navy

[ancientmariner]

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

As operated our Departmental oversight, and decision making is a many headed Hydra, with ultimate decisions rubber stamped by the Ministers Signature. Decisions can emanate from other arms within the Hydra, such as SFPA deciding to impose tonnage charges on all Fish Landings imminently. The Navy in FP will obviously get stick in their direct dealings with the FV Fleet. There is a cost in operating the SFPA and the little guy must pay. From observation Ministers cannot make strategic decisions without Senior CS approval. It leads to things being half cooked, half finished and sometimes an only child!

[ancientmariner]

The Engineer may be confused but in all ship's engine rooms the gantry crane is fitted for the maintenance of the main engine and it works within the dimensional profile of the engine. it is powered and may have to lift weights in tonnes and is fitted with failsafe and emergency stopping systems. Other machinery items are serviced using chain blocks or muscle power. All staffs nowadays arrive in service with at least 2nd level education and a profound knowledge of IT and digital processes. many acquire professional 3rd level qualifications, including one NCO with a basic Engineering degree and a masters in Commerce. We must use and repurpose personnel where opportune..

[na grohmiti]

The recent initiative that sees ERAs achieving comparable watchkeeping qualifications as the MEO as they advance in rank is a welcome one, that may bear fruit in times to come. I believe the CPO/ERA holds an engine room watchkeeping qualification now. Details are not to hand, but would be akin to a 2nd Engineer ticket in civvy st.
The Ship I worked on (Irish Flagged Near Continental Bulker) had all engine room controls on a panel in the wheelhouse. All engine room functions could be done from there. Entry into the engine room was only necessary if an alarm sounded on the panel. We had no engine control room. The engineer was a day worker.

WRT access in the engineering space, the NS Eng Officer I spoke with could not fathom why the engine room internal crane in the P60s stopped short of a particular piece of plant, which would require frequent removal during maintenance periods. I'm no engineer so I'm unsure what it was but it was one of either the Generator or motor sets. The travel of the gantry stops about 3 foot foread of this particular piece of machinery. Removal instead requires rigging of a block and lifting tackle locally. Unnecessarily labour intensive. When someone went to the trouble of installing a gantry crane in the engineering space, all heavy plant that would require removal during normal service should have been located within its working area, was the opinion of this Engineering Officer.

[ancientmariner]

Post corvettes, and all shipping at the time, to comply with agreed rules all ships eventually went UMS ( unmanned engineroom spaces). The trend was to put in an Engine Control room manned by one engineer and an ER rating who could sortie alternatively to walk the operational spaces. Very small vessels could and do have Engineering management controls in the bridge area but are functionally more like a weekly cruiser on the Shannon receiving a full overhaul on return to base. Any ship can be opened up by plate removal by burning ,or in the case of our HPV unbolting plates on the Flight deck. Ships admin./stores are run by the Coxsawain , PO/Supplies, and Po.Mech. The main thrust is to get to sea when short of an ERA, Cook, RRM, Bosun, Captain, Engineer by repurposing other personnel or upgrading others.

[na grohmiti]

With eroded ship's crewing perhaps we need to adapt systems and training (who can do what) to send ships to sea in at least a functional level. NOT sailing is a bad concept and develops a "poor me" syndrome. Adjust watches to suit numbers available, any member of crew can let go with supervision, any member of crew can man armament, any member of crew can be mentored to do routine engineroom chores and dial watching. Most people can handle tactical radio and phonetic alphabet. All messing could be self service. Boarding is the big demand and could be daylight only. Crew resting could be met by selective anchorage periods and use time for whole ship training like care of outboard motors by seamen and tying up by anybody.

There is definitely a potential to keep ships at sea by selective anchorange periods. Below decks, engineering is still quite heavy manned compared to comparable civilian operated coastguard type ships. I was disappointed to see the newer types are more difficult to maintain in certain functions than the earlier types.Certain large items of plant cannot be removed using the ships own plant. This would not be seen on merchant vessels. There should be a push going forward to complete unmanned engineering spaces. There is no real need for a manned engine control room, all the necessary monitors and controls could be located on the bridge. You could keep hulls in the water, just with reduced availability. Many of the logistic and admin functions at sea could for the short term become a shared position ashore instead.
The difficulty is, once you have managed to operate with this reduced capability, how difficult would it be to return to full capacity?

