Royal Australian Naval Force Enhancements

[Supe]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Thats sounds very familiar, what is it with Labour governments and airpower, haven't they learnt the lessons of the '30's.

The heads in the sand crowd can eschew Defence spending because Australia to a certain extent is picking up the tab. NZ has a defacto airforce just across the Tasman. It's called the RAAF.

It doesn't concern me that NZ no longer have fighter squadrons but I'd sure like to see the Kiwi's beef up the offensive capabilies of their Orion fleet and Navy and ensure full interoperability with the ADF. (I understand NZDF comms are outdated?) . A four frigate Navy should be the RNZN minimum; armed appropriately of course. I'd see it as a sign of good faith that NZ Gov believes it appropriate to being an equal partner in the relationship and committed to doing its fair share.

 

[alexsa]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Sounds like this frser coalition is did the same sort of thing to Australia has what the NZ Helenie government is doing now

Actually in this case it was the Fraser government who were, apparently, going to replace the HMAS Melbourne. It was Bob Hawke and the ALP who actually scrapped this plan.

It was noted previously that there really needs to be an agreed road map for defence between the major political parties if we are going to see cost effective and timely procuement policies. Previously this would have been unthinkable but defence is again seen as important and, if the two parties can actaully stop trying to point score off each other over semantics, we msy just see agreement on some purchases.

I am not holding my breath. You just have to look at the comment in respect of the LPH to see this is true. The project is announced and the ALP promptly indicate more smaller vessels would be better tahn two alrge ones irrespective of the fact the manning and up keep requirements for each vessel (big or small) would not be significantly different, nor for that matter is the purchase cost when looking at the navantia design. However more small platforms would see greater operating cost overall for less capability on each platform (and probaly less capablity overallif each platform is only to be about 10000 tonnes).

 

[cherry]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

In relation to the M113's, the Army structure doesn't allow for the 3 man turret of the ASLAV throughout the mechanised infantry battalion. With only 9 persons in a section, having 3 people crew the mech vehicle would leave only 6 dismounted troops which is an insufficient number of assault troops...

I really believe the M113s will require a firepower increase and that the currently planned turret and weapon is insufficient. Perhaps the one-manned Dragar stabilised 25mm turret would be a good option. Why settle for such a small incremental increase in weaponry?

 

[cherry]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Sorry! forgot to attach a pic for the one-man turret.http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/turrets/giat/giat4.html

 

[Aussie Digger]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Cherry,

Something very much like this has already been proposed within RAAC and RAINF study papers. A couple of other systems (the exact detals of which I can't recall) have also been mooted including a Turkish made 25mm armed, electrically driven and stabilised 1 man turret that also has a 7.62mm co-axial GPMG.

Funding is yet again the "bug bear". The M113 upgrade program is cost capped at this stage and there's no additional money to provide for the "firepower boost" that is one of the stated goals of the program. The 0.50cal quick change barrel heavy machine guns that are being used as the primary weapon for the M113AS/3/4 had already been acquired for the earlier (and cancelled) M113AS2 upgrade.

These weapons also ALREADY equip the Army's M113's as someone decided it would be a good idea to mount them on the vehicles NOW rather than leave them on the shelf for 5-6 years. As such you now see them mounted on M113's, ASLAV-PC's, SAS/4RAR Cmdo LRPV's and as the flex mounted HMG's on RAN vessels.

The program was originally intended to be a series of rolling upgrades to the fleet which would of seen upgraded and uparmoured M113's in service some 5-6 years ago (in time for East Timor perhaps). Interference then became involved at the Government and Upper Echelon of the Army level and it was decided to scrap that program and go with the full M113AS3/3 upgrade in one hit, but without the significant firepower upgrade the earlier project would have provided. This is the program as you see it now...

I'd say there probably will be additions to the M113 vehicles firepower but it will be several years down the track yet. You'll probably see flex mounted 7.62mm GPMG's mounted on the M113AS3/4's when in line service and possibly a real firepower boost several years down the track when some of Army's other major projects have been realised. Unfortunately there's a real log-jam of programs at the moment that are more important for Army capability than this one.

