Shipbucket

Greetings fellow Bucketeers,

I was trying to make a semi-realistic coast guard ship for an AU that I have in the works. I am a total newb at Shipbucket, so this is also my first design that attempts to be even halfway realistic (my others are all fit for the annals of NationStates). Anyhow, I'm trying to make a ship, based on the capabilities of the US's Legend-class National Security Cutter. It is visually inspired by Rowdy36 and LEUT_East's (absolutely brilliant, btw) Multi-Role Vessel IFACGS Broome.

Which sensors would you use on this, and where? Or should I just put everything in radomes? Design critiques are very welcome as well.

Thank you all, and I look forward to becoming a member of the Shipbucket community!

P.S. What image hosting method should I use? I am currently using Dropbox but I don't know how well that works for everyone.

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How does one "ship-bucket", anyway?

Welcome aboard, and we'll gladly see your designs and hopefully some Real Life drawings.
I'm not that knowledgeable about modern warships, or Coastguard Cutters for that matter, but using some reason and a lot of guesstimating I can offer the following
You want a high resolution and long ranged surface search radar, for spotting small craft, be they smuggler boats or yachts in need.
You'll need a good navigational radar, maybe two, and of course you'll need sat-coms, good and varied communication equipment.
As for the image host, you'll need to let go of Dropbox since the loss of the Public folder it has become extremely difficult to publish drawings in the forums. There is a round about way, also published here in the various threads. I recommend using Imgur as hosting site as it works quite well, for now at least.

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Thank you Kim for the crest

"Never fear to try on something new. Remember that the Titanic was built by professionals, and the Ark by an amateur"

LOL, how deep do we want to go down the rabbit hole?

(Full disclosure: I'm an engineer, but definitely not a naval architect. Anything you see below has a 5-20% chance of being completely wrong)

You've already said NSC-ish fit, but let's back up a little. What's this ship for? What's the mission, what's the region, what's the larger naval arm like? For example, the US Coast Guard in general is a relatively combat-capable arm, and historically has had real DOD responsibilities. This shows in her design, which is built to naval standards, has an unusually capable helo fit, extensive VBSS equipment aft, and a nearly frigate-grade air search radar and gun fit. Indeed, Ingalls has offered NSC-derived offshoots as actual naval frigates.

The USCG also operates in severe conditions and far from shore where it is valuable to have substantial bad-weather air search capability. Were we talking about, say, an Italian ship that might never leave the Med, having a big air search set might be unnecessary. Not because the Italian services are incapable or anything, but because land-based radars can largely cover the entire area at high altitude. For geographic reasons, they'll tend to have much more extensive surface search and rescue capabilities than USCG units. Different ships for different needs.

So that's a lot of words to say that NSC is maybe not the appropriate baseline. Let's build up from absolutely nothing to a frigate-class electronics fit.

I'll make references to Valcom comms antennas and Thales and Kelvin-Hughes radars, mostly because these manufacturers are really friendly about sharing technical data like frequency, dimensions, and weight.

This is also a useful resource: http://www.jproc.ca/rrp/halifax_antennas.html



Anyway,

Absolutely mandatory:
X-band surface search radar (e.g., CMX12-26)
VHF marine/aviation comms (e.g., AS-2809 and VAS-1016A)

You just don't go to sea without these, period.

Really, really close to mandatory:
Second surface search set (either a more capable X-band unit like SPS-73 or an S-band unit like SharpEye)
UHF comms (e.g., AS-2810C/SRC)
HF comms (e.g., AS-3772B/U and/or wire fan antennas)
LF/MF receive (various)
Satcom of some flavor

A second surface search set is required for ships above a certain size (definitely including this cutter, I think). S-band is better than X-band in foul weather, generally. You can alternately use a more capable X-band unit to brute-force the problem. X-band has better resolution for a given size and is better at small-target detection. The NSCs went with the larger X-band unit for periscope detection and for USN parts commonality (a big deal!).

UHF comms are necessary for interoperation with military aviation; HF comms are necessary for long-range surface communication.

Satcom needs will vary, especially depending on what spaceborne assets your country has. NSC, surprisingly, does not seem to feature high-capacity UHF satcom (the ubiquitous OE-82C), but has SHF and EHF (not sure the exact flavor, but SURFSAT-S would seem appropriate). Omnidirectional (low-capacity) UHF satcom is nearly pixel-sized at Shipbucket scale (e.g., AVXD). INMARSAT (e.g.) is also likely.

GPS is basically invisible at this scale.

Included on large cutters like NSC:
Air-search set (e.g., SPS-75)
Surface gunfire support (e.g., SPQ-9B)
Larger satcom antennas for higher bandwidth
ESM/ECM (e.g., SLQ-32, Vigile)
EO/IR (e.g., Mirador
TACAN (e.g.)

The utility of all of these is obvious. Note that an air search set will generally include IFF.

Not included in NSC, but maybe nice:
Dedicated fire control set (e.g., STIR-1.2)
Minor hull-mounted sonar (e.g., Kingklip)






Alternately, consider an integrated mast solution like I-Mast. This will just solve all of your problems for you!



ORRRRRR

Just ask the US Navy


Further reading that might be interesting:
https://chuckhillscgblog.net/2015/11/14 ... ol-cutter/
https://chuckhillscgblog.net/2013/12/04 ... other-lcs/

The RADAR regulations Erik is referring to is Regulation 16 of SOLAS chapter V. It requires ships above 3000gt to carry an S-band radar in addition to the required X.band radar.
Non-commercial state operated ships are not required to follow the SOLAS convention, but it is highly encouraged that they do.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

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