Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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Pretty sure man power has already been accounted for with the expansion with another 800 positions to be created and I believe it was 1,100 transferred from existing roles. Other then that I'd say they wouldnt have the man power to do any more then what they have laid out.
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
I think you would be far better off putting the money into the Reserve Personnel than old worn out obselete Ships,, better able to keep active Ships at Sea longer in a conflict. Provide them with quality training.
People are way more important than ships. It will be crews we will struggle with. We always have.
East coast sub base, will help a lot with that, for subs, even if its smaller than the WA base.
IMO the reserve system particularly for the Navy should be looked at. We should look at expanding significantly the reserve positions for key roles that are preventing ships from being deployed or that have high turn over or low retention. Allowing people to flip between reserve and active a bit easier to help retention in these positions.
We should probably look at training pipelines as well, for peace and for high levels of mobilization. Not just for Navy either. What we want is like the continuous ship building pipeline. Something that exists that can easily be expanded or split/adapted/duplicated, not just a monopoly approach. Also look at transfers between services, particularly if it retains key, highly skilled personnel. Particularly going forward as all three services will be much more jointly operated.
Look at the US, has a huge fleet and massive navy. Recent incidents highlights how crewing, training and deployments are absolutely critical regardless of your size and number of ships. You don't even need to be a war before things can start to unravel.
East coast sub base, will help a lot with that, for subs, even if its smaller than the WA base.
IMO the reserve system particularly for the Navy should be looked at. We should look at expanding significantly the reserve positions for key roles that are preventing ships from being deployed or that have high turn over or low retention. Allowing people to flip between reserve and active a bit easier to help retention in these positions.
We should probably look at training pipelines as well, for peace and for high levels of mobilization. Not just for Navy either. What we want is like the continuous ship building pipeline. Something that exists that can easily be expanded or split/adapted/duplicated, not just a monopoly approach. Also look at transfers between services, particularly if it retains key, highly skilled personnel. Particularly going forward as all three services will be much more jointly operated.
Look at the US, has a huge fleet and massive navy. Recent incidents highlights how crewing, training and deployments are absolutely critical regardless of your size and number of ships. You don't even need to be a war before things can start to unravel.
Australian and French Officials At Loggerheads Over Submarine Contract (excerpt)
(Source: Australian Financial Review; published Aug. 20 2018) by Andrew Tillett
Australian and French officials are at loggerheads over a raft of issues in contractual negotiations to build the new $50 billion submarine fleet, putting the project in danger of missing an unofficial September deadline.
Among the issues understood to have emerged between the Australian government and the submarines' designer and builder, French-owned Naval Group, are a dispute over warranty periods, cannibalisation of the existing Collins-class submarine workforce and the implications of any sale or merger of Naval Group.
The tensions threaten to derail plans to finalise the Strategic Partnering Agreement, which is the overall contract to guide the construction of the 12 future submarines over the next several decades. While nothing had been set, the government and Naval Group had been working towards finalising the SPA next month.
Industry sources indicated an agreement might not be done until the end of the year or early 2019. One government source characterised them as tough but the navy's head of the submarine program, Rear Admiral Greg Sammut, had been forceful in making sure taxpayers were not disadvantaged.
There have been several warnings on this site re dealing with the French!
(Source: Australian Financial Review; published Aug. 20 2018) by Andrew Tillett
Australian and French officials are at loggerheads over a raft of issues in contractual negotiations to build the new $50 billion submarine fleet, putting the project in danger of missing an unofficial September deadline.
Among the issues understood to have emerged between the Australian government and the submarines' designer and builder, French-owned Naval Group, are a dispute over warranty periods, cannibalisation of the existing Collins-class submarine workforce and the implications of any sale or merger of Naval Group.
The tensions threaten to derail plans to finalise the Strategic Partnering Agreement, which is the overall contract to guide the construction of the 12 future submarines over the next several decades. While nothing had been set, the government and Naval Group had been working towards finalising the SPA next month.
Industry sources indicated an agreement might not be done until the end of the year or early 2019. One government source characterised them as tough but the navy's head of the submarine program, Rear Admiral Greg Sammut, had been forceful in making sure taxpayers were not disadvantaged.
There have been several warnings on this site re dealing with the French!
Hence why we are taking our time with the contract. Better to delay the start of anything another 6 months then have decades of stuff ups and extra costs because we were impatient. We have seen what can go wrong on a short term contract with a rushed contract and failure to do our homework (AWD and Navantia), Imagine that multiplied 30+ years (design and build phase) or even up to 50+ years (including operations and sustainment to the last boat).
