Air Support and Casualty Treatment, ships awaiting ideas and money

Email Me When A New Comment Is Made
Show Only Poster Name and Title Newest to Oldest

Pages: 1 2 3 4 NEXT

Yimmy RE:Air Support and Casualty Treatment, ships awaiting ideas and money 5/3/2005 12:27:18 PM

We already have that to an extent, with one of the RFA's, I forget which. The big one with the operating theaters and heli landing pads lol.

Quote Reply

Donkey RE:Air Support and Casualty Treatment, ships awaiting ideas and money 5/3/2005 3:48:13 PM

RFA ARGUS

Quote Reply

perfectgeneral RE:Air Support and Casualty Treatment, ships awaiting ideas and money 5/3/2005 6:20:38 PM

And how old is that? 1960s? Like I said, there is a current (and overdue) requirement for these vessels.

Quote Reply

Lawman RE:Air Support and Casualty Treatment, ships awaiting ideas and money 5/4/2005 5:11:04 AM

One option might be to simply take something like HMS Ocean, and split the area under the flight deck into two huge areas, fore and aft. Hospital Ship - both filled with casualty treatment areas, no hangarage or limited hangarage. Repair Ship - fore fitted with maintenance stores, aft with repair hangar, deck would have cranes etc... Amphib Ship - fore fitted with accomodations, aft with hangar for RM Commando helos. you could even do a small carrier, just by using both areas as a hangar. You would get massive economies of scale, since you would be buying at least half a dozen.

Quote Reply

perfectgeneral RE:something like HMS Ocean - Lawman 5/6/2005 9:41:34 AM

I like this. Would it be possible to re-role for different requirements? I would be nice to have 4 hospital ships and 2 Air repair ships (Humanitarian Mission) or 3 LPH and 2 hospital ships and 1 Air Repair ship or 6 LPH (coallition). Maybe the deck could lift off in sections to crane in mission decks within a standard hold (prepositioning too!). A deck you can lift off in sections would be good for quicker repairs. Mission decks could be used for training in port when not in use.

Quote Reply

timon_phocas RE:something like HMS Ocean - Lawman 5/6/2005 9:52:27 AM

the US found that it really didn't use the hospital ships it deployed in 1990 and 2003. helicopter evacuation to field hospitals stabilzed patients, and then patients were airlifted to permanent hospitals in home bases. It might make sense for humanitarian missions. In that case, however, the regular amphibious warfare ships have large, well equipped, hospitals to take care of expected combat casualties. So send along field hospitals and use the amphib's as the rear area hospitals?

Quote Reply

Lawman RE:something like HMS Ocean - Lawman 5/6/2005 11:49:17 AM

Timon- I would be careful about the American experience with hospital ships - remember, the Iraq conflicts were both very light on casualties, but I would not have wanted to be without at least having the facilities there! General- I doubt it would be too hard to build an adaptable ship, as long as you use modules - much like the Dutch Flyvefisken class patrol boats can be re-rolled as minelayers, minesweepers, ASW boats etc... The deck would have to be removable in sections, but that is hardly rocket science! If you built enough ships, you could certainly end up with a powerful Navy, but at a bargain price. As you say, for a humanitarian mission, you could send a few ships, as hospital ships, and for a military conflict, you might choose to send them as light carriers. You might even use them as ASW carriers if we suddenly find ourselves dealing with a major submarine threat again. The best bit would be the fact that the majority of the ships crew would be used whatever role the ships are being used for, and only the mission crew would be different. It has a lot of potential, and not too high a price, all there needs to be is the political will to actually make the right decisions...

Quote Reply

perfectgeneral RE:the political will to actually make the right decisions - Lawman 5/6/2005 10:19:01 PM

I shall try to hassle the MoD over this (nicely), but when you say political will you also mean money. The MoD are getting 2.5% of GDP until further notice. Up to a quarter (25%) of that 2.5% (0.625%) will be spent on new equipment for the armed forces. The MoD already have a long shopping list that is being paid for in installments. By the time the money is ready I will have learnt how to draw the prototype with Rhino-3D.

Quote Reply

neutralizer RE:the political will to actually make the right decisions - Lawman 5/7/2005 3:40:42 AM

Hospital Ships are different to the two proposed casualty handling ships, these are important legal definitions. Basically in return for getting 'protection' hospital ships aren't allowed to return casualties to the 'front'. Obviously this is not acceptable for all minor injuries. As I understand it MoD has just about reached an optimum design for the new ships. Since there is very little expertise in designing such ships it's taken rather a lot of modelling and simulation work to get a design that will be able to carry out its role efficiently. Stuffing containerised medical modules into a big space on some general purpose ship does not equate with doing the job properly and efficiently, perhaps operating as a theatre medical facility for an extended period as an alternative to tented facilities ashore.

Quote Reply

Lawman RE:the political will to actually make the right decisions - Lawman 5/7/2005 7:42:46 AM

As for the hospital ships, I was not referring to the legally defined 'hospital ship' I was meaning the new Casualty Treatment ship. It is a hospital in a ship, not a hospital ship, but to be honest, it is not that big a difference! As for the budget to fund the ships, I know how tight the budget is, but if they set up a longer term procurement program, like a number of other nations use, i.e. each year, for about 6 years, we buy 1 DDG, 2 FFG, 1 Amphib, 2 AOR etc... then we would have a lot more stability. I also would hope they could increase the budget to cover these ships, and they could even use them to carry out routine NHS operations, getting the waiting list down... Mind you, I get the feeling that the government does not want people to have a sympathetic view of the military, for some insane reason.

Quote Reply

1 2 3 4 NEXT