Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

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StobieWan

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Never mind, as the author states, "it will be the best in the world" obviously worth waiting for just like T45 is the"best AAW destroyer in the world" :rolleyes:

But to be less frivolous, we know only too well what government caused delays can do to productivity and cost, we went through that with the AWDs during the reign of the previous government.

Whichever way you read it, the delays over actually building and commissioning a Type 26 have really hurt it's export options - it's already seen it excluded from the USN competition and really, it's beyond vital that something tangible and solid is out there, making port visits and waving the ATM machine...uh..flag..flag...
 
I think the other country worried about wanning US commitment in the region has to be Japan. If the two Koreas become reasonably civil with each other it will likely be via Chinese influence. S Korea may not want to upset China in any way down the road and Koreans aren’t warm and fuzzy on Japan.
Probably old news but it was reported that an RAAF P8A had arrived or is on its way to Japan to conduct operations to monitor shipping in the region.

As for wanning US commitment, 1600 US Marines have just rotated into the top end. I also read the USN intends to utilise the soon to be in service USS Tripoli (sister ship of USS America) around the top end.
 

Systems Adict

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The lack of urgency certainly won't help the Type 26 cause. The Type 26 looks like it would be the riskiest selection for Australia and I am having my doubts as to whether the benefits of a newer design outweigh those risks.
This may seem like an obvious question, but I'll ask it anyway.

WHY is T26 the RISKIEST selection for Australia ?

For instance, I know from speaking with at least x1 individual, that since 2013 Australia has had serving Naval officers attending (as observers), at all levels of the design process, attending the various reviews & a dearth of other general, day-to-day meetings, to see how things are going with the overall design of the UK RN Type 26.

I also know that the SEA 5000 programme has had teams of engineers from the UK, come to Australia on more than one occasion, to present the designs and be put on the spot by both politicians & naval personnel, answering technical queries to help tailor the Type 26 / Global Combat ship design, specifically for the customer's requirements. These x2 processes tell me that over the last 5 years Australia has actually been de-risking the design, while attempting to give the navy what it wants.


Shipbuilding, is not like the mass production of a mobile/cell phone or a new variant of a particular model of car, where designers can redesign something from scratch in 10 months to produce 100's of 1,000's. It takes time to design a ship and by the time a design is agreed, manufacturing completed & testing has started, the technology that goes into the ship has moved on, newer / better weapons & sensors have been developed & operational tempo / tasking has changed as the geo-political situation on the planet fluctuates & new players bring new problems.

The point of the last paragraph was a means to explain that even if the ship that was agreed in design 5 - 7 years ago ticked all the Navy & govt's boxes, it probably wouldn't tick all those boxes that we need ticked today, so if we sit on our hands & put up with the same old technology we've always had, we'd never have gotten the wheel, or the tools to carve it from stone !


Finally, while I can't dispute the comments from the hansard "The Secretary of State for Defence visited the Clyde last Thursday (19th April 2018), to witness the completion of the first Type 26 units. This unit will form part of the first ship, HMS Glasgow, which is due to be accepted by the summer of 2025. The Royal Navy will then train and prepare her and she will enter service in 2027."(Type 26 Frigates: 23 Apr 2018: House of Commons debates - TheyWorkForYou), or statements made relating to Type 31 e "
Key Points - The MoD plans to award up to four, seven-month competitive design phase contracts - A firm price of GBP1.25 billion has been set for the procurement of five Type 31e frigates, with the first to be delivered before the end of 2023" (UK set to release ITN for Type 31e frigate | Jane's 360), just because the British government has attempted to slow down one of its most technically complex & costly shipbuilding programmes, to concentrate on some smaller, easier vessels, does not mean that the proposals being put forward by the UK manufacturer of the Type 26 well be any worse than those being offered by others.

SA
 
Arunta's not going anywhere soon, she has a few large holes cut in her side. She has also had the cupola mast with existing CEAFAR radar system cut off & removed. This is being replaced with a re-designed mast to accommodate the extra radar faces. Cheers
Thanks for the advice. Do you have an drawings or photos of the new mast? Does this mean the existing CEAFAR radar system is being replaced by a more powerful unit? Does the work involve the replacement of diesels and GT?
 
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hauritz

Well-Known Member
This may seem like an obvious question, but I'll ask it anyway.

WHY is T26 the RISKIEST selection for Australia ?
I take your point.

