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AOR Replacement & the Joint Support Ship (Merged Threads)

I don't think so, Underway. And to a certain extent, it will dispel Weinie's "glean".

The actual event was caused by a weird and extremely infrequent mechanical breakdown: The starboard engine telegraph from the wheelhouse (not located on the bridge, BTW) to the engine room broke down and when "slow astern both engines" was ordered, it swung and got stuck in the "full ahead" position. RN engineers being what they are (and any engineer in those days would have done the same :)) they actually obeyed telegraphs as they were supposed to.

The result was they executed a "slow astern" on the inboard and a "full ahead" on the outboard engine. By the time the orders from command to disregard telegraphs and obey sound powered telephone was passed, it was way too late. PENELOPE's officer of the watch tried to counteract by using hard starboard helm - which helped at first and made the original point of contact more parallel than would have been otherwise, but once contact with PRESERVER was made, the helm became of no use and the "full ahead" outboard engine took over to push PENELOPE across PRESERVER's bow.
 
I don't think so, Underway. And to a certain extent, it will dispel Weinie's "glean".

The actual event was caused by a weird and extremely infrequent mechanical breakdown: The starboard engine telegraph from the wheelhouse (not located on the bridge, BTW) to the engine room broke down and when "slow astern both engines" was ordered, it swung and got stuck in the "full ahead" position. RN engineers being what they are (and any engineer in those days would have done the same :)) they actually obeyed telegraphs as they were supposed to.

The result was they executed a "slow astern" on the inboard and a "full ahead" on the outboard engine. By the time the orders from command to disregard telegraphs and obey sound powered telephone was passed, it was way too late. PENELOPE's officer of the watch tried to counteract by using hard starboard helm - which helped at first and made the original point of contact more parallel than would have been otherwise, but once contact with PRESERVER was made, the helm became of no use and the "full ahead" outboard engine took over to push PENELOPE across PRESERVER's bow.
For ref of non-navy types, the whole issue of obeying telegraphs comes up every single time we do our annual 'officer of the watch- engineering officer' lecture/chat. Usually a moot point as it's now done by computers and automatically obeys whatever the bridge inputs, but in some situations the engineering officer will have to confirm it. Normally when you are doing RASs and similar you have extra people on watch (known as Special Sea Dutymen (maybe that changed?), and we always ran with just obey telegraphs while at specials, but use a bit of common sense for open ocean steaming and confirm if something weird comes in (especially overnight). When you are at specials, there isn't time to double check, but I guess that will be no longer an issue once they shift up to the bridge in the new ships (and assume your electronic signals to the engines are bulletproof I guess).

Normally the orders for each shaft are ganged together anyway, so the ship will only speed up or slow down (instead of turning from different shaft orders). It's an easy switch to do them independently but don't usually use engines for steering (except for situations like coming alongside, or if something is wrong with the plant).

Have seen all kinds of things lead to incorrect engine orders, not limited to people falling asleep, jackets on the console, and even a plate of cookies. None of that applies to PENELOPE but there was a whole thing going around on the West coast about 'phantom' orders from eddy signals or something until they pulled the IPMS logs that included buttons being pushed in every case on different ships.
 
Funny how Canadianized aircraft (Cormorant, for example) are late and costly, while un-Canadianized (Herc J for example) are not.
Most Canadianized perhaps late...

CH-147F (heavily Canadianized) first delivery was one month early (month 47, vice 4 full years), and the last Chinook was delivered one month early (month 59, vice 5 years). That said, Boeing was very supportive in Canada's Chinook program, as there was significant leveraging for folllow-on new-build MH-47G production, for which Canada received ISS credits for use of CH-147F design elements.
 
"Unique Canadian Solution" ...

Because, you know, floating on water & driving around is 'sooooooo different' here ;)
 
Available space, mostly. Halifax-class were never designed to sail with staff, and it's always a squeeze to embark them, notwithstanding some meager "Command Platform" upgrades to a couple ships on either coast.
 
Nicer quarters for the Admiral and underlings?

Available space, mostly.


Well, full Link Capability and full communications suite capability. The Senior Officer has their own cabin/heads/office space which is much better than the frigates. There is also an extra console in OPS for CMS, but that's just as much redundancy as it is for off watch work and the SO.

There are enough cabins to accommodate the SO's staff as well, with extra births over and above the crew compliment. This includes with embarked airdet. Nothing special, just normal cabins and messes.

There is a full proper briefing/planing/board room so you never need to take over a mess or ops to do a brief ever again. There is also a secure crew computer room/library where there are multiple secure computer connections to check your DWAN, do DL, or just email home. This will be the space that is taken over by Sea Training or the SO's staff as their workspace, to keep them from co-opting the crews spaces and out of the hair of ships staff.