Once the Tigers, NH-90's, M1A1's, Bushmasters, additional ASLAV's, Javelin ATGW's, Land 17 artillery pieces, soldier combat systems, GBAD upgrades, area direct fire support weapons upgrades, etc etc are finalised and in-service you'll probably see a rolling upgrade program for several other systems including ASLAV's, M113's and Bushmasters that will provide another firepower boost. I wouldn't hold my breath until then though, you're probably looking at 2010 or beyond...

 

[Supe]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Once the Tigers, NH-90's, M1A1's, Bushmasters, additional ASLAV's, Javelin ATGW's, Land 17 artillery pieces, soldier combat systems, GBAD upgrades, area direct fire support weapons upgrades, etc etc are finalised and in-service you'll probably see a rolling upgrade program for several other systems including ASLAV's, M113's and Bushmasters that will provide another firepower boost. I wouldn't hold my breath until then though, you're probably looking at 2010 or beyond...

With existing priorities to cater for, I can see these firepower upgrades you mention never happening...unless there is a real need to deploy them to a hot zone. Some of the ASLAVs deployed to Iraq were updated with RWS in a short time period.

Any word on numbers of Javelin's to be ordered? AFAIK, ADF only has around 10 Milan's at its disposal. There's a clip floating around the web of U.S soldiers using a Javelin to hit an apartment block. Quite a versatile piece of kit.

 

[seantheaussie]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

There's a clip floating around the web of U.S soldiers using a Javelin to hit an apartment block. Quite a versatile piece of kit.

How the hell would that work? Guiding onto a heater? Within manouvering range?

 

[Aussie Digger]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Supe, the Javelin is already in-service my friend with 4RAR and 1 Commando, plus SASR and was first deployed with SASR to Afghanistan in 2002... In addition the Army School of Infantry got their first training and operational systems in 2004, I haven't heard for certain myself, but can almost guarantee that the "online battalion" would be equipped with Javelin's immediately should a short notice deployment occur.

An order was placed for the "Green" Army in early 2004 for 92 launchers and around 660 live missiles. Under Phase 1 of Land 40 these initial launchers are to equip the regular infantry battalions DFSW platoons, The Cav Regiments (2 Cav and 2/14 LHR) and round out the specwarries stocks. With additional planned phases additional launchers will be ordered down the track to equip the rest of Army.

As to those firepower upgrades I mentioned, contracts have been signed for all those capabilities already with the sole exceptions of the new arty and the new area direct fire weapons (Mk 19 auto grenade launchers or similar, plus other new weapons). These capabilities sprung from the White Paper and Defence Capability plan and have already been funded. As far as defence acquisitions goes, this is as good you get with certainty of gettin some new kit. Of course "Old School" soldiers know you never count on getting a new bit of kit til it's in your hands...

 

[Supe]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Sean:

http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=javelin-launched-in-fallujah

Apparently the Javelin has menu options for all sorts of scenarios including of course taking out armoured vehicles.

Edit: AD beat me to the punch. Anyway this URL has the lowdown.

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/javelin/

 

[Aussie Digger]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

The Javelin missile has an infra-red seeker true, but can also be fired "un-guided" ie: without using the seeker system, just the sighting system. This possibly how a soldier could target "non-heat" emitting targets. Or the thermal imaging sight and seeker is so precise it takes very minute heat emmissions to "lock on"...

 

[Aussie Digger]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

If anyone wants a greater understanding of the way the Australian Defence Force does business and interesting (though long) read can be found here:


http://www.anao.gov.au/WebSite.nsf/Publications/3A8BF52A987E185FCA25704A007B9A39

It outlines the trials that a simple upgrade program for the M113 vehicle in the Australian Army has had to go through... Anyone who still thinks the M113 should be upgraded further still with better weapons etc should read this. It's absolutely unbelievable...

