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AOR Replacement & the Joint Support Ship (Merged Threads)

No probs. The engineering spaces are generally the entire width of the ship, so if you can get them in drydock it's just a matter of cutting off the hull plate and then replacing it when you are done. It's the same principle with putting up new drywall after tearing down the old stuff. Just do your weld inspections and good to go.

For some spaces on the frigate, there are removable panels in the deck/deckhead. This allows you to unbolt the panel, remove it, and then move equipment that is too large to fit through hatches. Something as mundane as a large office printer or pop machine can't fit down a hatch very well.

Repairing hull welds can be fun; there is always at least some x ray inspections on top of the normal non destructive testing.

Usually there are enough bits that need replaced that it's not necessary, but not uncommon for the shipyard to cut access holes in the hull to make the tank repainting faster. It can save them weeks, and as long as they are between ribs, it's relatively easy.

Believe there are still some equipment where it's less work to move things out of the way and cut a hole in the side while it's in the dock than break it down to go through the soft patch. DWPs are weird that way, but sometimes you are looking at a few hundred hours of welding vs thousands of hours of rigging and removals, so kind of a no brainer.
 
kronk-oh-yeah-its-all-coming-together.gif
 

So a comparison here, US navy's New fleet oiler enters trials, contract signed in 2016, that's only 6 years from pen to trials.
 
Was it an existing design, modified design, or new design? Was the shipyard tooled up, or were they retooling as well as building a heavily modified design?

Lots of elements factor into timelines.
 

So a comparison here, US navy's New fleet oiler enters trials, contract signed in 2016, that's only 6 years from pen to trials.
Well the US has about 300+people working in that project office. For JSS I think there is 40 total? The combat systems section is four people and one person who splits time between JSS and AOPS.

Things have a tendency to go much faster when you multiply the number of people by 8 and you are working with an experienced yard.

Now apply this to the Constellation class vs the CSC and you'll see why the timelines are much smoother in the US (not to mention they are just installing the exact same systems cut down as the newest Burke has, makes things a whole lot easier for tests and trials).
 
Hooray, that took a minute to get into contract for that one! I think the first Buy & Sell post was four or five years ago.
 
Was it an existing design, modified design, or new design? Was the shipyard tooled up, or were they retooling as well as building a heavily modified design?

Lots of elements factor into timelines.
So there is no such thing as an "existing design" ship unless you buy it as part of a flight of ships.

In the JSS case we bought the "existing design" for the Bonn (which is significantly different from the Berlin in a number of ways) and gave it to Vancouver Shipyards with the Statement of Requirements and they are modifying the design to fit that SOR. Bonn is similar to the Asterix for Germany, they don't have naval pers running the ship.

This means the design has a lot of changes from the original. First is that VSY when they want a subsystem put it out for tender. This means that whatever subsystem is selected is certainly not the same one that was on the Bonn. Same function, different design/contractor. HVAC, electrical, generators, navigation, RAS, all the systems suppliers, and subcontractors are different. Which of course means different designs to fit that stuff in.

The SOR necessitated different radars, OPS Room, the movement of the MCR to depths of the ship (on Bonn it's beside the Bridge... weird), new two new magazines, 6 OPS controlled weapon systems (4 NRWS and 2 CIWS), hangar and flight deck to fly and do 3rd line maint on the Cyclone (such as an LSO compartment), different comms, actual red processing (thus EMSEC which Bonn did not have in all but one space) and many other things.

The requirements are written as "performance" standards. This means the Gov't doesn't care what the solution is per se, just that it meets the performance standards. This allows the industry to come up with solutions. Which of course means the ship will be different than the Bonn. Technology has moved on, and other solutions for some problems are cheaper and/or better.

So when someone says "just build it like the Germans did" I kinda shake my head because you can't. There is literally no way to reproduce the exact thing. It's not how engineering contracting is done, and how requirements are met. Even if we paid Flensberger et al... (the original builders of Bonn) to build the ship for us it would be crazy different. Like how the Bonn is different from the Berlin. By using the German plans as a baseline we saved ourselves a lot of problems, but it's a baseline.
 
