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Offshore Patrol Vessels

The UK is one of surprisingly few countries that can still park a warship (or three) off the coast anywhere in the world to indicate Her Majesty does not approve of this sort of show.

The RN is small - much smaller than I'd like - but it does still have significant capacity to project power. And credible power, too: our frigates and destroyers are quite fiddly to get rid of, and starting a full-scale war with NATO is low on most people's priority list.
 
Not seen that before.

Looks like - and, has the same intention of deception as - the "Go Faster Stripes", on your bog-standard Fiesta or Viva !! ;) .
SS Great Britain. Well worth a visit as loads of IK Brunel stuff and very well set out. Fake gun ports painted on to warn off pirates etc, all that could be seen from a distance was a ship.. ..with gun ports and a Dirty Harry 'do I have no cannon or do I have 20 cannon? Make my day...' attitude.
 
And so, we come full circle . . . Deploying a huge OPV, very lightly armed (some may say inadequately !), in the hope that it will impress, deceive, "the natives" . . . who may/may not, be a gullible as the French :( .
Steel is cheap air is free. Bigger is better as you can squeeze more stuff in it if and when you need to.
 
We also armed our ships with massively less capable weapons, ensuring we needed more to them to have the same striking power.

7” and 64lb guns were going to make an adversary of the day take note.
These were medium calibre guns de jure, definitely not the Victorian equivalent of a 30mm.
 
Id argue the Gannet was more akin to a sentry Frigate - such as the French Floreal class rather than an OPV

Which really is where B2 OPVs should be Classified - they are actually as big or bigger than most peoples Frigates - see the opinion of some in the RN they should be up armed with a medium calibre gun, (no excuses now we’ve gone for the Mk110) and some lightweight missiles.
 
Which really is where B2 OPVs should be Classified - they are actually as big or bigger than most peoples Frigates - see the opinion of some in the RN they should be up armed with a medium calibre gun, (no excuses now we’ve gone for the Mk110) and some lightweight missiles.
Not really - they are as big as peoples old frigates and 1 or 2 modern glorified corvettes masquerading as frigates.

Sticking on a big gun and missiles is going to up the Running cost - ups the crew required and reduces habitability and endurance - which rather defeats the purpose of having a large OPV.
 
Not really - they are as big as peoples old frigates and 1 or 2 modern glorified corvettes masquerading as frigates.

Sticking on a big gun and missiles is going to up the Running cost - ups the crew required and reduces habitability and endurance - which rather defeats the purpose of having a large OPV.

There is a middle ground though, and the Rivers fall considerably short of reaching that middle ground

They were designed for stronger armament and the Batch 2's have the architecture to support it.
They should be better armed than they are.
 
There is a middle ground though, and the Rivers fall considerably short of reaching that middle ground

They were designed for stronger armament and the Batch 2's have the architecture to support it.
They should be better armed than they are.
Why? They are there to provide useful presence, operate a helicopter and conduct peacetime operations. they're not built or manned to standards to take them into a warzone. Why bolt unnecessarily large armament to them and consume stores?

We have a finite budget. If we want genuine top tier warships we can send into harm's way confident they can handle themselves, that costs; if we want to make all of our warships fairly crap full-speed combatants, that means we have less money to buy and operate the top tier stuff. Or we just have to do without.

I suggest the Army has gone the other way, which is why it (doesn't) have AJAX.
 
There is a middle ground though, and the Rivers fall considerably short of reaching that middle ground

They were designed for stronger armament and the Batch 2's have the architecture to support it.
They should be better armed than they are.

I would go with could be rather than should be, its probably not a bad idea where theyre at - Should the global situation deteriorate we probably have the basis of the next gen Flower class as a basic convoy escort / MCM hull / coastal ASW patrol hull etc.
 
I would go with could be rather than should be, its probably not a bad idea where theyre at - Should the global situation deteriorate we probably have the basis of the next gen Flower class as a basic convoy escort / MCM hull / coastal ASW patrol hull etc.

They already could be

They were built for more armament
They are very much under armed as they are now
 
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