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Old 11-20-2019, 07:14 PM
swaghauler swaghauler is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic View Post
This brings up an interesting potential situation. The ship is part of the General Frank S. Besson class and they started building them in 1987. There's only eight of them in service and I would argue that a major reason for that is because the collapse of the Soviet Union removed the need for a larger fleet.
So the potential situation is that without the "peace" from the end of the Cold War, more of the class could have been constructed.
Meaning that as a sourcebook/module writer or GM, you could expand the fleet and add a few of these ships where you needed them.

In a similar "what if", the Philippines Navy had two logistics support vessels built in the early 90s based on the Besson class with the most significant differences being a helicopter pad at the rear of the ship, a roof over part of the main deck and the ability to carry two LCVPs.
So for game purposes, it's not too far fetched to have the US Army also put that variant into service to compliment the Besson class. A helo/LCVP capable version would allow for certain operations that the conventional class wouldn't i.e. small team insertion by air/LCVP, wider range of SAR abilities and so on. There's no hangar but with the relatively calm oceans in the PNG area, transporting a helo on the pad wouldn't be so problematic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genera...support_vessel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacolo...support_vessel
Don't forget the Cyclone PCs! They were being used in the Philippines as well as the Gulf of Mexico for anti-piracy, drug enforcement, and general patrol. The Philippines was actually given USS Cyclone as a patrol ship.

This is something that is OFTEN overlooked when the LCS class ships are discussed. They were intentionally give "shoal-drafts" specifically for operating in this region because they replaced the OHP class Frigates (also having a shallow draft) that were also used in the shallow waters of the Asian Basin and the Persian Gulf where the much deeper drafted Burkes and Ticos could get into trouble trying to sail there.
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