The only "good" bit of news is th option the Australian Army holds to upgrade a further 170 vehicles. At least this would provide a common fleet for Army...

 

[Cootamundra]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

I saw something on the ABC news last night that said the whole program had just been put on the National Audit Office sh%t list for poor project management, poor risk management, poor requirements definition, poor change control - sounds like something one of my new project managers would do. I would've thought that by now we would have experienced people running these things - perhaps its a case of leaving the projects/programs to the professionals (i.e the open market) and the fighting to the ADF.

I've heard people on other forums give the DMO a bollocking in the past, but how is it now? Last year they got a new head of the DMO from outside of Canberra (i.e. the open market). Is he having any luck reforming and re-focusing the DMO? And has Def Min Hill had much to do with this?

Coota

 

[Aussie Digger]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

The problems seem to lie with the "old projects". "New projects" such as the Tiger, Wedgetail and M1A1 acquisitions seem to be doing okay. The M113 upgrade program started in 1992 and has kept changing ever since. The project seems to have been running fairly smoothly since 2000 however when the biggest changes were made.

It is not a good sign however when they can stuff up, what is in essence a fairly simple vehicle upgrade so VERY badly.... This report blames Army quite a bit, however from my experience the Army usually "knows" exactly what it wants. What the Government is prepared to "give" however, is a completely different matter.

The M113AS3/4 upgrade is the perfect example of this. The current project allows for 350 vehicles to be upgraded to a higher standard, but forgets that Army is required to operate a fleet of 760 of these vehicles in order to meet requirements. The Army holds options to upgrade 170 more vehicles, but this still leaves a shortfall of 140 vehicles (or 2 Regiments worth) and there has been no sign as yet that the money required will be forthcoming at any rate...

Half the fleet will therefore effectively become a new vehicle due to the extent of this upgrade, meaning that Army has to support 2 Armoured vehicle types basically doing the exact same role, but one of which has been identified 13 years ago as obsolete and requiring at least an extensive upgrade...

Most of the acquisition problems would disappear IMHO if the frickin Government would simply bite the bullet and allow Army to upgrade the whole fleet to a set standard or replace it with an "off the shelf" vehicle as it has done for other capabilities...

 

[Aussie Digger]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Anhow, getting back on track, ie: RAN enhancements, here's an interesting article from the latest Navy News detailing (amongst other things) HMAS Parramatta being newly fitted with Mini-Typhoon stabilised machine gun mounts...

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Frigate works up
HMAS Parramatta completes evaluation [/font]
​

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]By Michael Brooke
[/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
The RAN’s fifth Anzac class frigate HMAS Parramatta is at the end of a four week work up, culminating in the ship’s Unit Readiness Evaluation.

HMAS Parramatta conducted its work ups off the coast of Sydney and had HMA Ships Tobruk, Canberra, Diamantina, and Gascoyne, as well as HMNZ Ships Te Kaha, Te Mana and Endeavour as her consorts.

Parramatta, was supported by RAAF Hawk trainers, F- 111s, P3C Orions and
Pelair Aircraft, and surface targets towed by DMS.

The ship’s weapons electrical engineer officer, LCDR Paul Baston, said that during the past four weeks they have been trained and assessed in all the evolutions of a Naval major fleet unit (MFU).

“Parramatta has only reached its second birthday, so one could say it is but an infant.

But that said, it certainly can pack a mean punch,†he said.

Parramatta is fitted with an advanced package of air and surface surveillance radars, omni-directional hull mounted sonar and electronic support systems which interface with the 9LV453 Mk3 combat data system.

The ship can counter simultaneous threats from aircraft, surface vessels and submarines.

LCDR Baston said the work ups have gone well but Parramatta has yet to try out one of her newly fitted pieces of kit, the Mini-Typhoon stabilized machine gun.

