OOC

OOC for R&D

Verbatim copies of previous R&D projects?

They are all real life projects and the stats aren't going to change so there is no point in me writing them up again. My own projects I will obviliously.

Can I have some confirmation that all the R&D projects France and the UK are taking on (and have jumped the gun in terms of RP, given that we aren't technically open for business yet) are r/l approved or pending projects. If they're just cut and paste projects from last round i'd be hesitant to wave them through unless they are based on r/l projects that are in no danger of being cut by the current French and UK governments.

I have NOT copied ANY designs from the archives.

Those are definatly real projects. The fact i chose the Renault AMC and not the others was because i expected that the French government will cut the other projects and go with the already nearly finished, cheap, modular design. The Rafale upgrade has already been finished and the first series of the F3/T4 aircrafts is already on the assembly line.

The LeClerc upgrade is also part of the Scorpion project, and technically the cheapest project, so i expected that it will not be cut.

The A400M is a pan-european project with like 200 ordered units.

The carrier is again for sure. The patrol corvette i posted is again a cut in the budget - it is the modification of an older vessel, namely one of the cheapest designs, creating a cheap vessel with very minimal R&D.

The replenishment oiler is again for sure, the current ships are like 30 years old, and there's only 4 of them, which is not too sufficient.

The other 2 projects, the "aircraft carrier submarine frigate" and the stealth frigate are the company's projects. The submarine thingy's R&D is mostly finished, while the other is long-term project that hasnt received much funding so far, and atm it is only developed by the company(but technically companies and university).

And then i havent posted THAT AND THAT.

The only beef I'd have with the Frenchy is the idea of railguns, made by France, before 2020, or a La Fayette replacement to even be considered, before 2015. And maybe for the second aicraft carrier. And the SMX-25, which seems kind of asinine. It's just DCNS tossing shit out there.

The Scorpion program seems legitish, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_scorpion
I'm actually glad this was brought up, since I'm now aware of that program. But it seems to have run into some snags, namely with the US. But I'd suspect vehicle replacements to start happening soonish.

The Airbus A400M, yes, is already in the works but all partners have cut their quotas and Italy has dropped out entirely. Remember, you'll need the EU go ahead to export that.

As for the rest...

Bugs already dealt with the overall nature of Project Scorpion but I still want to make a few, specific points.

Let's start with the Renault Armoured Multirole Carrier; France wants to phase out its existing Véhicule de l'Avant Blindé by 2020. You want to have early procurement - that's going to cost you some money.

You're not going to have a LeClerc 4 by 2013. Unless it's just an 'upgrade' and even then two years at the cost of a mere $13 million new and $4 million an 'upgrade' seems cheap given that the currently LeClerc is the most expensive western style MBT in existence.

As for the Richelieu class aircraft carrier... don't try and sneak in nuclear propulsion when it's already been written off as an option. If you want nuclear power you'd need to retool the design to accommodate the reactors.

Your Bergasse Dupetit Thouars class corvette passes muster but having the project done by 2012 seems a bit rushed. Although, it merely duplicates the role of the Lafayette frigate.

Your SMX-25 class submerged frigate isn't going to be done by 2012. I don't care if the contractor says it could be done immediately. You're talking about a totally new ship built from the keel up and what looks to me like an untested design.

Your Advansea class stealth frigate is more reasonable in the timeline but you're not going to have, as Bugs mentioned, railguns by then. It's highly doubtful that even the USN will have railguns mounted on ships by then, if cuts to the DoD budget continue to happen - let's be realistic. You'd need a nuclear reactor to produce the power and you won't have enough room on a 4,500 frigate for one.

The supply ship passes muster and the Rafale upgrade is acceptable.

The rest however, i'd reconsider how i'd go about those R&D projects since they'd cost France an arm and a leg.

All of mine are real. The Future Surface Combatants, Mars and a new repair ship are most defenatly going to happen. The Advice has yet to be cancelled in real life and probably wont be as they was an ASS for when the QEIIs are in service.

Yes, i know, but right now we are still at domestic.

