitation and surgical capability.

Are the ships outfitted with surgical equipment and wards etc. and they just carry personnel as needed or did the Medical team need to bring all the equipment and set up in a flex bay type space?
If the ships can offer forward surgical trauma care for 6-10 pers that’s actually fairly useful as a R2 enhanced joint capability.

 

[Stoker]

Are the ships outfitted with surgical equipment and wards etc. and they just carry personnel as needed or did the Medical team need to bring all the equipment and set up in a flex bay type space?
If the ships can offer forward surgical trauma care for 6-10 pers that’s actually fairly useful as a R2 enhanced joint capability.

 

[lenaitch]

With a lot of work, workarounds, risk assessments, briefings etc they also finally got a temporary air cert to do some very basic cross deck helo work.

Still a lot of fixes left before will ever get full air cert for unrestricted flight deck, let alone embarked helo but at least it's a start.

Optimistic LL there will also make JSS easier, but some of the FD related design choices there are somewhat odd, so will see.

For the uninitiated - such as I - what is the problem with the flight ops capability of the AOPS? One would think with a new build, certification would be baked into the design. Did modification change things? Were public statements overly optimistic? Did government bean counters make changes?

 

[SeaKingTacco]

For the uninitiated - such as I - what is the problem with the flight ops capability of the AOPS? One would think with a new build, certification would be baked into the design. Did modification change things? Were public statements overly optimistic? Did government bean counters make changes?

There is theory, when you design and build something.

Then there is the real world, where you put a live helicopter over and on the deck to certify that all the things the designers modelled are true. This is called “Ship Helo Operational Limitation” (or SHOL) Trials. It is a required step in the Airworthiness Process for the ship/class to receive it’s air certification.

And then there will be the dozens/hundreds of processes to be written and amended into SHOPs/SSOs FMAOIs and the SMM for how actually do everything from traversing the helo in/out of the hangar to lashing it down to reacting to a crash on deck.

 

[lenaitch]

There is theory, when you design and build something.

Then there is the real world, where you put a live helicopter over and on the deck to certify that all the things the designers modelled are true. This is called “Ship Helo Operational Limitation” (or SHOL) Trials. It is a required step in the Airworthiness Process for the ship/class to receive it’s air certification.

And then there will be the dozens/hundreds of processes to be written and amended into SHOPs/SSOs FMAOIs and the SMM for how actually do everything from traversing the helo in/out of the hangar to lashing it down to reacting to a crash on deck.

Thanks. Did the CPFs or any of our other earlier helo-bearing ships have this issue? I get that the design has to undergo real world trials, but this seems somewhat lengthy and, in the minds of some I have heard, a somewhat uncertain outcome. We're at three years for HDW.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Thanks. Did the CPFs or any of our other earlier helo-bearing ships have this issue? I get that the design has to undergo real world trials, but this seems somewhat lengthy and, in the minds of some I have heard, a somewhat uncertain outcome. We're at three years for HDW.

There are always surprises.

There is only one crew (less than that, actually) at AETE that can do the trials…and we are doing multiple things nearly at once by introducing a new helicopter, two new tanker classes (Asterix and JSS), AOPs and the River Class.

 

[Baz]

Were you part of Nipigon’s Air Det? I was a subbie OOW on that trip.

I was. I had been moved to Nipigon as part of the turnover after 12423 ditched. I met my ex-wife in Liverpool…

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Lenaitch: Those helo certifications are absolutely essential before you can routinely take on an Air Det. They define all the operations limits beyond which no flight ops are permissible. They become the bible that the more junior Air Det commander can use to resist pressure by ship's CO's to operate beyond as they are a superseding order that originate above a ship's CO pay grade. They are the final authority over exactly what and how the Air Det will perform. Otherwise, CO's would be making calls they are not qualified to make on the basis of knowledge they lack.

 

[dapaterson]

aka NWOs gonna NWO

 

[Czech_pivo]

Honestly I would have preferred a bigger gun if anything to silence the incessant whining from those who think the size of a gun is the ships worth.

At this point in the game, I'd rather see a weapons system added that can deal with a drone(s) coming from the air.

 

[Navy_Pete]

There is theory, when you design and build something.

Then there is the real world, where you put a live helicopter over and on the deck to certify that all the things the designers modelled are true. This is called “Ship Helo Operational Limitation” (or SHOL) Trials. It is a required step in the Airworthiness Process for the ship/class to receive it’s air certification.

And then there will be the dozens/hundreds of processes to be written and amended into SHOPs/SSOs FMAOIs and the SMM for how actually do everything from traversing the helo in/out of the hangar to lashing it down to reacting to a crash on deck.

Also all the SOPs (like what to actually do if the helo crashes), figuring out who does what, etc.

Things like 'are the hoses long enough' come up when you actually dry run those.

@lenaitch one big reason this came up 3 years later is because there was laundry list of other things to get through up to this point (main engines not working, lead in water, all kinds of other things that didn't make the news), so this was the first push to do something with a helo, which we knew wasn't helo capable from the SHOL trial, with a list of things that need fixed from that. The support model for the ships is to have the ISSC (Thales under the AJISS contract) do it, and it wasn't spooled up prior to ship delivery, so that has also been getting up and running in the same time. There are lots of issues wth the TDP so the as delivered doesn't match the detailed drawings sometimes, or the manuals are off, so lot of learning while troubleshooting every single issue.

