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US Navy Hospital Ship
http://67.205.157.234/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5211		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  Philbob [ May 10th, 2014, 4:44 am ]
Post subject:  US Navy Hospital Ship
Was curious what people here thought the best option for a new Hospital Ship would be.
Author:  heuhen [ May 10th, 2014, 5:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: US Navy Hospital Ship
It's cheaper with an commercial vessel that can be transformed in to an hospital vessel within 24hours. We do that in Norway with good success. The only cost US navy would have for the hospital ship is when they using it.

but for an big navy USA, they would need some smaller hospital ship that can function as an fast respond vessel. That get the before the hospital ship. Almost like an MASH unit.
Author:  TimothyC [ May 10th, 2014, 5:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: US Navy Hospital Ship
Cleansheet and other commercial craft are right out leaving just the AKE, LPD, & MLP/AFSB options.

Of those, the MLP/AFSB is the slowest - and likely too slow for the operations in question, just leaving the AKE and LPD hulls. I'll go into the breakdowns later when I'm not falling asleep.
Author:  heuhen [ May 10th, 2014, 12:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: US Navy Hospital Ship
Sudden Idea... bit weird perhaps, but... perhaps not.

Why not take the aircraft carrier way.

you don't need an nuclear reactor, diesel engine is enough. don't need that high speed of an aircraft carrier, that reduce power plant size.
Author:  TimothyC [ May 10th, 2014, 3:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: US Navy Hospital Ship
heuhen wrote:
Sudden Idea... bit weird perhaps, but... perhaps not.

Why not take the aircraft carrier way.

you don't need an nuclear reactor, diesel engine is enough. don't need that high speed of an aircraft carrier, that reduce power plant size.
That is a spectacularly stupid idea. You would be designing an all new ship with none of the advantages of designing an all new ship.
TimothyC wrote:
Cleansheet and other commercial craft are right out leaving just the AKE, LPD, & MLP/AFSB options.

Of those, the MLP/AFSB is the slowest - and likely too slow for the operations in question, just leaving the AKE and LPD hulls. I'll go into the breakdowns later when I'm not falling asleep.
To continue, to my knowledge there have been no studies of converting the AKE hull to a hospital ship. While I do like the AKE hull and program (ahead of schedule and under budget!), I'm not sure it's the best option (although I'm sure NASSCO would love to get a contract to study it!).

What has been studied is a conversion of the oldest of the LSDs - The Whidbey Island Class. I know there were two MIT studies (link and link)on converting the oldest ships into hospital ships with landing docks. While both designs have fewer ORs and beds than an LPD-17 study (link), they are dramatically less expensive (the conversion of 4 LSDs could be done for the cost of a single LPD repeat.

If new build construction is required then I think that an LPD-17 repeat is the least-bad option. While a dedicated hull would be nice being able to tie into an existing logistic train and crew training system would potentially offer lower life cycle costs, something that must be kept in mind in the current austere environment.
Author:  Thiel [ May 10th, 2014, 4:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: US Navy Hospital Ship
Yeah, an LSD conversion seems to be the way to go.
Author:  Scifibug [ May 13th, 2014, 10:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: US Navy Hospital Ship
The last AH was converted from a LNG tanker the Navy got inexpensively.
I believe the next one should not be based on a combat vessel (LPD) or a possible legitimate wartime target (tanker, cargo ship).
I suggest a hospital ship based on a converted liner.
Author:  TimothyC [ May 14th, 2014, 2:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: US Navy Hospital Ship
Scifibug wrote:
The last AH was converted from a LNG tanker the Navy got inexpensively.
I believe the next one should not be based on a combat vessel (LPD) or a possible legitimate wartime target (tanker, cargo ship).
I suggest a hospital ship based on a converted liner.
Ok, how does that solve the problem of not being able to get into ports because of draft limits, or limitations in helo ops?

For that matter, what liner are you going to take? There are not that many real liners left (and only three big ones - one of which is in service).
Author:  Philbob [ May 15th, 2014, 2:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: US Navy Hospital Ship
the a heavily modified afloat forward staging base was looking good to me. perhaps you can confirm but I hear NASSCO is going to make a hybrid of the T-AKE and the MLP/Alaska class tanker for its T-AO(X) proposal.
Author:  Colombamike [ May 15th, 2014, 8:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: US Navy Hospital Ship
a modified Ro-Ro design
[ img ]
[ img ]
Ideally with
- 160-200 meters ships
- built in commercial standard
- one or two shafts or more likely pods
- with a 18-22 knots speed
- a flight-deck aft, with hangar for 2 medical helico
- capacity to carry a dozens of medical containers
- 2 doors (one aft, one sided)
- without armaments (except special/security forces onboard)
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