It's not like i could finish the replacement by 2020, but the Renault AMC is the most finished and the cheapest program.

Then when? As for the price, it was theoretically ok as domestic price.

It was worth a try

Well, it is merely a retooling, not a full design.

Not like i was buying any of them. the SMX-25 is rather an export to small nations that want to save money by having one design instead of a dozen. While for the Advansea - do you actually believe that we will see that ship IG? It is barely an advertisement, lol.

Also the FSC project has now been adopted, in real life, by Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Turkey (somehow) and is in discussions with Canada so it wont be going anywhere soon.

And now i'd appreciate some suggestions to the 2 last posted ships.

Also, whats the price of upgrading the AuF1 to AuF2??

I don't think I have a research wing, let alone any projects.

D'awww

While I'm not going to weigh in on any specifics -- beyond the fact that I need to point out the Leclerc upgrade is ridiculously cheap for what it gives the tank, the 'frigate-submarine' thing is a patently retarded concept (protip: a regular submarine would be better and cheaper), and the landing craft estimation is dubious at best -- I will point out that, if you actually intend to stay as France, you may want to reduce the pace. You're going to wind up burned out sooner rather than later.

By popular demand i've posted our tentative position/opinion on the current state of military spending two days into the RP here.

That's my general warning against trying to level grind your nations by getting in projects early without any backing RP. Simply saying "well, it's already being done in real-life" really doesn't cut it when every nation is considering axing programs.

Furthermore, many of these R&D programs are technical offerings done by defense contractors that haven't been adopted by your governments yet. And militarization and upgrade packages have a bad habit of getting canceled in times of economic hardship.

Improving your nation is fine but trying to bend logic to make it a superstate makes for rather stale RP in the long-run.

About the British FSC project:

French missiles in an American missile launcher might sound great in theory, but in practice it would be a nightmare. These weapon systems are installed with incredible precision (canisters are traditionally guided into location by piano wire). Screwing around with it and making it do something it's not supposed to do is a fantastic way to accidentally kill half the people on deck.

And it works the other way, too. The Royal Navy considered adding the Mk. 41 VLS to the Type 45 specifically because the SYLVER has no land attack capability yet.

I have edited in approval/disapproval comments for each active R&D post, besides Germany's as it is the nation I play.

Comments in red mean your program has been denied, comments in blue means you can go forward contingent upon accepting the additional requirements, if any, i've placed on your programs.

If you have any questions feel free to post them in this thread or if they're especially angry, go ahead and PM them to me.

Thanks.

Your friendly neighborhood R&D Mod,
Cloud

All the FSC (T26,7 and 8) and the MARS oiler ones are now multinational with Australia, malaysia and a hell of a lot of nations I am in the process of confirming with how does that change things. This is the same as what they are doing in real life to avoid cutting the projects.

Adjusted prices on those mentioned and yes the Type 45 is a real potential of the ship. Don't know how the hell I got the price that wrong on the Archers the Kiwi police's equivalents must miss a hell of a lot off or I buggered up the cost transfer

Australia is paying for most of the FSC IRL and IG as they are getting a few Type 26s and Type 28s and then New Zealand is getting a couple and so forth.

This is apparently the Type 26 list
- UK: 6 to 12 ships.
- Canada: 8 to 12 ships.
- Australia: up to 8
- New-Zealand: 2 ships
- Malaysia: +/- 3
- Turkey: up to 8 (dubious interest for Turkey, because this country currently develop their owns frigate program (TF-2000)).

Costs for the Archer-class are based on Ireland looking into purchasing the patrol boats back in 2009. The idea was that they could buy ten boats for the price of one large, offshore patrol vessel.

As for the rest...

In so many cases i've noted that the UK's designs keep mixing different weapons systems. Or wrong weapon systems on the wrong ships; PVLS on your FSC for example.

When players jam so many projects at once, it's hard for the mods to give each project the amount of love and attention it needs to be sorted out into proper working order.

