AOR Replacement & the Joint Support Ship (Merged Threads)

[Pelorus]

FGS Frankfurt am Main (Berlin-class) participated in RIMPAC 24 along with Asterix and HMNZS  Aotearoa as the three non-US AORs in the exercise. Speaking with some Americans, many of them are seeing the utility posed by a "small" (by USN standards) AOR that brings more to the table than just replenishment capabilities, and were impressed by the  Berlin-class.

I doubt you'll see any significant change in the types of AORs that the US is building in the short term, but there's definitely staff-level interest on the operational side.

 

[Stoker]

Would love to see say 4 Tide Class or equivalent built offshore, wholly crewed by civilians and used to service USN and NATO ships in the North Atlantic. It would buy so much good will and pay them back for all the freebees we received over the years. Do the same for the Pacific. Actually be a reliable defence partner.

 

[Underway]

We could keep building Protecteur Class AORs and the USN would be very happy…

I think building JSS 3 is actually something people are thinking about after Seaspan finishes their Coast Guard vessels. I have some design notes though for things that should be changed. The list will be bigger when we get to test out the ships.

A third JSS build well after the first two would also match the German build drumbeat. The Bohn is actually the ship design we bought, which has some significant differences than the Berlin as it was built about 10 years later and they learned from it.

 

[Halifax Tar]

FGS Frankfurt am Main (Berlin-class) participated in RIMPAC 24 along with Asterix and HMNZS  Aotearoa as the three non-US AORs in the exercise. Speaking with some Americans, many of them are seeing the utility posed by a "small" (by USN standards) AOR that brings more to the table than just replenishment capabilities, and were impressed by the  Berlin-class.

I doubt you'll see any significant change in the types of AORs that the US is building in the short term, but there's definitely staff-level interest on the operational side.

We've been rasing with a HJ Kaiser class this deployment. Its doesn't strike me as being monstrous.

 

[Pelorus]

We've been rasing with a HJ Kaiser class this deployment. Its doesn't strike me as being monstrous.

The Kaiser's aren't much larger in length (just over 30m longer than  Berlin), but they are about 50% greater displacement (roughly 30k vs 20k tons). But the  Kaiser's are old and tired and having a lot of mechanical issues, and are due to be replaced by the John Lewis-class.

The John Lewis-class displaces almost 2.5x what the Berlin-class does. There's not many operational yet, but having seen one in real life it feels noticeably bigger than almost every other AOR I've worked with. This is great to support Carrier Strike Groups, because the CVN is also restricted in where it can go because of its size and force protection requirements. They also have unique USN-specific capabilities like the ability to RAS aviation fuel at almost 10x the rate of most other AORs.

But they're big and expensive, and don't offer you much besides the ability to provide a ton of fuel, ammo, and food/cargo quickly. While this is ideal for CSG ops, and ultimately is the core mandate of an AOR, the Americans I've spoken with are interested in smaller AORs that can provide additional services to a Task Group of destroyers and frigates such as surgical capabilities and enhanced aviation maintenance facilities. You don't need those things if you're near a CVN, but there's lots of naval operations that will occur too far from a CSG for it to be an option.

The US is struggling with both AOR platform and crew availability, and Military Sealift Command is stretched pretty thin sustaining global USN force projection. I don't think you're going to see any major shift in what they're building, but I am confident that they would love if allied "small AORs" like Berlin/Protecteur, RFAs, etc. started becoming more readily available because it would let them focus the specialized USNS "big AORs" to their CSGs.

 

[Underway]

Very insightful. This is the core concept with the "destroyer navy" that the RCN will be returning to. I would not be surprised if an RCN task group in the future gets an attached Burke or even SSN built around Protecteur. NATO has certainly demonstrated that they like the destroyer task group concept for Standing Naval Task Groups. Last NATO TG I sailed with was built around the German Bohn and French Durance class.

 

[Stoker]

Looks like 3 more years...

 

[Rainbow1910]

Looks like 3 more years...

Amusing how they don’t mention the cost of this additional contract extension, likely because it’s the continued milking of the Canadian Govt by Davie.

