The Anonymous Widower

Bring Back the Corvette

When I was watching the MS Deutschland depart yesterday, a Belgian ship the Godetia, was alongside the quay. Wikipedia says this about the history of the ship.

The Godetia is the successor of the HMS Godetia (K226), a British Flower class corvette which was manned by Belgian sailors during Second World War.

 So what was a Flower class Corvette? There is a long wikipedia article here.

They were built as simple ships, originally to escort coastal convoys.  But as the war progressed, and things got worse in the North Atlantic, these simple ships were used to protect convoys from U-Boats. I know a bit about this, as my next door neighbour in Felixstowe had served on corvettes during the Second World War. He could have written this.

Service on Flowers in the North Atlantic was typically cold, wet, monotonous and uncomfortable. Every dip of the fo’c’sle into an oncoming wave was followed by a cascade of water into the well deck amidships. Men at action stations were drenched with spray and water entered living spaces through hatches opened to access ammunition magazines. Interior decks were constantly wet and condensation dripped from the overheads.[9] The head (or sanitary toilet) was drained by a straight pipe to the ocean; and a reverse flow of the icy North Atlantic would cleanse the backside of those using it during rough weather. By 1941, corvettes carried twice as many crewmen as anticipated in the original design. Men slept on lockers or tabletops or in any dark place that offered a little warmth. The warships were nicknamed “the pekingese of the ocean”. They had a reputation of having poor sea-handling characteristics, most often rolling in heavy seas, with complete 80-degree rolls (40 degrees each side of the normal upright position) being fairly common; it was said they “would roll on wet grass”.[10] Many crewmen suffered severe motion sickness for a few weeks until they acclimatised to shipboard life.[9] It should be noted however, the general design of the Flowers was extremely seaworthy (just poor sea-handling characteristics), as no Allied sailor was ever lost overboard from a Flower during World War II, outside of enemy action.

So why should we bring them back?

Our armed forces are strapped for cash, just as those of virtually every other nation is.

We also are suffering from multiple threats like piracy around the coast of Africa and South-East Asia and probably other places soon, as the world economy gets worse.  There are also fishery protection and humaritarian needs, where large ships are a massive overkill.

These uses will probably not meet anybody more heavily armed than with an RPG or a heavy machine gun.

So would a modern design built on a steel hull in larger numbers, be the ideal ship for these types of actions? Some years ago, there was a proposal for an Osprey class frigate, which would have been based on the profile of a cross-channel ferry.  But the civil servants, who dispense what the Navy gets, decided in their wisdom that the sleek aluminium hulled ones were so much better. I always remember talking to an officer on a Sealink ferry, who had gone to the Falklands War.  He said that the seas were so bad, that the ferries had to slow down to allow the sleek naval ships to keep up.

Interestingly, the Americans have come up with the concept of a Littoral combat ship.

I suspect that there is a sensible design in there, which would probably be something like this.

1. Steel hull and superstructure
2. Small crew, but the ability to cater for quite a few more.
3. Ability to carry a modular mission payload. Just like Thunderbird 2!
4. Ability to land and refuel a helicopter and/or perhaps a drone.
5. Diesel engine powered
6. Moderate range and enough speed to get out of the way of pirates with RPGs in rubber boats
7. Good commuication and other systems, so that groups from different navies could work together in serious situations.

I also feel that if the modules could be similar in size to standard shipping containers, then when there is a humanitarian emergency in a place that is difficult to get to, then they can be used to bring in supplies and equipment. All this would need would be for the ships to have similar module loading.

Perhaps what is needed is something with the seaworthiness of a lifeboat, the strength of the average ferry and the adaptability of a Lockheed Hercules!

July 16, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | World | Piracy, Second World War, Ship