The LLs from this on AOPs are known and hopefully incorporated into JSS delivery to make it smoother, but will see how it actually goes. I'm sure some things will apply, and there will be new things that come up.

Aside from the AETE limitations, there is also a pretty small pool of folks on the RCN side as well for SMEs for the development/oversight of some of these things so in general if it is a priority some other things will have to fall off, so like most stuff sometimes things don't happen until the 11th hour because other things are being triaged instead.

 

[Swampbuggy]

At this point in the game, I'd rather see a weapons system added that can deal with a drone(s) coming from the air.

That’s always been my problem with the 25mm. No airburst ammunition, elevation not terribly useful against airborne targets. It’s kind of a one trick pony. Maybe they’ll get swapped out for Lionfish at some point during the CSC buy.

 

[Navy_Pete]

That’s always been my problem with the 25mm. No airburst ammunition, elevation not terribly useful against airborne targets. It’s kind of a one trick pony. Maybe they’ll get swapped out for Lionfish at some point during the CSC buy.

You also need a radar system that can properly track them; AOPs is just nav radars so not sure if drones even get picked up.

Combining input from different sensors to use to target weapon systems implies a lot of of things are going on with a lot of additional systems, so unless it's fully integrated into the weapon it's not something you can just drop into a non-combatant. The small slow fliers are suprisingly hard to target generally on land, let alone on a moving platform, so generally a problem.

If AOPs is getting attacked by drones they may have better luck with a bunch of shotguns TBH, but they were never intended to go into an OPs area and take drone attacks (or any other attacks) so again, completely outside the CONOPs or design requirements.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

That’s always been my problem with the 25mm. No airburst ammunition, elevation not terribly useful against airborne targets. It’s kind of a one trick pony. Maybe they’ll get swapped out for Lionfish at some point during the CSC buy.

It would be nice to have a common gun on all of the fleet, CSC, JSS, AOP's MCDV/Replacements. Hopefully they will purchase some soon and start trialing it on one of the AOP's and hopefully have the type ready for when the first River Class is launched and crews familiar with it and lessons learned incorporated into the River Class at build time.

 

[dapaterson]

If AOPs is getting attacked by drones they may have better luck with a bunch of shotguns TBH, but they were never intended to go into an OPs area and take drone attacks (or any other attacks) so again, completely outside the CONOPs or design requirements.

The Cougar enters the discussion.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

You also need a radar system that can properly track them; AOPs is just nav radars so not sure if drones even get picked up.

Combining input from different sensors to use to target weapon systems implies a lot of of things are going on with a lot of additional systems, so unless it's fully integrated into the weapon it's not something you can just drop into a non-combatant. The small slow fliers are suprisingly hard to target generally on land, let alone on a moving platform, so generally a problem.

If AOPs is getting attacked by drones they may have better luck with a bunch of shotguns TBH, but they were never intended to go into an OPs area and take drone attacks (or any other attacks) so again, completely outside the CONOPs or design requirements.

At the time of build. I don't think anyone was expecting Non-State Actors flying drones 1500km to attack a target. You can assume that capability will spread. That long distance threat will be higher when a ship is docked and likley not while it is underway. It means much of the West Coast of Africa can be a potentiel threat zone.

Intelligence is nice to have. But as Sept 11th and Oct 7th shows, it can't be relied upon completely. Even a IDF Corvette got caught out by Hezbollah. Despite the known threat they were not prepared for a Anti-ship missile engagement, as their sensors were not turned on and the ship was not ready for the threat.

 

[Navy_Pete]

It would be nice to have a common gun on all of the fleet, CSC, JSS, AOP's MCDV/Replacements. Hopefully they will purchase some soon and start trialing it on one of the AOP's and hopefully have the type ready for when the first River Class is launched and crews familiar with it and lessons learned incorporated into the River Class at build time.

The structure won't support a 5" gun and the magazine would be a major redesign, but also no targeting system or sensors to go with it (or bunks for operators/maintainers).

It'll be a common naval gun though, so should be lots of lessons learned from other navies using it, and honestly the transition from the old 76mm to 57mm didn't seem too bad as would just be part of the transition training from CPF to CSC for the crews.

Common equipment works well when you have common requirements, so may end up with common equipment on AOPs and JSS, but very little with CPFs and CSC, as the gulf between non-combatants and combatants can be huge.

The other thing with common equipment is some of the kit we're using dates back to WW2 (or the days of sail) so it's a chance to push the reset and change some traditional things as there is a lot of better kit available that also works better with smaller crews.

 

[Stoker]

That’s always been my problem with the 25mm. No airburst ammunition, elevation not terribly useful against airborne targets. It’s kind of a one trick pony. Maybe they’ll get swapped out for Lionfish at some point during the CSC buy.

Yes but used in a naval application on hundreds of ships and boats worldwide.