“Without a single day of unplanned downtime” is a funny qualifier for me, your spotless record is a lot less impressive when you are potentially spending a lot of specific time in port to make that happen.

 

[Stoker]

Amusing how they don’t mention the cost of this additional contract extension, likely because it’s the continued milking of the Canadian Govt by Davie.

“Without a single day of unplanned downtime” is a funny qualifier for me, your spotless record is a lot less impressive when you are potentially spending a lot of specific time in port to make that happen.

Its a press release from Federal Fleets propaganda arm so its going to be all pro asterix.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Amusing how they don’t mention the cost of this additional contract extension, likely because it’s the continued milking of the Canadian Govt by Davie.

“Without a single day of unplanned downtime” is a funny qualifier for me, your spotless record is a lot less impressive when you are potentially spending a lot of specific time in port to make that happen.

I wouldn't call $100M/year cost effective either, and at some point soon they'll need to dock it for a while, so will be down for six months or so. It's a stop gap, but not a cheap one.

 

[Czech_pivo]

I’m reading and sensing a fair amount of gripe on what Davie has been able to achieve over the last 5+yrs and I might add, in typical CDN fashion, complaining on what they have been paid to provide this service over said period of time.
They did something that no others did, thought to do, or were able to do - get the RCN back to being a blue water navy by having an AOR.
Would it have beneficial for the RCN to go another 7-10yrs without AOR capability?
I still think it’s completely asinine that we are only building 2 Berlin class ships. A 3 coast navy with plans for 6 AOPS, 15 Destroyers, 12 Subs and 8-12 Corvette-ish ships, having only 2 AOR - nuts.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I’m reading and sensing a fair amount of gripe on what Davie has been able to achieve over the last 5+yrs and I might add, in typical CDN fashion, complaining on what they have been paid to provide this service over said period of time.
They did something that no others did, thought to do, or were able to do - get the RCN back to being a blue water navy by having an AOR.
Would it have beneficial for the RCN to go another 7-10yrs without AOR capability?
I still think it’s completely asinine that we are only building 2 Berlin class ships. A 3 coast navy with plans for 6 AOPS, 15 Destroyers, 12 Subs and 8-12 Corvette-ish ships, having only 2 AOR - nuts.

Some people here have a strange stink eye when they see anything Asterix. It's weird. But we're all entitled to our opinions. She's given honest service, and I know our sailors are more than happy to sail in her. And they are keeping up RAS skills.

Really though we should just buy her and a sister.

 

[Rainbow1910]

I’m reading and sensing a fair amount of gripe on what Davie has been able to achieve over the last 5+yrs and I might add, in typical CDN fashion, complaining on what they have been paid to provide this service over said period of time.
They did something that no others did, thought to do, or were able to do - get the RCN back to being a blue water navy by having an AOR.
Would it have beneficial for the RCN to go another 7-10yrs without AOR capability?
I still think it’s completely asinine that we are only building 2 Berlin class ships. A 3 coast navy with plans for 6 AOPS, 15 Destroyers, 12 Subs and 8-12 Corvette-ish ships, having only 2 AOR - nuts.

You will have to excuse my lack of enthusiasm for the most recent bit of marketing shoveled out by the Davie PR team, and the Project Resolve endeavor as a whole. Davie managed to use their status as a Canadian shipyard timed with a lapse in capability due to incompetent governments to pitch a program that provided a baseline capability for minimal effort and a frankly insulting amount of profit. That being said, I wouldn't have anywhere near the gripes with Davie if they would have left things at that but no, they parade around a converted civilian vessel like it is the second coming of nautical Christ.

There is nothing special about Asterix, you can read back through this thread to see the various issues with Davie and the ship itself. The bar is fairly low with Canadian shipyards however, doing what has amounted of years of victory laps for delivering the bare minimum has bugged me for quite sometime. It doesn't help that this whole program has garnered Davie a crowd of very loud, very ill informed and incredibly annoying supporters who consistently hype up Asterix to a frankly embarrassing degree.