Thank god that we actualy have people running it that are playing hard ball and not willing to cave just to meet an arbitrary deadline.
Thank god that we actualy have people running it that are playing hard ball and not willing to cave just to meet an arbitrary deadline.
Joe Black
Active Member
It appears that the Polish are no longer interested in buying the FFGs.
Czarnecki: Adelaide Frigates – An Initiative of the Polish Emigrants. “Merciless” Analysis Issued by the MoD – No Frigates for the Navy.
Czarnecki: Adelaide Frigates – An Initiative of the Polish Emigrants. “Merciless” Analysis Issued by the MoD – No Frigates for the Navy.
Chinese Frigate Huangshan Heads to Australia for Multilateral Naval Exercise "Kakadu-2018"
(Source: China Military Online; issued Aug 22, 2018) By Duan Jiangshan and Xu Guang
ZHANJIANG, China --- At the invitation of the Royal Australian Navy, the Chinese naval guided-missile frigate Huangshan (Hull 570), carrying a ship-borne helicopter, set sail for Australia from Zhanjiang, south China’s Guangdong Province, to participate in the multinational naval exercise “Kakadu-2018”, on the morning of Aug. 21, 2018.
The frigate Huangshan will, on behalf of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, join with multinational naval warships and aircraft to participate in the exercise in Darwin, Australia and its adjacent waters from Aug. 31 to Sept. 15.
It is reported that Exercise Kakadu is the largest multinational maritime exercise hosted biennially by the Royal Australian Navy. This is the first time the Chinese Navy has been invited to participate in the exercise since it began in 1993.
The frigate Huangshan (Hull 570), a new-type guided-missile frigate independently developed by China, with its hull 135m long and 16m wide at the maximum, joined the PLA Navy in 2008. Its full-load displacement is more than 4,000 tons. It has good stealth performance, far-distance guard and detection ability, and strong anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capabilities.
Since its service, the frigate has successfully implemented the Chinese naval escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and of the sea transport of Syrian chemical weapons and participated in domestic and international joint training and exercises.
(Source: China Military Online; issued Aug 22, 2018) By Duan Jiangshan and Xu Guang
ZHANJIANG, China --- At the invitation of the Royal Australian Navy, the Chinese naval guided-missile frigate Huangshan (Hull 570), carrying a ship-borne helicopter, set sail for Australia from Zhanjiang, south China’s Guangdong Province, to participate in the multinational naval exercise “Kakadu-2018”, on the morning of Aug. 21, 2018.
The frigate Huangshan will, on behalf of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, join with multinational naval warships and aircraft to participate in the exercise in Darwin, Australia and its adjacent waters from Aug. 31 to Sept. 15.
It is reported that Exercise Kakadu is the largest multinational maritime exercise hosted biennially by the Royal Australian Navy. This is the first time the Chinese Navy has been invited to participate in the exercise since it began in 1993.
The frigate Huangshan (Hull 570), a new-type guided-missile frigate independently developed by China, with its hull 135m long and 16m wide at the maximum, joined the PLA Navy in 2008. Its full-load displacement is more than 4,000 tons. It has good stealth performance, far-distance guard and detection ability, and strong anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capabilities.
Since its service, the frigate has successfully implemented the Chinese naval escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and of the sea transport of Syrian chemical weapons and participated in domestic and international joint training and exercises.
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
Reading that it sounds like the whole thing may have been a Furphy orchestrated by Polish immigrants to Australia.
Pusser you lately have gotten into a habit of cutting and pasting articles without even bothering to comment on them. That is against the rules and you have been around here long enough to know that. If you continue to do so you will end up really annoying the Moderators.
Thanks ngatimizart.
Will no longer cut & past articles that I consider would be of interest to others.
@pussertas it's good to post links to articles that you think will be of interest to others, however we do have the expectation that posters also comment on them. It doesn't take much to add a few words of what you think, that's all.
John Newman
The Bunker Group
Just came across this article on the RANs AWDs published a couple of days ago on the ASPI website:
https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2018-08/ASPI Air warfare destroyer.pdf?VyXQc1CerHc7.shRWIdHqMkcA.46jabo
Just started reading it (don't have any comments as yet to offer), but I thought it might make interesting reading for all here too (91 pages!).
Cheers,
https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2018-08/ASPI Air warfare destroyer.pdf?VyXQc1CerHc7.shRWIdHqMkcA.46jabo
Just started reading it (don't have any comments as yet to offer), but I thought it might make interesting reading for all here too (91 pages!).
