Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0

[StingrayOZ]

Even if a decision has been made to go SeaRAM service wide, which hasn’t been made public, nor have there been orders or announcements confirming that or even a publicly known project to implement such, it will be years if not a decade before such a reality is achieved, so we're better off not using the Phalanx we’ve already planned for, paid for and received / have in- service today in the meantime?

Even then whats the stock pile of RAM like in Australia? Do we have 10,000 and a hot factory making more completely soverign?

At least with munitions there aren't huge bottlenecks in supply chains for gun based systems. Stock piling millions of rounds of gun ammunition for long periods is entirely possibly and low cost and low maintenance. 20 and 25mm munitions are I believe manufactured by Australian Munitions. So as the 25 and 20 eventually maybe phased out, perhaps don't do that right now until we have huge stockpiles of both old and new.

Gun based munitions are something we can basically completely sovereign source locally end to end. As we have seen in Ukraine, gun based systems are still useful. Even if they eventually become less useful for naval combatants, I think they will always be useful for army. Even as a long term strategic stockpile, Ukraine has shown again, having a warehouse with guns and munitions, even if its 20 years, 30 years, 40 years old, in an actual conflict, the gun stuff can be bought back into action quickly and be adapted. If an allied nation ever needed to protect critical infrastructure etc, then these would still be useful for that.

 

[Volkodav]

SeaRAM on LHD may make more sense if its higher threats rather than just asymetric. It will always be inner layer anyway.

PHalanx is still useful. For secondary ships. AOR, maybe amphibious style, choules, smaller amphibs, or even a opv. Phalanx is used on land, anything that operates where mortars or pirate style weaponry might happen, its not entire stupid. We already have a lot of support to run this platform.

At this stage. I would actually think a 25mm gun on afaura is liveable. Its better than nothing. Its disappointing, but it would still be something. If you just want to hit a slow spotter UAV, you can, if you want to fire some warning shots at a decent distance well you can.. If you have something that can hit through a hull of a ship, it can do that. Put some decoys and EW capability on it. Its useful but limited, and that sums up the platform.

Thank god we didn't build the slightly large hull. We would have wasted perhaps $100,000 on steel and labor. That hull, could have supported:

• 76mm gun (or 56mm)
• 8xVLMica (or similar)
• 4xRBS15' (or 4 NSM)
• 2xtorpedoes (Mu90?)
• 35mm close in gun (or similar, or just a remote 20mm)
• Water cannons (hey its a OPV! EEZ, pirates, protestors, fire fighting, grey zone ops, fishing boats)
• ESM, Giraffe, 9LV combat system (the whole ecosystem)

It would have been absolutely terrible and huge failure if we built a ship, for but not with, that. Imagine if we had 10-15t of top margin growth weight, but the same if not better OPV capability. And the design is already paid for, already in the water, already sailing and in service. Same saab weapon system, Saab ESM, a hangar, etc. All for an extra 10m of hull. Essentially no extra crew requirement if you don't fit the equipment.

View attachment 55428

No much better we designed something not compatible with anything we operate or could acquire, modified it so it can't do anything and is even less of a patrol and opv ship.

Of course, if we were building that, no one else in the region would like a ship like that, with weapons like that. No one like singapore, malaysia, phillipines, Chile, etc..

Even if you delete every weapon off that hull, it would still likely be a better ship. Cheaper too. With greater endurance. By reconfiguring a small ship we built a confused platform.

If we had built 3 more of this type, it would have given the yard a proper spin up to Mogamis, with a ship, with actual weapons, and a hangar. Not just pleasure cruise capability. Shame we could never swallow our pride and commit to that to complete the orphan fleet.

I wouldn't be surprised if we have the first Mogami in service before the Arafuras get a new main gun. To be honest, I'm ok with that, because the Mogamis are warships.

Look at it through a WWII lens, we built 52 Bathursts, which were more warships of their day than the OPVs are today are, no mater what we stick on them. The thing is, Australia started building River, then Bay class frigates as soon as we could, despite churning out Bathurst as fast as we could. Had we been able to, we would have built more Tribals, and new cruisers were a priority as well.

 

[Reptilia]

I wouldn't be surprised if we have the first Mogami in service before the Arafuras get a new main gun. To be honest, I'm ok with that, because the Mogamis are warships.

Look at it through a WWII lens, we built 52 Bathursts, which were more warships of their day than the OPVs are today are, no mater what we stick on them. The thing is, Australia started building River, then Bay class frigates as soon as we could, despite churning out Bathurst as fast as we could. Had we been able to, we would have built more Tribals, and new cruisers were a priority as well.

December 2029 delivery for the 1st Mogami.
The last Arafura to be delivered in 2028 so you would think atleast 1, maybe as many as 3 would get a main gun in 2029(‘post production upgrades’)

 

[ADMk2]

I wouldn't be surprised if we have the first Mogami in service before the Arafuras get a new main gun. To be honest, I'm ok with that, because the Mogamis are warships.

Look at it through a WWII lens, we built 52 Bathursts, which were more warships of their day than the OPVs are today are, no mater what we stick on them. The thing is, Australia started building River, then Bay class frigates as soon as we could, despite churning out Bathurst as fast as we could. Had we been able to, we would have built more Tribals, and new cruisers were a priority as well.

Interesting perspective.

Between now and when the first Mogami arrives in 2030, Army is due to receive 126x Redback IFV’s, each one of them better armed than anything the navy has, short of a frigate. On top of which they are also getting ( eventually) 211x Boxers, 135 or so of which are the direct fire, high survivability variant.

How is it Army can afford 260+ medium calibre gun systems in that timeframe, but RAN cannot afford 6? Nor can it afford, apparently, to even use the ones it already owns?

RAN also benefits from a much larger slice of the budgetary pie…