All of the designs have inherent risks.

Even the F-5000 could be considered the riskiest design insofar as was not designed as a specialised ASW vessel. I can see the headlines in ten years bemoaning Australia's fleet of noisy F-5000s.

Much is made of the type 26 being a fully digitally designed warship. As someone who has worked with CAD myself I would have thought that all the ships would have been designed that way. If it is the only contender that has been designed that way I will admit that this would considerably de-risk the program.

As for the FREMM it will have to be significantly modified to be acceptable for the RAN.

I would still say that the F-5000 was still the least risky design in that it only seems to be an evolution of the Hobart class. However I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Type 26 or even the FREMM got up in the end.
 

aussienscale

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The ship lift is large enough to build any surface combatant we could possibly want to build. We could probably build 10,000 t destroyers there. Maybe limited by winch capacity, but that isn't a deal breaker.

There are large ship yards we could have built LHD's in. Cairncross Dockyard comes to mind. It is being closed and sold for residential development. At 33m x 263m it was big enough. As I recall I think that was where the Mistral LHD proposal was going to be assembled.

Moving ship yard work to South Australia (and now WA) has meant that Australia has given up its really large ship capable yards on the east coast.

Australia has given up on large builds. We could have built, 2 x LHD's, 1 x 27,000 ice breaker, 2 x AOR. That would have been 5 nearly 30000t ships. Choules was going to be a new build as well (although it probably would have been a repeat of something else we were building). But the problem then is we probably wouldn't order anything big for the next 30-40 years.

Certainly going into the future I hope the civmec yard is big enough for a larger version of the biggest sea5000 ship. It looked pretty tight with an AWD in there.
Yep understand all of that, which is why I started my comment with "Just a thought" and "It is a pitty"
 

ASSAIL

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This may seem like an obvious question, but I'll ask it anyway.

WHY is T26 the RISKIEST selection for Australia ?


SA
There's a part of the RAN which yearns for a return to British design philosophy in part driven by the large number of ex RNers serving in both the uniformed and civilian defence organisations. Theres another part which has discarded those ancestral ties and have experienced something else so yes, there is sympathy for T26 but.....
BAE Systems didn't exactly cover itself with glory during the construction of the AWD blocks and the LHD suoerstructures. Nor did the design of the T45 act as an exemplar of good design.
I think that T26 and FREMM offer greater design risk than Navantia and I'm grateful to Mike Blamey commenting in "The Engineer" for encapsulating these sentiments.

"BAE seem to have forgotten the first commandment of marketing complex technology. By all means offer new technology to an existing customer but NEVER new technology to a new customer.
A recipe for disaster.
In the first case, the maker has an existing relationship with the customer who will accept the inevitable blips, in the second the supplier knows the limitations and advantages of a tried and tested offering and can easily educate the new customer"

T26 represents new tech and has not built a complete ship for the RAN, Fincantieri falls into the old tech to a new customer category so gains second place in my view and Navantia is presenting reasonably known tech to an enduring customer and therefor gets the tic.
Mind you there are other commonality benefits which I have outlined previously which simply strengthened their case.
 

Stampede

Well-Known Member
I'd imagine that you know the rule of threes as well as any of us. If we have more than four *immediately* available we're doing okay

oldsig
Any news on how HMAS Success is travelling.
Will it retired before the first of the new replacement supply ships enter service?
Given the ship must be one of the oldest in the fleet will it make the distance.

I can envisage the Navy may be down to only one active supply ship as we transition to the new Cantabria design.
I hope this does not present a problem.

Thoughts

Regards S
 

Volkodav

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There is an experienced workforce available in South Australia available to whoever wins Sea 5000. The current Navantia presence in the yard is quite small.

Brisbane is scheduled for delivery in a couple of months, but commissioning is some time away. There has been no “speed up” of her build, the current schedule was set a couple of years ago.
Unfortunately the Navantia presence is big enough to cause problems, word is the Spanish concept of quality and accountability isn't quite up to the Australian and US ones. As part of the contract with navantia many key roles were assigned to their managers with the incumbent Australians pushed sideways or made redundant, irrespective of the performance, as a result sadly a number highly skilled and experienced locals are no longer in the industry.
 

Volkodav

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Just a thought, but thinking it is a pitty we are not using the current gap at Adelaide to upgrade or totally re build the ship lift ! Maybe to something that could handle up to the size of the LHD'S ? Then we could truly build any sized ship we need into the future.