Cheers,
Austal boss reveals why they scuttled $3.5 billion navy contract
Well Austal not being part of the OPV build has finally been put to bed. Austal chose to walk away on there own volition, Thats it. Can understand why, Being the size they are there is only so much work to go around and they would have wanted enough to keep a workforce on continuously for a decade to make it worthwhile not to mention reducing the risk. Appears in my view there wasnt enough work that could be kicked down to them without making the Civmec side of the build also risky.
Well at least Austal choosing not to push ahead with it will eliminate the risk of too many builders building too few sections, Reduces the risk of cost over runs and time between section builds losing work forces and never being able to gain a true level of the efficiency curve.
Thanks Austal for doing the right thing, All the best to you.
Regards, vonnoobie.
Well Austal not being part of the OPV build has finally been put to bed. Austal chose to walk away on there own volition, Thats it. Can understand why, Being the size they are there is only so much work to go around and they would have wanted enough to keep a workforce on continuously for a decade to make it worthwhile not to mention reducing the risk. Appears in my view there wasnt enough work that could be kicked down to them without making the Civmec side of the build also risky.
Well at least Austal choosing not to push ahead with it will eliminate the risk of too many builders building too few sections, Reduces the risk of cost over runs and time between section builds losing work forces and never being able to gain a true level of the efficiency curve.
Thanks Austal for doing the right thing, All the best to you.
Regards, vonnoobie.
It is actually quite interesting. I skipped through it but will read it in its entirety tonight. I was particularly interested in why the Gibbs and Cox proposal bombed.
I remember at the time I thought the mini burke would be the best option but if what I read is correct we may well have dodged a bullet by rejecting the design. Navantia didn't think they were a chance of winning the comp and amazingly the Australia Defence Minister of the day ... Brendan Nelson ... had to tell Navantia to get their act together and take the competition seriously.
As it turned out Gibbs and Cox had design problems in increasing the range of the fairly short legged AB without blowing the ship's weight out to around 10000 tons. In the end G & C wanted an extra $100 million and extra year to sort out the design problems. Not surprisingly the decision makers decided to go with the proven Spanish design instead.
John Newman
The Bunker Group
Agree. As the old saying goes: "there are three sides to every story, your version, my version, and the truth!"
All depends on how close the truth is to each side of the story. This might be of interest, announced by Austal a couple of weeks ago:
Austal announces Philippines Navy OPV win - Defence Connect
It appears that Austal is doing a deal with the Philippines Government to provide six OPVs, and guess what? They are proposing an enlarged version of the Cape Class PBs, 80m and steel construction too.
Now if I wanted to be a cynic (ok, yes I am a cynic), if Austal had been the winner of SEA 1180 (in partnership with Fassmer), they may well have offered the Philippines a version of that existing design. But they didn't win with Fassmer and were forced into a situation to pick up the crumbs from the winners, eg, Luerssen / ASC / Civmec.
So the cynic in me says, they have probably made a strategic decision not to be involved with the winners of SEA 1180 with that 80m OPV design and instead decided to produce their own 80m OPV design, "short term pain for possible long term gain?"
Anyway, just my version of the truth!
Cheers,
Cryogenic Sapphire Oscillator - 'The Sapphire Clock' | Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing
Just came by this. Hot damn. Not directly related to the RAN but am curious as to the benefits it could bring to our ships.
Accuracy of 1 second over a 40 million year period, Sends on clearer signals allowing you to get back much more detailed information which should help improve our tracking of targets thus increasing our chances of hitting them. If this is good as they say it is could mean us from having to send 2 - 3 missiles per a target to perhaps just the 1 missile. This could very well increase our offensive and defensive capabilities without having to add in more VLS capacity to our ships.
Awesome.
To think it all started in a dusty basement in Adelaide.
Just came by this. Hot damn. Not directly related to the RAN but am curious as to the benefits it could bring to our ships.
Accuracy of 1 second over a 40 million year period, Sends on clearer signals allowing you to get back much more detailed information which should help improve our tracking of targets thus increasing our chances of hitting them. If this is good as they say it is could mean us from having to send 2 - 3 missiles per a target to perhaps just the 1 missile. This could very well increase our offensive and defensive capabilities without having to add in more VLS capacity to our ships.
Awesome.
To think it all started in a dusty basement in Adelaide.
That’s a very informative and insightful piece.
Many of the issues covered have been superficially mentioned on this thread over the years but never has it been tied together and presented as a whole as has been done here.
In summary, it’s optimistic, it encourages us to believe that we have a workforce that is both capable and hard working, both white and blue collared, and that the lessons learned have been and will be crucial to the future shipbuilding enterprise.
BZ ASPI
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