I understand you've already done RP around some of the programs but you had to have known that those programs hadn't been approved by the mods yet. I understand that we have a duty to be fairly prompt with our approval but given that it's only been three days into the RP and we've had over 33 R&D projects posted we've had a little bit a of a backlog to deal with.

I know I'm not rushing you.

The only roleplay being done was securing peoples support for the schemes as will be happening soon in real life following the round 1 talks when everyone (canada, australia) signed up nothing to do with the stats yet so take as long as you like with them.

As for stats of the FSC the two frigates are CSJs so I'm not sure, I just copied them over to try and help you as the stats section was already approved last round.

A little extra for the RN stuff:

Type 45 Upgrades: The Harpoon addition alone would be at least $50 million per ship, including missiles (about half the cost), launchers, launcher installation, and fire control updates.
For the Tomahawk, I don't see much need since you have the SCALP naval, but in either case, the Mk.41 isn't that good an option - the PAAMS is designed to work with Sylver VLS. The big problem, and it's a BIG one, is you only have the A50. You'd need to extend that to the A70, which will not be cheap. I'd expect an average cost of around $3 million per cell, sans missiles, to get extended VLS in. Then you have the other issue: if you use Mk.41, you need time and effort to integrate it into your fire control - not recommended as this is the costlier option. Instead, you could work with the US to get the Tomahawk rated for the Sylver A70. It wouldn't take much longer than integrating the Mk.41, and will be better for maintenance, procurement, training, and a host of other logistical concerns.
My recommendation would be to replace 16 A50 cells with A70 for about $50 million (or see about just adding 8 or 16 for $25 or $50 million - you should have space), and, if you have to have Tomahawks and can get the US to go along with it, fork over another $75 million or so for, say, 8 missiles per ship, and the integration work. Otherwise, just $50 million for the extended VLS, the cost of however many SCALPs you want to stick in, and a few million extra for integration.


Also, for the record, considering a lot of these projects aren't even going to have construction started for several years, you can always say they're on indefinite hold for the time being and not completely scrapped. However, remember, as noted, the current government will be making broad cuts, so consider where things should be slashed before adding everything in. For example, I would go the reverse of your path and reduce the number of Type 26/7s in favor of corvettes. The current government would find that much more palatable.

LeClerc 4
How can 5+ years not be enough?? I'm putting existing things on an existing tank!!! But price popped up

Bergasse Dupetit Thouars class corvette
2012 avaiability means, that the first convert will start in 2012, not that they will be finished by then.
Otherwise why would the french government cut it?? That is the cheapest thing they can get, it is a cheap convert on a cheap ship, designing a new and building new would just be even more expensive.
And considering that the Gowind class corvette has much more and much better equipment, yet has the same price, i think that the $300M for that corvette is even too much.

SMX-25
Fine by me, it was rather just an interesting stuff.

Advansea
I wouldnt be so sure that they wont have railguns by then...but anyway, ok, its not like we will go till 2025.

Rafale upgrade
I based my price on that flyaway cost is around $100M, and the avionics is 30% of it (at least on wikipedia), which is $30M then. Changing the radar to a new one, adding a targeting pod and adding another technically off-the-shelf technology would really double it??

L-CAT landing craft
The french government has a tender about a new landing craft. DCNS has its own design, CNIM has its own design, then there are the americans. That version seems like the best choice, since it is the toughest and fastest, plus the company paid its R&D and it is nearly finished, since it was already tested in Toulon.

MPPV
Yes it is a concept ship, but shows potential and can be developed further. The French Navy's assault ships are over 30 years now, they badly need a replacement, and that ship seemed like the cheapest and best replacement.



And I did calculate budget cuts while posting the designs, thats why i chose these and not the other designs.

Wait.
If i can add THAT to my Rafale, I'll have no complaints

It's an active EW measure. It would probably give the Rafale a bigger radar signature than if you didn't have it, provided the radar looking at you knew what to look for. And that's assuming it's even a viable project, since it's probably not. If your primary source is a forum, well...

21c is also a forum the forum contains a link, though already dead.

Also:

That is a very true thing.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread199573/pg1

But anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_Spectra