Given the dire situation the RCN was looking at, they should have taken the $730m~ from the original conversion & 5 year contract plus the $100m~ per year contract extensions after this and invested in a proper, purpose built vessel or vessels from an overseas shipyard. There might have been a bit more of a wait however, you would end up with a far more suitable vessel that the RCN will actually own at the end of the day and isn't paying an arm and a leg to rent. It doesn't make sense to buy out a converted civilian vessel that has been ran very hard for quite a few years once these contracts are all up, considering Davie is almost certainly going to want a very pretty penny for her. This is why her proposed sister ship went nowhere, nobody but Davie was interested in yet another one of these vessels.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Some people here have a strange stink eye when they see anything Asterix. It's weird. But we're all entitled to our opinions. She's given honest service, and I know our sailors are more than happy to sail in her. And they are keeping up RAS skills.

Really though we should just buy her and a sister.

We really need 4 AOR's, 2 on each coast. Even if they are not always sailing.

 

[Halifax Tar]

You will have to excuse my lack of enthusiasm for the most recent bit of marketing shoveled out by the Davie PR team, and the Project Resolve endeavor as a whole. Davie managed to use their status as a Canadian shipyard timed with a lapse in capability due to incompetent governments to pitch a program that provided a baseline capability for minimal effort and a frankly insulting amount of profit. That being said, I wouldn't have anywhere near the gripes with Davie if they would have left things at that but no, they parade around a converted civilian vessel like it is the second coming of nautical Christ.

There is nothing special about Asterix, you can read back through this thread to see the various issues with Davie and the ship itself. The bar is fairly low with Canadian shipyards however, doing what has amounted of years of victory laps for delivering the bare minimum has bugged me for quite sometime. It doesn't help that this whole program has garnered Davie a crowd of very loud, very ill informed and incredibly annoying supporters who consistently hype up Asterix to a frankly embarrassing degree.

Given the dire situation the RCN was looking at, they should have taken the $730m~ from the original conversion & 5 year contract plus the $100m~ per year contract extensions after this and invested in a proper, purpose built vessel or vessels from an overseas shipyard. There might have been a bit more of a wait however, you would end up with a far more suitable vessel that the RCN will actually own at the end of the day and isn't paying an arm and a leg to rent. It doesn't make sense to buy out a converted civilian vessel that has been ran very hard for quite a few years once these contracts are all up, considering Davie is almost certainly going to want a very pretty penny for her. This is why her proposed sister ship went nowhere, nobody but Davie was interested in yet another one of these vessels.

They produced a good product. It's actually put on some serious miles doing the business of an AOR all over the globe, and kept up our RAS skills for years now.

Sure it's expensive, but you can't deny it's been a busy a hull. I would say the juice is worth the squeeze. And that's more than I can say for another company that produces us ships.

If I ran the company that made her I would pump those tires as well.

My only gripe is we should have bought her and the second. And the reason we didn't do either is because the LPC would have none of it, it was purely political. Just ask Norm.

 

[Furniture]

They produced a good product. It's actually put on some serious miles doing the business of an AOR all over the globe, and kept up our RAS skills for years now.

Sure it's expensive, but you can't deny it's been a busy a hull. I would say the juice is worth the squeeze. And that's more than I can say for another company that produces us ships.

If I ran the company that made her I would pump those tires as well.

My only gripe is we should have bought her and the second. And the reason we didn't do either is because the LPC would have none of it, it was purely political. Just ask Norm.

We could have 10 Asterix "class" ships and keep them busy supporting our allies and partners.

I half suspect the fuss about Asterix is mostly NWOs getting upset that sailing in a straight line and passing fuel isn't a "hard" NWO skill.

 

[MARS]

We could have 10 Asterix "class" ships and keep them busy supporting our allies and partners.

I half suspect the fuss about Asterix is mostly NWOs getting upset that sailing in a straight line and passing fuel isn't a "hard" NWO skill.

Supporting allies and partners is key.

There doesn’t have to be anything “special” about the platform itself as the poster above you states - that’s short-sighted and a very tactical-level perspective.

