Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0

hauritz

Well-Known Member
Is this the price to pay for the 20% premium over the TKMS option? It's totally worth it.
Actually the pricing is very rubbery. I believe the quoted $10B only covers the first three ships and perhaps the cost of setting up production in Australia. I suspect when you factor in crew sizes and if our shipbuilding industry learns how to produce vessels more efficiently the price difference will come down.

Getting a lot more bang for your dollar with the Japanese ship as well.

It willl be intersting to see how BAE take this. Everyone seems to assume they will be getting the gig for building new Air Warfare destroyers but now we are hooked in to the Japanese production line I am not sure this will still be the case.
 

StingrayOZ

Super Moderator
Staff member
Great to see.
There will be a whole bunch of stuff that will need to happen now. Industry engagement and partnerships.
Apparently japan has a program to integrate NSM at some point, and I'm hoping ESSM integration is something that's viable too. At least mk41 would, I assume, mean physical/structural changes were minimised
There should be some commonality with US weapons, there may need to be some integration work, software, like actually targeting and firing tests. It would make sense for Australia to do that, since we would do it anyway. The Americans an others may want to come watch. The Japanese have ESSM, SM2, SM6, SM3, TLAM. Just not fired from these platforms. Although the 128 missiles, seems to mean that they intend to quad pack something (ESSM II) into it. That and SeaRAM. Although 07VLA is also in the mix.
It will be interesting to see how BAE take this. Everyone seems to assume they will be getting the gig for building new Air Warfare destroyers but now we are hooked in to the Japanese production line I am not sure this will still be the case.
It's a seperate program. I hope it lights a fire under them, and the japanese reach out to BAE and to their contractors and they cooperate at an industry level. Its in Japan's interest that Australia has the most capable ADF it can. With Japanese yard basically at max capacity, BAE may be interested in coordinating with Japan. Perhaps for AU/UK/US/NZ/CA options for japanese designs. Japan is already partnered up with UK on several programs. Their interests go beyond simple box flogging. It may make sense to partner with the Japanese on a joint Air Warfare platform across multiple countries. I don't think it has to be seen as hostile.

The battle isn't between mitsubishi and BAE. It's between nation states, or greater.
 

SammyC

Well-Known Member
The other announcement today that seems to have got less media attention than the SEA3000 announcement is the finalisation according to AUSTAL of the Strategic Shipbuilding Agreement 'Austal chief executive Paddy Gregg said the government’s approval of the Strategic Shipbuilding Agreement (SSA) is a defining moment for Austal. He added that it would establish Austal Defence Australia as the Commonwealth of Australia’s strategic shipbuilder for tier 2 vessels in Western Australia.' Austal Finalises Strategic Shipbuilding Agreement - Sharecafe

Ministers Release https://www.minister.defence.gov.au...ures-continuous-pipeline-shipbuilding-work-wa
Wasn't expecting this today, so pleasant surprise. I noted in the media release that the Government obtained the right to purchase the entire Austral Australian busines (people, equipment and facilities) if any individual share holder exceeded 20% ownership. Kind of puts a stop to Hanwa's actions.
 

SammyC

Well-Known Member
Actually the pricing is very rubbery. I believe the quoted $10B only covers the first three ships and perhaps the cost of setting up production in Australia. I suspect when you factor in crew sizes and if our shipbuilding industry learns how to produce vessels more efficiently the price difference will come down.

Getting a lot more bang for your dollar with the Japanese ship as well.

It willl be intersting to see how BAE take this. Everyone seems to assume they will be getting the gig for building new Air Warfare destroyers but now we are hooked in to the Japanese production line I am not sure this will still be the case.
From the IIP, the $10B is the expenditure over the 10 year period to 2034. This program runs beyond that so the full program will be a lot more than $10b.

Its weird how they talk abou SSNs as a through life cost of $368B, but the GPFs as the 10 year expenditure
 

Reptilia

Well-Known Member
Wasn't expecting this today, so pleasant surprise. I noted in the media release that the Government obtained the right to purchase the entire Austral Australian busines (people, equipment and facilities) if any individual share holder exceeded 20% ownership. Kind of puts a stop to Hanwa's actions.
No doubt we see civmec get alot of the build and a few Japanese companies open up shop in Henderson.
 

old faithful

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Can only agree with you- First sale, a big sale, and they get to build 3 instead of the just having all built overseas.

Glad this decision was made sooner, rather than later, for a change.
Sooner rather than later could have been 6 months after the defence review IMO.....how long did the "urgent" decision take....now it's how long before contracts are drawn up and signed, they are not ordered yet, just decided that they want the "hilux" over the "VW".
 

Bob53

Well-Known Member
Interview with Conroy, He confirms that there will minimum change to the design beyond translating the combat system to English and making sure it complies with Australian seaworthiness laws. I am guessing this means we will be introducing a whole range of new weapons into the RAN. SeaRam, Type 19 ASM, Type 12 torps and so on.

It will be interesting to see if this minimal change policy will continue when we build our own version. Conroy makes a point that the major problem we have with the Hunter is all the changes we made to the original design.

Also nominated Japan as our most important regional partner which kind of suggests that we may see a greater expansion of co-operation between the two countries.

Sea Ram! I cannot understand why it isn’t part of the defence layer on our current ships already. I see a role for both Phalanx and Sea Ram on each and every major ship in the RAN.
 

Bob53

Well-Known Member
From the IIP, the $10B is the expenditure over the 10 year period to 2034. This program runs beyond that so the full program will be a lot more than $10b.

Its weird how they talk abou SSNs as a through life cost of $368B, but the GPFs as the 10 year expenditure
It would be nice if that happened. No possible way this program will be $10 billion with operating and maintenance costs even further the first 3 vessels. I suspect political point scoring. I think it’s fair enough to ask what is the through life costs as they seem to use that to beat on the AUKUS program.
 

OldTex

Well-Known Member
Conroy said on Sky that they would start building 8 Mogamis at Henderson with potentially more after that. It seems they're on the right track.
Perhaps a stripped down domestically built Mogami might become the modern equivalent of the WW2 Bathurst class corvette for the RAN. Providing a mothership for MCM drones, hydrographic survey, training ship(s) etc
 

K.I.

Member
Great to see.
There will be a whole bunch of stuff that will need to happen now. Industry engagement and partnerships.

There should be some commonality with US weapons, there may need to be some integration work, software, like actually targeting and firing tests. It would make sense for Australia to do that, since we would do it anyway. The Americans an others may want to come watch. The Japanese have ESSM, SM2, SM6, SM3, TLAM. Just not fired from these platforms. Although the 128 missiles, seems to mean that they intend to quad pack something (ESSM II) into it. That and SeaRAM. Although 07VLA is also in the mix.

It's a seperate program. I hope it lights a fire under them, and the japanese reach out to BAE and to their contractors and they cooperate at an industry level. Its in Japan's interest that Australia has the most capable ADF it can. With Japanese yard basically at max capacity, BAE may be interested in coordinating with Japan. Perhaps for AU/UK/US/NZ/CA options for japanese designs. Japan is already partnered up with UK on several programs. Their interests go beyond simple box flogging. It may make sense to partner with the Japanese on a joint Air Warfare platform across multiple countries. I don't think it has to be seen as hostile.

The battle isn't between mitsubishi and BAE. It's between nation states, or greater.
Transforming AEGIS into an open architecture system is supposed to be able to support a 'weapons library' for all operators, not just the US catalogue.
Collaboration is what the smaller nations need to do more of, we want platforms we can't afford to develop on our own (like USA/China). Merging the type 83 proposal into a future AWD joint venture with AUS/JAP has potential.
 
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