The integration issues related to the 20 year crisis embeded in the aircraft not the weapon see anao
For those interested, the ANAO report can be found
here. As I mentioned, and the report noted in item 17, it seems that Defence thought it was selecting an in-service LWT when the MU 90 was still in development, which would naturally cause problems and increased the costs associated with adding and integrating the MU 90 into the ADF. As the report also noted, the original plan was to integrate the MU 90 across the ADF on five platforms, which ended up getting scaled back to just the surface vessels (FFG and FFH IIRC) and integrating onto those platforms still cost about what the original estimate was to integrate the MU 90 across the ADF. The ANAO report also noted that due to technical and cost 'pressures' integrating the MU 90 aboard RAAF AP-3C Orion MPA and RAN S-70-B2 Seahawks was dropped, as was integration aboard RAN SH-2G(A) Super Seasprites, since those had been taken out of RAN service.
Elsewhere ANAO report also makes mention of the Seahawk replacement, the MH-60R, and the P-8A Poseidon will not be fitted with the MU 90, but instead will use the US Mk 54 LWT which itself was developed using elements of the previous Mk 46 and Mk 50 LWT's, principally the propulsion system of the Mk 46 and the seeker and most of the electronics from the Mk 50, albeit some of the Mk 50 electronics had become obsolete and were therefore replaced up more up to date components.
I was not going to respond to this coz it just does not reflect reality and the subject matter is really difficult but given individual posts alot i thought i just better.
firstly most of this is clasified and covered in australias case by anao BUT alot is known about the weapons
USmk50 and MU 90 use completely different propulsion systems with completly different cost cycles to compare them is SILLY. US MK 50 is i believe not manufactured and not available.
MU90 is selected because of many reasons including shallow water not deep water capability.
range is a fuction of speed over time and sonar range - see MU 90 see oh its a MK 50 it costs too much lol? The reality is if the threat dont change the weapon doesnt
Agreed and I never stated otherwise. The
MU 90 and Mk 50 both have completely different propulsion systems, and both systems are themselves different from and provide different capabilities than the propulsion system used in the Mk 46 and Mk 54 LWT's. More specifically, the MU 90 uses an Aluminium-Silver Oxide (AgO-Al) seawater battery to enable operations without a degradation in performance at depths in excess of 1,000 m. As I understand it, the AgO-Al propulsion system is one of the reasons why the MU 90 torpedoe was/is so expensive, and in that respect it is much like the Mk 50 LWT which used a different propulsion system to achieve deep water operations. AFAIK the propulsion systems used on both the MU 90 and Mk 50 LWT's were significantly more expensive than the system used by the Mk 46 and Mk 54 LWT's.
With respect to the US and the Mk 50 and Mk 54 LWT's, it was a combination of the cost of the Mk 50 and the projected need for some of the Mk 50 capabilities changing that led to the Mk 54 as a lower costing alternative.
In a
report on France's 2013 Defence budget, the MU 90 had a unit cost of €1.6 mil. in 2012, which at the time worked out to a unit cost of just under USD$2.1 mil. (specifically USD$2,073,440 according to currency values at the time). Compare and contrast that pricing with these US DSCA releases from
2010 and
2013, the first for 200 Mk 54 all-round up + 10 Mk 54 dummy + 6 Mk 54 ground handling LWT's for USD$169 mil. (avg price ~ USD$782k) and the second for 100 Mk 54 all-round up + 5 recoverable exercise LWT's for USD$83 mil. (avg price ~USD$790k) and these prices also included associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support.
At present, it does not seem as though Australia has any interest in integrating the MU 90 onto either the P-8A Poseidon, or the MH-60R 'Romeo' Seahawk and will instead maintain two different stockpiles of LWT in service. As an outside observer, that suggests very strongly to me that the difficulties and costs to integrate, stock and sustain the MU 90 across the entirety of the ADF outweigh whatever capability advantages it might have (if any) over the Mk 54. Given that aboard the
ANZAC-class FFH and the
Hobart-class DDG, stocks of both MU 90 and Mk 54 LWT's can be found aboard, that would seem to reinforce the idea that the cost of establishing and maintaining a Mk 54 LWT stockpile was significantly less, enough to the point where it costed less to have two different torpedoe types aboard the same vessel.
Looking at what seem to be both the current, and likely future sub threats to Australia and Australian interests over the next 20+ years, there does seem to be little need for deep diving 1,000+ m capable LWT, which seems to be the major advantage the MU 90 has over the Mk 54.
I would be very interested to see what LWT is to be fitted and integrated with the Future Frigate, once the SEA 5000 decision is made. If the Future Frigate is only to be fitted with the Mk 54 which IMO is a very real possibility, then I would expect the MU 90 would be replaced aboard the DDG's once the FFH's are decommissioned and the DDG's go through a major docking cycle around 2030 or so.