Cheers
No gap in the use of the ship lift, Sycamore is currently in maintenance in Adelaide. While on the project myself the facility was used for maintenance on tugs and KI ferries.
 

spoz

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Sycamore actually left a week or so ago but Volk is right, at the moment it is in pretty continuous use; and float off of Sydney is due shortly.
 

Pusser01

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Thanks for the advice. Do you have an drawings or photos of the new mast? Does this mean the existing CEAFAR radar system is being replaced by a more powerful unit? Does the work involve the replacement of diesels and GT?
Sorry no plans that I've seen as I'm not involved in that area, it's still being fabricated but would expect it to be installed in the next couple of months.
The existing arrays CEAFAR & CEAMOUNT are being refitted onto the next mast structure, the CEAFAR2-L is replacing the SPS49 radar.
The diesels & GT aren't being replaced under AMCAP.
Cheers
 

Pusser01

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No gap in the use of the ship lift, Sycamore is currently in maintenance in Adelaide. While on the project myself the facility was used for maintenance on tugs and KI ferries.
Does anyone know if the Alfred Graving dock at BAE Williamstown is still in use? I know it's not used by Defence, but I was wondering if it is still used for local shipping. I seen a few tugs, the Sorrento ferries etc have been going to use the ship-lift in Launceston over the last few years so I was wondering if the drydock was still operational. Cheers.
 

alexsa

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Sorry no plans that I've seen as I'm not involved in that area, it's still being fabricated but would expect it to be installed in the next couple of months.
The existing arrays CEAFAR & CEAMOUNT are being refitted onto the next mast structure, the CEAFAR2-L is replacing the SPS49 radar.
The diesels & GT aren't being replaced under AMCAP.
Cheers
Images of a model are in circulation. Not sure if this represents the final version (noting it was dated October 2017) but it is indicative of what is proposed. It is certainly a lot neater.



$148m CEAFAR upgrades for Anzacs
 
Sorry no plans that I've seen as I'm not involved in that area, it's still being fabricated but would expect it to be installed in the next couple of months.
The existing arrays CEAFAR & CEAMOUNT are being refitted onto the next mast structure, the CEAFAR2-L is replacing the SPS49 radar.
The diesels & GT aren't being replaced under AMCAP.
Cheers
Thanks for the information.
 

Joe Black

Active Member


I am always confused by this particular model.

I thought with the original S Band CEAFAR radar, each radar face holds 4x4 microwave tiles, while the new CEAFAR 2 L band would be somewhat bigger, 6x6 or 8x8 tiles per face. In the above picture, the model shows the CEARFAR2 L band radar face, which is sitting on top on the S Band radar, is only marginally bigger per face.

It sets me to think if they have managed to reduce the number of tiles due to better performance of tiles, or the top weight/CoG issue due to greater number of tiles....
 

StingrayOZ

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It sets me to think if they have managed to reduce the number of tiles due to better performance of tiles, or the top weight/CoG issue due to greater number of tiles....
Maybe the tiles are of a different size. But then again its just a model, and like nearly all models and plans, they usually have something written on them like do not scale off this. In this case the model is just a representation.

Using the image from Euronaval 2016.
upload_2018-4-30_17-13-58.png
It seems about 30% larger on each dimension. Don't know how that works out, maybe different sized panels or 5x5?. Or maybe just scaling off an image is dodgy.

It will be interesting to see them once upgraded and how it works out. We already know they are tight with top weight.
 

spoz

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Now there's an accurate bit of reporting; the name of the third DDG is wrong, as is Brisbane's commissioning date and some of the detail around the history of the DDG version of Aegis. Inspires confidence doesn't it?
 

Joe Black

Active Member
Now there's an accurate bit of reporting; the name of the third DDG is wrong, as is Brisbane's commissioning date and some of the detail around the history of the DDG version of Aegis. Inspires confidence doesn't it?
Good pick up. yap Sydney rather than Perth. But other than that, I don't find any glaring mistakes in the article. Pretty much in line with what we already know and have discussed in this forum.

What is interesting though is that the money put aside to upgrade the 3 DDGs. Wonder by the time they get to it, will there be a Baseline 10, 11, etc...

Plus, I wonder if newer weapons will be placed onboard on either the DDGs or the new Frigates, by that I meant LRASM or NSM/JMS, etc.
 
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