I was under the impression that it was fitted for but not with, which makes that a tough question to answer.
oldsig
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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oldsig
Doubt they will replace all the Typhoon's, if any. The Turkish TCG Anadolu LHD has a total of five remote controlled 25mm guns in the same locations as the Typhoon's on Canberra (+ another on a platform below the ski ramp at the bow) in addition to a Phalanx on a raised platform on the flight deck at the starboard bow and at the aft end of the superstructure as well as a Mk31 RAM mount at the starboard quarter of the flight deck.
Bell V-247 Vigilant - Wikipedia
I have read that the U.S.M.C is interested in the development of this unmanned aircraft it appears to have several capabilities that could be of some use to the Canberra class any thoughts?
I have read that the U.S.M.C is interested in the development of this unmanned aircraft it appears to have several capabilities that could be of some use to the Canberra class any thoughts?
The answer is .... we don't know. The turkish option appears to have a small blind spot under in the way of the bow ramp as this would obscure part of the horizon in some circumstances (pure speculation based on the model). The Invincible class had had three with one in the eyes of the ship but the ramp was behind the CIWS in that case.
We will just have to wait and see
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
Like all new Tech the ADF will keep an eye on its development and if it firs into a requirement down the track then it may one day see ADF Service but at present it doesn't fit into any known Plans. There is currently a lot of very excitiing new Vertical Lift programs under development especially in the US but it is far to early for anything much more than a wait and see and the occasional Briefing on progress
Response to Seaspears post above concerning the V247
Response to Seaspears post above concerning the V247
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I would think Australia is looking at the development of the V247 and V280 with interest.
https://www.pbo-dpb.gc.ca/web/default/files/Documents/Reports/2017/CSC Costing/CSC_EN.pdf
I have brought across to this thread a report by Calculus from wednesday on the Canadian navy thread as it includes information relating to the building of the Hobart class and cost comparison with the Arleigh Burke showing the premium Australia paid for building the ships here ,
The article also discussed the light ship weight for the Hobart and why navies did not usually give that detail because of disclosing capabilities ,an interesting article provided by Calculus
I have brought across to this thread a report by Calculus from wednesday on the Canadian navy thread as it includes information relating to the building of the Hobart class and cost comparison with the Arleigh Burke showing the premium Australia paid for building the ships here ,
The article also discussed the light ship weight for the Hobart and why navies did not usually give that detail because of disclosing capabilities ,an interesting article provided by Calculus
The discussion on the cost of the Hobart versus the ABs is simplistic, assuming the total project cost for establishing a new (to Aust) class of ships which were built in a newly established shipyard can be compared directly with the production cost of a ship being produced in the middle of a long production line. The difference is not just the learning curve; there are build and support facilities, support services establishment and a number of other things to be considered in the total cost analysis.
At the same time the government of the day knew, and accepted, the fact that there would be a premium to build in Aust so as to establish a sovereign shipbuilding capability. It will be interesting to see what the relative of cost of the 8th Hunter will be - although I rather doubt I will be around to do so!
The apparent fascination with LSW is a bit suprising; DDs and FFs are not defined just by LSW, which is not really all that relevant, but largely by capability in warfare domains. And, for the two ships with which I am familiar, their estimates are in any case some way off.
At the same time the government of the day knew, and accepted, the fact that there would be a premium to build in Aust so as to establish a sovereign shipbuilding capability. It will be interesting to see what the relative of cost of the 8th Hunter will be - although I rather doubt I will be around to do so!
The apparent fascination with LSW is a bit suprising; DDs and FFs are not defined just by LSW, which is not really all that relevant, but largely by capability in warfare domains. And, for the two ships with which I am familiar, their estimates are in any case some way off.
Agreed... the cost of building 3 Hobarts compared to around 66 ABs is indeed pretty simplistic.
It does make you wonder just how much we could have shaved off the cost of the SEA 5000 if we had just continued building the Hobart class.
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The RAND report noted that the full cost and efficiency benefit of sequential builds is attained after or in the fourth unit.
So why didn't we take up the option of the 4th AWD before it expired in 2001/12 - of I forgot Education was much more important than national defence!
TLDR is it was a cockup by both labor and libs in messing up things for no productive purpose.. I will put the full answer in a quote box as to not pollute this thread with analysis of spending by political parties.
In the end we are down a destroyer, wasted a lot of money, but have a bipartisan plan for the future. A 4th AWD would have meant a more efficient and ready yard for the Hunters, all the OPV's would be built at Henderson, we would have significantly more capability in the water for the next 20+ years. We should have, but we didn't. We learnt our lesson.If only the money was spent on something like education.
Take a look at 2011. Pretty flat, the big surge happened in 2009. Part of the Building education stimulus had nothing to do with defence. Kevin07 origional 2008 whitepaper was the basic outline for the fleet we hope to build in the future. Building it here.
If you want to analyse spending across everything from howard to Turnbull there is a great paper at the conversation.
Government spending explained in 10 charts; from Howard to Turnbull
No we cancelled (or didn't take the 4th option) and slowed the AWD project to save money, even though it was going to cost money, it saved money in that financial year.
