Following Submarine Matters article of December 4, 2018 Gorka L Martinez Mezo has made December 8, 2018 comments on the Norwegian frigate Helge Ingstad sinking. Gorka comments:
"I'm really surprised by the tone of this conversation. I wonder what makes Australian ASC workers, with little practical experience in building ships better than their Spanish [Navantia] comrades working in Ferrol which had quite a bit more experience in shipbuilding. Nor does Australian construction standards differ from Spanish ones as the ships are designed and built under widely used international standards for both civilian and military ships.
On the Norwegian incident, maybe we’re obviating the fact the frigate was hit by a 140.000 ton oiler when doind 17 knots. I wonder how other ships in the same class would have fared.
The crew had left the ships 11 min after the impact, so looks like no major damage control efforts may have been performed.
On the Norwegian imput in the construction phase, all the ships were inspected and certified by the Norwegian navy team detached in Ferrol and the watertightness of the ships was specifically tested as requested by the customers, the ships also being subjected to shock tests. All the tests were passed without any issues and approved by the Norwegian team. The watertightness tests were exhaustive and all the points from the Norwegian team, some in excess of the acepted construction standards, were passed.
The F-100s were also subjected to these same tests when they were being built as were ships built previously like the F-80 frigates built using the FFG-7 design.
As the ship is still underwater, looks like the members of the investigation commission are making some accusations without access to all the evidence.
"I'm really surprised by the tone of this conversation. I wonder what makes Australian ASC workers, with little practical experience in building ships better than their Spanish [Navantia] comrades working in Ferrol which had quite a bit more experience in shipbuilding. Nor does Australian construction standards differ from Spanish ones as the ships are designed and built under widely used international standards for both civilian and military ships.
On the Norwegian incident, maybe we’re obviating the fact the frigate was hit by a 140.000 ton oiler when doind 17 knots. I wonder how other ships in the same class would have fared.
The crew had left the ships 11 min after the impact, so looks like no major damage control efforts may have been performed.
On the Norwegian imput in the construction phase, all the ships were inspected and certified by the Norwegian navy team detached in Ferrol and the watertightness of the ships was specifically tested as requested by the customers, the ships also being subjected to shock tests. All the tests were passed without any issues and approved by the Norwegian team. The watertightness tests were exhaustive and all the points from the Norwegian team, some in excess of the acepted construction standards, were passed.
The F-100s were also subjected to these same tests when they were being built as were ships built previously like the F-80 frigates built using the FFG-7 design.
As the ship is still underwater, looks like the members of the investigation commission are making some accusations without access to all the evidence.
Reading the reports in the Norwegian press, looks like the Norwegian Navy isn’t as keen to finger pointing as the commissioners. "
Norway has already put in a temporary solution (in Norwegian) for the "problem" in 3 of the remaining 4 frigates, the fourth KNM Fridtjof Nansen is in heavy maintenance at the moment.
ReplyDeleteA comment about the profisinalism of Navantia is how anout the submarine that was to heby?
/Kjell
Norway has already put in a temporary solution.
ReplyDeleteSee Norwegian language article of December 6, 2018 https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/Xw0vbo/helge-ingstad-ulykken-installerer-hasteloesninger-paa-oevrige-fregatter
for the "problem" in 3 of the remaining 4 frigates, "the fourth KNM Fridtjof Nansen is in heavy maintenance at the moment." (?)
A comment about the professionalism of Navantia is:
How about Navantia S-80 (Isaac Peral class) submarine that in simulated tests was too heavy to surface?
From /Kjell (with further translation)
Just clarifying /Kjell's comment [at 8/12/18 6:46 PM]
ReplyDeleteAccording to Norwegian language article of December 6, 2018 https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/Xw0vbo/helge-ingstad-ulykken-installerer-hasteloesninger-paa-oevrige-fregatter
"The fourth frigate, KNM "Fridjof Nansen" is scheduled for heavier maintenance, and is scheduled to implement measures before it leaves again in April next year, says Nilsen."
Regards
Pete
The tanker Sola TS is only 62557 gross tons with a summer deadweight of ~113000 tons, not 140000 tons. Photos of the Sola TS after the collision shows just some paint rub offs on its bulbous bow and the tanker was much higher above its waterline so I doubt it is anywhere near its summer deadweight.
ReplyDeleteKQN
Worth repeating this comment below again. Anonymous originally made comment at 9/12/18 1:37 AM on http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2018/12/norwegian-frigate-helge-ingstad_4.html thread
ReplyDeleteI think just about every navy in the world is waiting on the Norwegian reports. There is little doubt the collision is the fault of the frigate & the tanker did everything it could. It even made some directional changes & still had a pilot aboard. I can’t see that tanker could have done much more without risking a more expensive disaster of a 100k ton full loaded tanker running aground.
You have to ask why was the frigate running at 17knts, AIS turned off, crowded fjord, in the dark. The oil terminal is well known. Why did not the AIS signal overlayed with the radar signal & well known fixed position of the oil terminal not warn the frigate? The tanker was in regular radio contact with Norwegian shipping authorities to the fact of its movements & it noticed the frigate & wasted valuable time with the authority trying to identify said frigate, all over radio frequencies the frigate should have been listening to. Why was not the frigate aware the tanker was on the move between it & the terminal just based on radio chatter? Why no attempt to at least slow down when told by a tanker turn or you will hit us? Is having the situation room physically separated from the bridge part of the problem (ie too many layers between operators & the bridge, slowing down the speed of relevant information & making it harder to judge what is relevant)?
One of the problems with naval ships is we have not had any modern ones sink for a while with people to tell us what was happening.
Even non Navantia designs may be affected by any design or component failures. Just like the car & truck industries, many sub components are supplied by a relatively small number of manufacturers. The Navantia frigate design in question has the F100 as its parent design, which was itself based on an earlier design based on a US design. If it is a design problem (rather than a build problem), then how far back does it go & what other designs may be affected?
Is it a frigate problem or a general Navantia problem, or a component supplier problem, or a NATO standard problem or a Norwegian maintance problem? Could this problem been around for a long time, but because ships used for target practice tend to get a heavyweight torpedo if they don’t sink after a couple of hours, we have been unaware?
Sam Bateman, has written a good article "Lessons from KNM Helge Ingstad collision" December 15, 2018, on the Australian Naval Institute website https://navalinstitute.com.au/latest-photo-of-sunken-knm-helge-ingstad/
ReplyDeleteHere is part: "for questionable operational security reasons, warships often don’t show [automatic identification system (AIS)] data, even though it’s a vital collision-avoidance mechanism that’s used extensively by the commercial shipping sector. Not using AIS may be acceptable on the open ocean, but it’s poor practice in busy shipping lanes.
After the US Navy accidents, the chief of naval operations instructed his ships to show AIS when they’re in heavy shipping traffic. This was apparently a message that had not got through to the Royal Norwegian Navy, although it’s been reported that an American naval exchange officer was onboard the Ingstad at the time of the collision."
"...the high-tech bridge of a modern warship isn’t amenable to using the...‘Mark One eyeball’. The many screens and electronic data systems on a bridge can preoccupy the bridge team and distract them from what is happening around them."
See much more of that article https://navalinstitute.com.au/latest-photo-of-sunken-knm-helge-ingstad/