“But we are keen to trial it during operations because it offers enhanced capability for force protection,†LCDR Baston said, “ and we particularly like the TopLite electrooptical sights that are used to search and track in conjunction with the Mini-Typhoon mounts.

“It’s used 24 hours a day for a wide variety of evolutions, including man overboard exercises, anti-aircraft tracking and surface firings for identification of contacts.â€

LCDR Baston said Parramatta has implemented new ways of conducting workups by docking at Fleet Base East each weekend and piping leave, rather than the traditional remaining at sea for two to four weeks.

He said this benefited the crew and their families.

“It’s good for family ties.

For instance, we organised a families day last Friday, the day after our work up progress evaluation and it went really wellâ€.[/font]

Obtained from www.defence.gov.au
This one slipped in under the radar. It wasn't even listed in the DMO's "Minor projects" pages... Good to see though. Hopefully some photo's will become available soon...

 

[Ryan]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Aussie Dig
This is a photo of HMAS Newcastle heading off on an op Catalyst deployment,I found this photo on the DoD website in the media download section on the 23rd of May 2005.
If you look in the top left of the photo you can see that they have modified Newcastles .50cal with what looks like some sort of remote system. I don't know what it is,but it may be the mini typhoon you are talking about.
Being fitted onto a 12:7mm weapon certainly would make it a mini typhoon.

 

[Ryan]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Dang
My photo wasn't attached it exceeds the limit.I have posted it in the R.A.N gallery.
Maybe someone can help me put the photo in this thread.
thanks

I'm having problems posting my photo in the gallery too.....
I have to go to work soon, 'll try again in the morning.

 

[webmaster]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Ryan, what is the problem/error that you are getting?

I will increase the limit of attachment to 250kb for forums soon.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

Thanks Ryan, I've seen the pics now.


If anyone else wants to have a look at Mini-Typhoon 12.7mm guns fitted to a RAN frigate, they can see them here:

http://www.defence.gov.au/opcatalyst/images/gallery/20050523/index.htm

The High-rez pics are best and show the bow guns the clearest. On the pic showing the whole frigate from the port side you can make out 3x mini-Typhoon systems, (2 up the front one at the rear on the port side), presumably there's also one on the starboard side of the ship, towards the stern, however it can't be made out from this shot.

4x of these systems per frigate will provide a pretty handy anti-surface and close anti-air capability for the RAN ships...

 

[cherry]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

I happened to be watching "Dateline" on SBS last night which was a story on Iraq and some of the Coalition activities over there. The media crew were on board HMAS Newcastle and actually showed them firing one of the mini-typhoons during a training drill. I was wondering, do these systems reduce the number of personnel required to operate the 0.50 cal weapons, does one person control all four now, or are four personnel still required to operate the controls? Also, was the 0.50 cal chosen because a 25mm would be too big?

 

[Aussie Digger]

Re: Royal Australian Navy force enhancements

I happened to be watching "Dateline" on SBS last night which was a story on Iraq and some of the Coalition activities over there. The media crew were on board HMAS Newcastle and actually showed them firing one of the mini-typhoons during a training drill. I was wondering, do these systems reduce the number of personnel required to operate the 0.50 cal weapons, does one person control all four now, or are four personnel still required to operate the controls? Also, was the 0.50 cal chosen because a 25mm would be too big?

Possibly, but it seems the Mini-Typhoon was chosen to fil an urgent operational requirement. No announcements have been made about it, no formal projects announced and it wasn't even listed in the DMO's minor projects section, as I mentioned earlier.

When flex mounted on the warships you normally see 2 persons operating each "fifty cal", (one firing the weapon, one acting as a spotter/ammo officer). With the computer fire control and electro-optic systems, one operator may operate all the guns, though in critical situations each gun probably has an individual operator.

The 25mm gun might have been beyond the budget given each Frigate is fitted with 4x 0.50cal HMG's for close in defence. Purchasing 48x operational 25mm Typhoon systems, plus spares and support might have broken the bank... The RAN already had the fifties in service on the other hand...