Decline of Naval Thought in the RCN

[Navy_Pete]

I have more sea days than many NWOs and have never (as in not once) been to sea in a CPF with 4/4 DGs serviceable.

I was told by a few MSEOs that the particular DG selected by the project was done more for political  reasons than for technical reasons. It was the exact wrong size for the load demanded of it (ie no combination of DGs could run at an efficient RPM to meet the load, so they constantly coked up and then failed).

Not really; it was driven by some of the milspec requirements for how the whole PG&D system operated at full load during battle operations and resulted in the diesels being too big for normal operations.  Unfortunately we couldn't increase the gen capacity without replacing basically the whole backbone and main switchboards during the DG replacement project, but they are supposed to run better at lower loads, so hopefully there shouldn't be a requirement to decoke, and when we upgrade some of the other key items (like the chillers) that should also drive the standard load up a bit.

Hfx Tar, glad to hear they are good; that was a fun project to work on and think we would have done well with any of the bidders, but the CATs were solid engines, and it was a good team. It's an interesting ISSC model too with a combined FMF/SS/ Contractor split of the work, so will be interesting to see how it works out in real life.

Think I had 4 DGs running for about a while on deployment, and would have turned it over that way if we had got the right part (got a right handed turbo when we ordered a left handed turbo, but don't worry, it was verified to be the right part before they shipped it to us in Europe; thanks N37!). Was really weird to look at the ETOW console and see 4 green DGs, but was only possible due to a lot of hard work by the SS and bit of luck for having some diesel mechanics and really good ETs that were able to do 2nd line repairs while deployed. Think that was for about 3 months of my grand total of 18 months on a CPF, but my time on the 280s had similar luck with the generators.

Wrt the NSS and the CSC, there was a massive amount of high level staff work that went into the various white papers to get the strategic requirements for what the gov wants us to do as a Navy, so everytime project costs increase and TBS etc ask questions and look for cuts, we are able to point to specific items and explain why what we'd lose if they dropped off a capabilty or cut the budget. Also, having all the IRBs etc does slow stuff down and adds extra layers, but means that in the long run, the projects get a lot of support from MPs that otherwise don't care about the Navy, as they care about jobs in their constituencies.  I still think it's stupid, but recognize it's a necessary evil to not having the CSC cut down to a canoe with an RPG and an Android phone with satnav.