[ancientmariner]

With eroded ship's crewing perhaps we need to adapt systems and training (who can do what) to send ships to sea in at least a functional level. NOT sailing is a bad concept and develops a "poor me" syndrome. Adjust watches to suit numbers available, any member of crew can let go with supervision, any member of crew can man armament, any member of crew can be mentored to do routine engineroom chores and dial watching. Most people can handle tactical radio and phonetic alphabet. All messing could be self service. Boarding is the big demand and could be daylight only. Crew resting could be met by selective anchorage periods and use time for whole ship training like care of outboard motors by seamen and tying up by anybody.

[ancientmariner]

Global Fishing watch is obviously doing more than watching the fishing world. We need to know how it is done from remote locations especially since each shipboard transponder is unique to the ship carrying that transponder including Name and type of vessel, and adjacent satellites interrogate it. It is also possible that Sentinel radars might not always see a STEALTH ship. The release of such data from a western source needs analysis. The development of DGPS for navigation was because USN degraded the signal for all users except themselves and allies by selective availability.

[na grohmiti]

Systematic Data Analysis Reveals False Vessel Tracks - Global Fishing Watch

The above article may be of interest to some. You may remember last year AIS reporting numerous large foreign Naval vessels off the Cork/Waterford coast. This seems to have been a false AIS track, a phenomenon that is being used more and more to mask true locations, and even cause a potential belligerent to make its first move.
Most interesting is the recent transit of HMS Defender through the Ukrainian waters off Crimea.

[ancientmariner]

Dgps systems will no longer be available as both Irish Lights Commissioners and the UK Lighthouse Authority are to discontinue their correcting signal from lighthouses. In order to ensure accuracy of positional data for ships and UAV's landing on ships it is necessary to find an alternative GNSS system. Real Time Kinematic GPS ( RTK GPS) may be the answer for naval purposes with inertial navigation systems for assurance.

The authorities producing the DGPS are advising all users to plan for it's discontinuance in 2022. It advises that all receivers should have a Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) component and to upgrade to type approved Satellite Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) when available from the European based EGNOS, a version of SBAS. The possibility of Selective Availability by Systems owners, especially world powers must remain a threat to the system, often with a 50m error in the horizontal and 100m in the vertical. Those that need high accuracy in navigation must make provision as soon as possible.

[ancientmariner]

Dgps systems will no longer be available as both Irish Lights Commissioners and the UK Lighthouse Authority are to discontinue their correcting signal from lighthouses. In order to ensure accuracy of positional data for ships and UAV's landing on ships it is necessary to find an alternative GNSS system. Real Time Kinematic GPS ( RTK GPS) may be the answer for naval purposes with inertial navigation systems for assurance.

[ancientmariner]

We were supposed to get 2, ended up with 1 and currently have zero (without removing some equipment, refitting some equipment and a fair amount of training).

if we will ever see it remains to be seen

It is the perennial problem in our Service that highly expensive skills and systems become victims of exigencies. It is unfortunate that decisive capabilities are NOT maintained even if a major component is missing. it might have been possible to invite others to use the flight deck as we did with HIFR for an RN SEAKING. We discard years of training like emptying the Attic and replace it with less effective ships without Flight Decks. The MRV is assumed to have a large F.Dk. big enough to take all maritime helicopters and drones. Eithne would be ideal for drone operations

[DeV]

Only if you have just one ship that is heli capable. I don't believe that will continue to be the case any longer to be honest.

We were supposed to get 2, ended up with 1 and currently have zero (without removing some equipment, refitting some equipment and a fair amount of training).

if we will ever see it remains to be seen

[na grohmiti]

it will make zero sense

ring fencing the Sqn/flight would (with regular rotations)

Only if you have just one ship that is heli capable. I don't believe that will continue to be the case any longer to be honest.

[DeV]

The Operating model though is worth considering. When P31 operated helis the Air Corps had 2 Dauphins capable of operating on her, 244 and 245.
There is even a photo somewhere of both of them aboard at the same time.

it will make zero sense

ring fencing the Sqn/flight would (with regular rotations)

[na grohmiti]

The Operating model though is worth considering. When P31 operated helis the Air Corps had 2 Dauphins capable of operating on her, 244 and 245.
There is even a photo somewhere of both of them aboard at the same time.