Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0

[Todjaeger]

What did defence want instead of Hobart? What was the pressing reason Hobart were chosen?

IIRC (and keep in mind this was like 20 years ago when it was getting discussed) Gibbs & Cox offered a design that was referred to as the "Baby Burke" which would have been smaller than the USN's Arleigh Burke-class DDG, but larger than what is now the Hobart-class DDG. As I recall it, the options at the time were for three 'Baby Burkes' which would individually been more capable than a Hobart-class DDG, or for three Hobart-class DDG's with the option for a fourth DDG. Unfortunately though, the option for a fourth DDG was not exercised and lapsed in late 2008 or early 2009.

From what I can recall, and there are others here on DT that were actually involved in the Hobart-class DDG build that could provide far more information than I, what became the Hobart-class DDG was viewed as "less risky" because the base vessel class, Álvaro de Bazán/F100-class had already been built, whilst the proposed Baby Burke version of a Flight II Arleigh Burke-class DDG only existed as a paper design. One of the unfortunate realities though was that changes to the Spanish design had to be implemented in order to deliver a destroyer the RAN wanted rather than it being a build to print order.

 

[spoz]

The Defence teams evaluating the offers did in fact prefer what became the Hobarts, for a variety of reasons which all effectively boil down to lower risk. The evolved design (baby Burke) was in many ways more capable, but higher risk. That is not to say we thought that there was no risk with the F100 design, just that it was much less than the Burke derivative.

I was involved in the assessment at a fairly senior level, on what was called the blue team, ie the team which did the comparative analysis. The other teams, which put together the assessments of the individual offers, were known as yellow and black from the colours of the lanyards they wore. They did not see anything other than the offer they were working on. And no, I am not going in to what the risks we identified were.

Further, the majority of the problems we then encountered were more related to the “build to print” aspect than to the Australianisation. What had been underestimated in particular was that we were building on the level, and the Spanish had built on sloping ways. Further, we were building in a shipyard which was effectively brand new, with a workforce which had really built nothing since Collins more than 10 years before. And, one of the proposed major stubbies proved to be not up to the job. Hobart being the first was the delay; Brisbane and Sydney were effectively built in the anticipated time, and to a very high standard.

That is not to say everybody in Defence was delighted by the outcome - Russ Shalders comes to mind - but the design choice was a very strong consensus.