The 4th ship was still an option around 2012-13
Push for fourth $2 billion destroyer
It was argued that the 4th AWD wouldn't be needed and was only a dream of the militant unionists and greedy shipyards.
Check out this num-nut peice from Mark Thompson from the time period...
A folly of strategic proportions | The Strategist
At that time the new liberal government was keen to disband all manufacturing in Australia, so we lost our car industry (2013-2014) and there was an attempt to cut the heart out of ship naval manufacturing.
Which is why Abbott was rolled by the South Australian liberals, and Pyne ended up in Defence industry. Turnbull ended up as PM. Which is why the National Ship building strategy was 100% under Turnbull and not Abbott.
It was a cock-up of both parties, with labor failing to decide and slowing AWD work and the first lot of Libs then trying to kill everything off. Revolution happened, Labor and Libs agreed defence should be bipartisan to stop future cockups.
I am happy the sub, surface combatant and the OPV deals are all signed off (and the first part of land 400). They will be much harder to kill now, by either side and things are pretty clear out to 2030 on the opv, 2040 on the frigates and 2050+ on the subs.
This Canadian analysis of the Australian project seems flawed, superficial and doing my head in. It what you might expect if you had a coffee conversation at an airport with someone not familiar with the project at all.
But looking at it more closely I wonder about the parts relating to the Canadian program.
- Also building a smaller ship doesn't scale costs particularly well. This is well known. The F-105 isn't just smaller, it has its radar mounted higher, different crewing, fewer gas turbine engines (2 verse 4). It has different operational and ongoing costs. It is differently configured for command operations for example. It also has 121 less crew. Purchase price is just a tiny fraction of total cost of ownership..
- Valuing a ship purely by displacement seems problematic and limited, maybe the Canadians are going to end up just building oil tankers which have tremendous displacement and are cheap (except in Canada) to build?
- Also with the Canadian program, building one ship a year, are they intending to replace their entire combatant fleet every 15 years? In other places it assumes the final ship will be completed in 2041.
- Aren't the Canadians worried about the lesson Australia learned about scheduling on their minor ships production in Vancouver?
- The heuristic method? Are they just accounting 13% (the wage difference between a welder in Huntington and Halifax) as the the only cost difference other than exchange rate, and the fact the ships are ~75% smaller makes them 75% the cost? (4.7) and again in appendex D?
- Wikipedia seems to be a primary source of all info.
Some might say having an educated population takes precedence, why bother defending a nation of idiots?
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Can’t comment on Australia’s budget allocations but in Canada there are $hitloads of stuff that could be trimmed or trashed before having to cut education or defence. Pollies in both nations allocate funds with a high priority given to enhancing their re-election prospects.
That is a peculiar point of view. I don’t see it in terms of whether or not a nation is worth defending ( after all, even idiot nations will see themselves as worth defending), but rather in terms of whether or not it can defend itself. What universal education brings is economic growth, which should translate into a greater ability for that nation to acquire the means with which it might defend itself.
On a slight digression, elite education, as opposed to universal education, yields a competent elite, which should translate into more effective national leadership. It is when the nation’s elite becomes idiots that a nation is in real trouble. A historical example is the Hungarian establishment prior to the Ottoman conquest of that country. Google the phrase “more was lost at Mohacs”.
In the Australian context, educational outcomes did not improve in line with increased spending. It seems that a lack of funding isn’t the issue with declining acedemic performance. So possibly we should have got that extra destroyer in hindsight. But this wasn’t apparent at the time. In my view, increasing education funding at the expense of other priorities such as defense was a rational decision given the knowledge available. Now that it is apparent that the problem is deeper than that, we will have to explore the nature of those problems and devise a means to address them.
Mulling this, I wonder if someone has heard the term Cost per Compensated Gross Ton, a measure used in assessing shipyard efficiency, and assumed that it refers to the actual displacement of the ships being built in the yard - which it does not?
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The conversation becomes clouded by simplistic comparisons. CCGT is really limited to commercial vessels or rather, there is no coefficient (AFAIK)in the OECD list which you can apply to naval vessels.(Compensated Gross Tonnage is calculated by multiplying the tonnage by this coefficient).
Naval ships vary so much between classes between types of ship, between weapon outfits etc that it would almost be impossible to calculate any meaningful coefficients that could be used.
This is exactly why any comparisons made on tonnage are practically useless.
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- Hmm, reading what I just wrote (which I’m too late to edit) I’ve been a bit simplistic myself. If anybody’s interested, check out the OECD 2007 definition of Compensated Gross Tonnage which for some reason I can’t link to. CGT is a well understood measure when applied to building Merships but warships vary so much, even within the same class of ship, that universal agreement as to what the coefficient should be is effectively mission impossible. However, if an individual organisation internally uses a standardised system to examine the relative efficiency of different shipyards it has some, limited, applicability but in very broad terms. It does have more value when looking at the effect of say continuous improvement programs or the effects of a learning curve in one yard. (And now I can’t get rid of the “1”. #$#@ tablet!)
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