Supporting allies is an Operational-level obligation we hav, to achieve global Strat-level goals. And THAT is the importance of Asterix’s existence.

 

[Stoker]

I’m reading and sensing a fair amount of gripe on what Davie has been able to achieve over the last 5+yrs and I might add, in typical CDN fashion, complaining on what they have been paid to provide this service over said period of time.
They did something that no others did, thought to do, or were able to do - get the RCN back to being a blue water navy by having an AOR.
Would it have beneficial for the RCN to go another 7-10yrs without AOR capability?
I still think it’s completely asinine that we are only building 2 Berlin class ships. A 3 coast navy with plans for 6 AOPS, 15 Destroyers, 12 Subs and 8-12 Corvette-ish ships, having only 2 AOR - nuts.

Where do I start.... Over the years I had my own misgivings about this ship. Lots of issues at the start, lost power coming into Halifax harbour, came in decks unpainted and it sat alongside for weeks with dozens of contractors finishing the ship. First dry hookups at sea, the RAS gear literally fell apart, full of garbage and debris and other issues related to the shipyard. I can go on but all we hear is on time and on budget and Davies constant maneuvering to build a second Asterix and to be included in the NSS which may of worked against them. For what it does, it does it's job well. I don't think anybody is denying that. I would have preferred we would of finished the lease by now with the building of the JSS but it is what it is and here is where we're at. I also agree that 2 AOR's is not enough and think a 3rd JSS should be built. In fact I would love to see a separate capability of cheaply foreign built AOR's to support our allies and pay them back for our freeloading over the years.

I have no issue with the concept of Asterix as a interim measure until the JSS is built. It keeps people trained for the JSS and it maintains a capability. The issues that I have is Federal Fleets constant stream of propaganda on Asterix as it is as good or better than a purpose built AOR when we know its not and has significant limitations in capability and redundancy. Just last month someone was talking about tank baffle issues that puts a significant limitation to the ship and limits the operation of a helo. The other issue is cost and I suppose in the grand scheme of things 100M a year is the price of doing business but certainly couldn't we of just gotten a cheap offshore build and continued onward with our own crew?

 

[Halifax Tar]

Where do I start.... Over the years I had my own misgivings about this ship. Lots of issues at the start, lost power coming into Halifax harbour, came in decks unpainted and it sat alongside for weeks with dozens of contractors finishing the ship. First dry hookups at sea, the RAS gear literally fell apart, full of garbage and debris and other issues related to the shipyard. I can go on but all we hear is on time and on budget and Davies constant maneuvering to build a second Asterix and to be included in the NSS which may of worked against them. For what it does, it does it's job well. I don't think anybody is denying that. I would have preferred we would of finished the lease by now with the building of the JSS but it is what it is and here is where we're at. I also agree that 2 AOR's is not enough and think a 3rd JSS should be built. In fact I would love to see a separate capability of cheaply foreign built AOR's to support our allies and pay them back for our freeloading over the years.

I vaguely remember something about power coming into the harbour, but other than that you're the only one that I have ever heard speak negatively about this ship.

I also find it funny that your willing to write off all of the issues that the AOPs has had to being new and working out then kinks but won't give that same leeway to Davies or Asterix.

Again Asterix has given excellent service, and our people are clamouring to sail in her. If that's not a success I don't know what is.

I have no issue with the concept of Asterix as a interim measure until the JSS is built. It keeps people trained for the JSS and it maintains a capability. The issues that I have is Federal Fleets constant stream of propaganda on Asterix as it is as good or better than a purpose built AOR when we know its not and has significant limitations in capability and redundancy. Just last month someone was talking about tank baffle issues that puts a significant limitation to the ship and limits the operation of a helo. The other issue is cost and I suppose in the grand scheme of things 100M a year is the price of doing business but certainly couldn't we of just gotten a cheap offshore build and continued onward with our own crew?

Maybe... Would have the crew to do that ?

 

[suffolkowner]

Is 100m expensive?
How much is it going to cost to run a jss for a yr?
Given the supposed lack of aor throughout nato I'm surprised that Davie couldn't make the case for obelix as a private service