Lisboa's harbour has had a busy October, regarding docked foreign warships. Right now we have docked here 2 canadian, 1 dane, 1 US and 3 chinese. They were:
Denmark: Peter Willemoe, Iver Huitfeldt-class FFG.
RCN: Halifax, Halifax-class FFG and Athabaskan, Iroquois-class DDG.
PLAN: Jinan, Type 052C-class DDG, Yiyang, Type 054A.
US: USS Arlington, San Antonio-class LPD.
Hope everyone is friendly! :D
All but the US ship were open to visitors. A lot of people were visiting the PLAN ships; to be expected, since they are rare here. I managed to take a few photos of the lot, but could not visit the Canadian or Dane ships... a massive rain storm dropped on me while walking from ship to ship. Since I'm mid-recovery from a flu strike, I decided on a strategy withdrawal...
Here are the photos I did take. Of particular interest, to me:
-the chinese 35mm CIWS's striking similarity with the Goalkeeper;
-the circular VLS on the chinese DDG, visible behind the 100mm gun; each missile has it's own circular hatch. By contrast the FFG's are similar to western models, being square in shape. Perhaps trying diferent ideas to see which works better?
-the chinese AESA antena are huge, but they seem very low in the hull; by contrast, the dane's are as high as they can be. Won't this cut on range?
-the Dane FFG carrying 2 76mm (I thought it had only 1); I thought only the italians still carried multiple guns of this caliber!
Visitors in the chinese ships could walk inside superstructure; not everywhere ofc, but enough to spot a few things. I'm not a naval engineer, but do have some notions; the ships looked impecable, the welds ruler-straight, no rust anywhere, all cables and lines properly tied, the 2 triple ASW torpedo tubes shining (again, no rust or poor paint), the locks and hinges of the side hatches for the tunes also looked properly maintained... everything seemed "ship shaped and squared away". Saddly the hangars were included in the "no visitors" area...
One question for any veterans: both chinese ships had 2 anchors, one on the centerline, one to port. None to starboard... any ideas why?
A final note to the USN: when the PLAN has a better visitors policy than the USN, something's amiss... I couldn't even get close enough to take a decent photo of the 4 Sea Stalions parked on the pad. Meanwhile, the chinese alowed everyone in with no more than a 3sec metal sweep, followed by "ok go goodday"... bad PR...
Denmark: Peter Willemoe, Iver Huitfeldt-class FFG.
RCN: Halifax, Halifax-class FFG and Athabaskan, Iroquois-class DDG.
PLAN: Jinan, Type 052C-class DDG, Yiyang, Type 054A.
US: USS Arlington, San Antonio-class LPD.
Hope everyone is friendly! :D
All but the US ship were open to visitors. A lot of people were visiting the PLAN ships; to be expected, since they are rare here. I managed to take a few photos of the lot, but could not visit the Canadian or Dane ships... a massive rain storm dropped on me while walking from ship to ship. Since I'm mid-recovery from a flu strike, I decided on a strategy withdrawal...
Here are the photos I did take. Of particular interest, to me:
-the chinese 35mm CIWS's striking similarity with the Goalkeeper;
-the circular VLS on the chinese DDG, visible behind the 100mm gun; each missile has it's own circular hatch. By contrast the FFG's are similar to western models, being square in shape. Perhaps trying diferent ideas to see which works better?
-the chinese AESA antena are huge, but they seem very low in the hull; by contrast, the dane's are as high as they can be. Won't this cut on range?
-the Dane FFG carrying 2 76mm (I thought it had only 1); I thought only the italians still carried multiple guns of this caliber!
Visitors in the chinese ships could walk inside superstructure; not everywhere ofc, but enough to spot a few things. I'm not a naval engineer, but do have some notions; the ships looked impecable, the welds ruler-straight, no rust anywhere, all cables and lines properly tied, the 2 triple ASW torpedo tubes shining (again, no rust or poor paint), the locks and hinges of the side hatches for the tunes also looked properly maintained... everything seemed "ship shaped and squared away". Saddly the hangars were included in the "no visitors" area...
One question for any veterans: both chinese ships had 2 anchors, one on the centerline, one to port. None to starboard... any ideas why?
A final note to the USN: when the PLAN has a better visitors policy than the USN, something's amiss... I couldn't even get close enough to take a decent photo of the 4 Sea Stalions parked on the pad. Meanwhile, the chinese alowed everyone in with no more than a 3sec metal sweep, followed by "ok go goodday"... bad PR...
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