So like @boot12 stated, available space.
 
“It’s actually been advantageous for Canada to buy into the Berlin class at this stage, now that Germany has three in the water,” says Rear-Admiral (RAdm) Casper Donovan, Director General Future Ship Capability for the RCN. “We are able to capitalize on many of the lessons learned during previous iterations of the design, and apply those lessons to our Canadian version – the JSS. In other words, even though we are purchasing a mature design, there are necessary modifications required for JSS to meet Canada’s specific environment, needs and standards.”
 
“It’s actually been advantageous for Canada to buy into the Berlin class at this stage, now that Germany has three in the water,” says Rear-Admiral (RAdm) Casper Donovan, Director General Future Ship Capability for the RCN. “We are able to capitalize on many of the lessons learned during previous iterations of the design, and apply those lessons to our Canadian version – the JSS. In other words, even though we are purchasing a mature design, there are necessary modifications required for JSS to meet Canada’s specific environment, needs and standards.”
What an unmitigated pile of horsewhollop! It should never have taken us 30 bloody years to come up with an AOR design. And this thing has even less capability than the PROTECTEUR class its replacing! Good god, its a gas station with dry storage and flight deck, how hard is that to design and build. But no, Canada has to come up with an unique and costly way to fubar that as well!
 
What an unmitigated pile of horsewhollop! It should never have taken us 30 bloody years to come up with an AOR design. And this thing has even less capability than the PROTECTEUR class its replacing! Good god, its a gas station with dry storage and flight deck, how hard is that to design and build. But no, Canada has to come up with an unique and costly way to fubar that as well!
Concur.
 
What an unmitigated pile of horsewhollop! It should never have taken us 30 bloody years to come up with an AOR design. And this thing has even less capability than the PROTECTEUR class its replacing! Good god, its a gas station with dry storage and flight deck, how hard is that to design and build. But no, Canada has to come up with an unique and costly way to fubar that as well!
Well, it isn't easy.

Define capability. In most categories, the JSS has more or ones that didn't exist at all on PROTECTEUR (the first one as JSS one is also called PROTECTEUR).

The Bonn magazine standards are not military-grade, the cooling system can't go into tropical waters, its German communication suite can't do what we need it to do in a TG, and it doesn't have CIWS. It can't operate a helicopter within RCN safety standards, nor did it have the ability to store and load torpedos on a helicopter. There is little to no emissions security so red processing is a no-no. Its halyard access is located in a RADHAZ zone and it has no EMS (ITD is very difficult). Its power was European not NA. The engines and generators that it used are no longer built. It's cabling is a European standard, not NA which means cable changes. I could go on for a couple of pages just on requirements that are not even held by the RCN.

And of course, we're getting a ship built by a shipyard that has never done this before, who is designing and building at the same time (its own challenges) due to time constraints in a COVID environment.

What you think we should have bought and what we did buy are not the same thing.

If you want to argue that we bought the wrong thing, or the requirements were written incorrectly then I would likely agree with you. But the requirements were written by the RCN or imposed on us by outside organizations, and JSS is going to deliver on them.
 
If you want to argue that we bought the wrong thing, or the requirements were written incorrectly then I would likely agree with you. But the requirements were written by the RCN or imposed on us by outside organizations, and JSS is going to deliver on them.
Don't forget this is requirement set 3 or 4 after a few total resets on the project. The project was stood up sometime in the late 80s/early 90s and has had to go back to the drawing board a few times with GoC direction changing massively over the decades.

The big honking ship was totally different from the old AORs or the current JSS, and that procurement failed pretty hard due to impossible expectations.

There is a probably an interesting book there if anyone could dig out the story with all the politics and interference from other departments involved, but you'd have to talk to several generations of people to figure it out.

Glad we're finally getting something, but it does have three decades worth of compromise, cuts and mind changing built in, so people really need to temper their expectations.
 
Don't forget this is requirement set 3 or 4 after a few total resets on the project. The project was stood up sometime in the late 80s/early 90s and has had to go back to the drawing board a few times with GoC direction changing massively over the decades.
No argument here. I'm only speaking from the perspective of the current build. Which was also delayed for years for political reasons...
 
No argument here. I'm only speaking from the perspective of the current build. Which was also delayed for years for political reasons...
No for sure. Really think it's a bit insincere though for the RAdm to say it's another Berlin class; aside from the hull form and pipe runs, there is more unique kit than there is common equipment, and it's effectively a bespoke design. Guess that's all politics too though!
 
and going by my earlier video, the South Korean design seems to have some serious issues as well. If ours work out well, maybe we can licence the design to help recoup the costs?
 
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