E.R. Campbell said:
There is
discussion in the media about
possibly converting an existing commercial cargo ship to an AOR. (The discussion also posits that the AOR project (Berlin class, is that right?) is in trouble.)
My question is, political posturing aside:
why not?
I couldn't find much discussion that I could understand, except
this. A bit of further reading (
caution Wikipedia as a source)
suggests that "HMAS Sirius (O 266) (formerly MT Delos) is a commercial tanker purchased by the Royal Australian Navy and converted into a fleet replenishment vessel to replace HMAS Westralia. Launched in South Korea on 2004, and converted in Western Australia, Sirius was commissioned in 2006; three years before a purpose-built vessel would have, and at half the cost. The tanker is expected to remain in service until the 2020s."
Can the Navy engineers (and associated experts) tell this simple soldier: why not?
TL;DR - It can be done, it's just a dumb idea that won't meet operational needs and will cost a lot.
Engineering wise, it's definitely doable. The practical reasons why not are more related to the time it would take to do the conversion, and then all the practical issues around getting a crew trained to use it and actually supply the fuel.
You would need to do some work to strengthen/reinforce the upper deck for the posts (the large towers that with the cables and fuel hoses). Depending on the configuration of the ship you were converting, you may also need to design and fit systems to transfer the fuel at the required flowrates, plus maintain fuel quality and other things that a bulk oil carrier doesn't necessarily do. Would probably also need to look at all the fire suppression systems and update those as required for the new role. It's all fairly basic structural, mechanical and electrical stuff, but does take time to design, plan and build. 12-18 months would be pretty aggressive to do that portion.
If it's operated by the RCN or someone else, there is also the crew training required to just get the ship out to sea, plus actually conducting RASs. It may take some time to find the right people if they are providing the crew, and the navy is pretty short on most critical sea going positions, so if it was RCN crewed, it would make that worse, plus directly impact the new AOPs and eventually the JSS crewing. That would probably also take 1-2 years to get them in place and trained to operate the ship safely.
So if they start going full throttle now, looking at sometime in 2017-2018 when it's leaving Davie. Then there would be probably another six months of getting practice and experience until it's really effective. And it would be a lot more limited then what we would have in the AORs that we had, or what JSS will provide. It'll be a one off ship, so probably a lot more expensive to operate and maintain.
While this is all going on, us engineering weenies are going full throttle trying to maintain the current fleet while supporting three major ship builds at the same time as government cuts is driving a large workforce reduction, and a lot less resources are available for basic maintenance and repairs, so the fleet is in less then 100% state. So any work on this would probably directly impact the current and future ships as you would need to redirect resources.
All of that to try and provide a stop gap, one off one of a kind ship that no one else will want after the fact, that will be intermittently available to provide limited operational support, and probably be restricted from specific areas due to the threats.
It's less of a matter of can we do it, and more of a matter of should we do it. This would be an okay idea to have done ten years ago to replace one of our AORs, as we could have ran it for a few cycles to get our moneys worth then scrapped it. Ships are a big capitol investment, so you need to operate them for a long time to get the money's worth.
There are also other options, including straight up leasing commercial oilers to operate in specific areas as mobile gas stations at sea. Probably cost a bit more, but would be available immediately, and then there is zero support required on our end, and would also be available to both coasts, rather then one lone COTs bastardized AOR. Combined with fueling off our allies, that's a much better option for all kinds of practical reasons. When the AORs went into their long refits, you would make do without for several years, so we already have plenty of recent experience in getting things done regardless.
), lets recap the situation as it relates to the proposal by Davie. Yes, that's right: It is Davie that proposed the deal to the government - not the other way around: Davie proposed to convert a tanker, crew it and then lease it for an annual price for support of the Navy. I don't know where Navy_Pete is getting is info on what is required to be done and the timeline (and from his profile, do not believe he has the experience to make those statements, unless, undisclosed, he has worked extensively with the shipbuilding industry before joining), but I am willing to bet that from get go to ship available, Davie can do it in one year. 
