German Navy rejects newest Frigate due to poor engineering

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10 years 11 months

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8 years

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Unreal. Will they scrap it ? They will scrap it. This is govt at its finest

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18 years 10 months

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Of course they won't scrap it. All the problems can be fixed.

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11 years 5 months

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Nice to see its not just the UK having problems with new ships

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18 years 10 months

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Spain (submarines) . . . . USA . . . Who else?

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11 years 5 months

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It seems to be a problem of all western countries. Whats going wrong?

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19 years 5 months

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Perhaps the naval architects, engineers and builders aren't getting enough practice designing, developing and building them...given the low production rates.

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11 years 5 months

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Or maybe Governments keep moving the goal posts and budgets

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18 years 10 months

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It seems to be a problem of all western countries. Whats going wrong?

Haven't the Russians also had some problems?

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12 years 8 months

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nope. Russian don't have problem with new naval technology. it is more organizational problem of bringing everything 100% in house from Ukraine to make it even better quality.
Russia has 6 new diesel SSK all with long range klibr missiles.
even the two Indian aircraft carriers based on Russian technology are built under constraints of Indian money and time line don't have any engineering difficulty.

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13 years 6 months

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Haven't the Russians also had some problems?

In terms of warship engineering? No not really. The bigger problem has been system integration and weapons/sensor suppliers ferociously missing deadlines, as well as unstable funding/unclear overall direction of fleet building. Not usually the shipbuilders fault though.

Not aware of any gross engineering faults like in the German ship, though the civie icebreaker Chernomyrdin's design was faulty and had to be fixed because of serious overweight issues. Construction was delayed by years due to design bureau's bad documents.

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13 years 4 months

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They overengineered a ship when something like the Absalons would fulfil the expeditionary takings that is expected from such a ship.

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13 years 10 months

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Are you serious ? of course the Russians have, delusional to think otherwise

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16 years 8 months

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It seems to be a problem of all western countries. Whats going wrong?

When did the French, the Italians, the Danes, the Koreans, the Japanese, the Dutch reported major structural problems with their ships this last decade and a half?

Cheers

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13 years 7 months

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The italians had to modify their FREMM frigates, because they discovered only after having built them to be far too bow heavy.

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16 years 8 months

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The italians had to modify their FREMM frigates, because they discovered only after having built them to be far too bow heavy.

? Could you point to a souce, please?
Never heard of it. I know that the first one, the Carlo Bergamini received a 3,6m hull extension while being built, and that design change was included on the rest of the class, but never heard of the ships being taken again to Fincantieri.

Cheers

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11 years 2 months

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My guess is low production combined with generational turn over in engineers.

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13 years 7 months

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The modification to the hulls was disclosed to be performed in late 2012, and at the time it was still not performed in any hull.

The problem with hydrodynamic properties of the hull and location of center of gravity was disclosed during Bergamini sea trial (launched mid 2011).

When the problem was admitted, the second hull was already almost complete but it was possible to modify it while still in the slipways.

The only source I found at the moment is in italian language, but some online translator will do the trick: http://www.analisidifesa.it/2012/11/modifiche-e-qualche-ritocco-per-le-fremm/

Please note that italian navy is really very secretive and ambiguous about just everything, with no exemption.

Whatever problem they admit it is just one of to chances: they are whining exaggerating things to get more stuff, or they screwed up and are admitting only the bare minimum they are forced to admit.

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8 years 6 months

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those are some major engineering problems, not just minor teething ones. don't know how they can resolve that through modifications (some one correct me if I am wrong)

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9 years 11 months

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The teething problems with the hull might get patched up, but the lack of a mid-range SAM missiles on a vessel of such size will still remain. A baffling design choice.

I'd understand it as a cost-cutting measure if they left the space and provisions for adding a VLS module later on if needed, but they apparently have not. Can they perhaps fit some ESSM module in front of the bow RAM launcher? Or perhaps move the RAM launcher there and put a VLS module in its original place? Not sure what's inside that front hull, but according to another article on the same page, there doesn't seem to be enough vertical space for the classic VLS module so their logical option is to open up the modular bays area, but that would kill the whole design concept of these ships.

Perhaps they can add some boosters and launch them sideways, but I don't see the German Navy paying the development of such a variant.

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8 years 6 months

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^ Im not much of a navy guy, but how is Germany's reputation as a post Cold War ship builder?
I know their armored vehicles are well regarded. not sure if their ships