Independent Federation of Australia AU

[LEUT_East]

Gidday Easty
It's possible you may have lost resupply capacity by not having any forehead crane and deck space.
AA often carries major items forehead and unloading from there gives bow on capacity which appears lacking here?
Just a thought.

I was thinking about that but when I introduced a fwd crane and container well, the whole design began to look unbalanced. So I have kept Laser_one's layout and instead of the fwd format, I will use the aft crane and the area underneath the flightdeck to store/hold (uncontainerised) stores. In my AU the level of service provided by this vessel differs somewhat to the real Auroura Australis.

[Rusel]

Yeah cool, I thought that was probably the track you were on. Definitely a beaut job there.
The Svalbard Class was what I had chosen for southern ocean patrols in my novel based around this time.
Your fantastic version certainly helps me describe it better. Thank you.
... Which leaves an option for another vessel type ?

[Thiel]

The extra cargo capacity could be made up by chartered Ice class freighters during the summer.

[MihoshiK]

This is posted with LEUT-east's permission. I really did this one just to stretch my drawing muscles a bit... But he liked it enough that he told me to post it.

His Castlemaine is an alt-universe replacement for the Hobart class which will be coming online soon(ish). Which is based on the Navantia 101 design. One of the competitors was the Dutch LCF design.
So what if the IFA decided it didn't have the money to design and build their own class of ships, and held a competition. Just like in real life. Only this time, the winner is:

Basically a lenghtened LCF, the main differences are the 64 cell VLS, and the WR-21 gas turbines replacing the Spey engines.
Together with a redesigned gearbox the extremely efficient WR-21 gas turbines give the Castlemaine class a rather huge increase in range. The downside is a slightly lower top speed.
Apart from accomodating the extra weapons, the lengthening of the ship almost exclusively adds to the ships bunkerage and storage, to make the operational range and duration desired by the IFAS.
The only other real difference than was that the hull was partially made out of thicker gauge steel, to accomodate operations in the extreme southern parts of Australia's waters, with the shipyard preferring to use as much of the original LCF design as possible to lower design costs.

The APAR array is fitted to a Thales-Samsung I-Mast, and the SMART-L sits a few feet higher.



Castlemaine Class Specifications:
Type Air Warfare Destroyer
Crew 30 officers, 202 non-commissioned
Displacement 6,550 tonnes
Length 149.7 metres
Beam 18.8 metres
Draught 8.3 metres
Speed 28 knots
Range 10,850km (5,860 nautical miles)
Missiles 2 quad launchers, Harpoon SSM, 64 Cell Mk41 VLS, SM-2MR, SM-2ER, SM-3 Block II, ESSM
Guns 1 x FMC 5 inch (127mm), 2 x Phalanx CIWS, 2 x 25 mm Typhoon-G, 2 x .50 cal guns
Torpedoes 2 x Mk32 Mod 9 two-tube torpedo launchers, Eurotorp MU90 torpedoes
Helicopters 1 x Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk or 1 x MRH-90 Taipan
Phased Array Radars Thales APAR Phased Array
Air Search Radar Thales SMART-L
Surface Search Radar 1 x Sea Watcher 100
Sonar 1 x AN/SQS-53C Sonar Array
ECM AN/SLQ-32, 2 x BAE Systems Nulka
Propulsion 2 x RR WR-21 gas turbines@ 28,800 hp, 2 × Wärtsilä 16 V26 Diesels @ 5,600hp, 2 x direct drive shafts

And now I feel bad posting it before I was really happy with it... So I redid it. Stealth edit!

[acelanceloet]

I am only in doubt if it could take that sonar.
that said, the gun is a lot lighter then both the guns proposed and build on the real LCF, so you might have some margin there

[erik_t]

I don't see why not. SQS-26 fit on a Bronstein, with a full load displacement of not quite 3000 tons.

[MihoshiK]

I am only in doubt if it could take that sonar.
that said, the gun is a lot lighter then both the guns proposed and build on the real LCF, so you might have some margin there

That was the only reason I even dared put it on there. I figured the difference between 23 tons of gun or 37.5 tons of gun (Oto Compact) might make the needed difference. Of course, the originally proposed old Swedish 120 mm mounts put in a hefty 52 tons...

So yeah, this should provide enough margin.

[acelanceloet]

the problem would not be an problem of size, but an problem of the stresses in the hull and the weights it was designed for.
that said, seeing the lower gun weight, I suppose the amends would not be that big indeed.....

[LEUT_East]

I am trialing a new colour scheme for my AU's Coast Guard vessels.

[GLACIESFIRE]

Wonderful scheme for the Coast Guard!!!