So there is no such thing as an "existing design" ship unless you buy it as part of a flight of ships.

In the JSS case we bought the "existing design" for the Bonn (which is significantly different from the Berlin in a number of ways) and gave it to Vancouver Shipyards with the Statement of Requirements and they are modifying the design to fit that SOR. Bonn is similar to the Asterix for Germany, they don't have naval pers running the ship.

This means the design has a lot of changes from the original. First is that VSY when they want a subsystem put it out for tender. This means that whatever subsystem is selected is certainly not the same one that was on the Bonn. Same function, different design/contractor. HVAC, electrical, generators, navigation, RAS, all the systems suppliers, and subcontractors are different. Which of course means different designs to fit that stuff in.

The SOR necessitated different radars, OPS Room, the movement of the MCR to depths of the ship (on Bonn it's beside the Bridge... weird), new two new magazines, 6 OPS controlled weapon systems (4 NRWS and 2 CIWS), hangar and flight deck to fly and do 3rd line maint on the Cyclone (such as an LSO compartment), different comms, actual red processing (thus EMSEC which Bonn did not have in all but one space) and many other things.

The requirements are written as "performance" standards. This means the Gov't doesn't care what the solution is per se, just that it meets the performance standards. This allows the industry to come up with solutions. Which of course means the ship will be different than the Bonn. Technology has moved on, and other solutions for some problems are cheaper and/or better.

So when someone says "just build it like the Germans did" I kinda shake my head because you can't. There is literally no way to reproduce the exact thing. It's not how engineering contracting is done, and how requirements are met. Even if we paid Flensberger et al... (the original builders of Bonn) to build the ship for us it would be crazy different. Like how the Bonn is different from the Berlin. By using the German plans as a baseline we saved ourselves a lot of problems, but it's a baseline.
Any sense what the top 3 'wins' for us would be concerning our 'Berlins' vs the originals?
 
Any sense what the top 3 'wins' for us would be concerning our 'Berlins' vs the originals?
  1. Damage control capability is much better. The ship is as close to a warship as an AOR can likely get. The damage control capabilities are way ahead of the Bonn, including CBRN.
  2. The communications suite is very good. The ship is designed to be able to act as a flagship for a Task Group, or mother ship for forces ashore (likely humanitarian of some type). It's got the same or better comms than a frigate, including deployed connectivity so you can skype home to the kids.
  3. JSS will be a key enabler for Task Group helicopter operations. Has the space to bring two more Cyclones to the TG, do VERTREP operations, in-depth maintenance tasks (3rd line... not a helo guy so might be wrong on that terminology) including a full engine swap out.

That's my opinion of the biggest "wins".
 
  1. Damage control capability is much better. The ship is as close to a warship as an AOR can likely get. The damage control capabilities are way ahead of the Bonn, including CBRN.
  2. The communications suite is very good. The ship is designed to be able to act as a flagship for a Task Group, or mother ship for forces ashore (likely humanitarian of some type). It's got the same or better comms than a frigate, including deployed connectivity so you can skype home to the kids.
  3. JSS will be a key enabler for Task Group helicopter operations. Has the space to bring two more Cyclones to the TG, do VERTREP operations, in-depth maintenance tasks (3rd line... not a helo guy so might be wrong on that terminology) including a full engine swap out.

That's my opinion of the biggest "wins".
It's got the same or better comms than a frigate,

Is that compared to our existing CPF or the new CSC's?

Follow-up question, if our 'Berlins' will be as close to a warship as possible in terms of damage control capability, how will our suite of armaments compare to the original 'Berlins'?
 
It's got the same or better comms than a frigate,

Is that compared to our existing CPF or the new CSC's?

Follow-up question, if our 'Berlins' will be as close to a warship as possible in terms of damage control capability, how will our suite of armaments compare to the original 'Berlins'?
No idea what CSC has. Its still being designed. So CPF.

As for armaments.... we'll have some. Bonn does not. Defensive CIWS and NRWS only. JSS has no effectors nor should it have any.
 
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