Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[Takao]

It wouldn't be the first time the RAN came up with a dud solution to the MCM problem.

Bay-class minehunter - Wikipedia

Australia has spent a long time trying to find affordable solutions for carrying out MCM operations. Hopefully this time they get it right.

I can't speak to the whys and wherefores for the Bay class; they joined and left just after I did. The Bay class highlights the issues that the push for non-specialised minehunters brings up though. For modular or uncrewed options, they are almost always just too small to operate beyond inshore. The Huon can do off-shore (although I understand the 11.34 kts up to Japan was....not entertaining), meaning it can respond and it can clear without giving up other capabilities.

 

[spoz]

I can. As I have said before, the Bays were appropriate for what they were designed to do. That did not, however, meet the needs subsequently identified as to what a clearance requirement might be. In particular, their inability to transit in the open ocean and independently limited their ability to meet that requirement. As inshore minehunters, alone, however, they were perfectly successful.

 

[ASSAIL]

The RAN’s attempts to provide MCM capability from the retirement of the Ton Class (1983) to the commissioning of the Huons (1994} took some unconventional routes.
The Bays have been mentioned already, coming into service in ‘86/87.
In 1988 Craft of Opportunity Programme (COOP) began with 3 hired trawlers, Salvatore V, Waverider and CaroleS and 4 purchased vessels Brolga, Koraaga, Gunundaal and Bermagui.
There were also 2 tugs, Bandicoot and Wallaroo.
They were bought to develop tactics and doctrine for minesweeping equipment including the Australian developed “clip on” influence and mechanical sweeps using side scan sonar. They were also tasked with undertaking route surveillance along the northern and eastern coast.
The two tugs were fitted with a magnetic body and acoustic noisemakers for influence sweeps as well as wire sweeps for moored mines.
The less said about the Flamingo Bay (Gunundaal), flooded on delivery voyage and never used, the better.

Despite not having a modern MCM fleet at that time Navy certainly made the effort to continue their MCM capability despite the motley collection of Auxiliary (read mongrel) minesweepers.
Info from Ross Gillet’s “Australia’s Fighting Ships”

 

[old faithful]

The RAN’s attempts to provide MCM capability from the retirement of the Ton Class (1983) to the commissioning of the Hurons (1994} took some unconventional routes.
The Bays have been mentioned already, coming into service in ‘86/87.
In 1988 Craft of Opportunity Programme (COOP) began with 3 hired trawlers, Salvatore V, Waverider and CaroleS and 4 purchased vessels Brolga, Koraaga, Gunundaal and Bermagui.
There were also 2 tugs, Bandicoot and Wallaroo.
They were bought to develop tactics and doctrine for minesweeping equipment including the Australian developed “clip on” influence and mechanical sweeps using side scan sonar. They were also tasked with undertaking route surveillance along the northern and eastern coast.
The two tugs were fitted with a magnetic body and acoustic noisemakers for influence sweeps as well as wire sweeps for moored mines.
The less said about the Flamingo Bay, flooded on delivery voyage and never used, the better.

Despite not having a modern MCM fleet at that time Navy certainly made the effort to continue their MCM capability despite the motley collection of Auxiliary (read mongrel) minesweepers.
Info from Ross Gillet’s “Australia’s Fighting Ships”

The Flamingo Bay?
I have a feeling I know that ahhhh "boat" hahahaha.
If its the one from Cairns.
It was an 1956 ex Belgian ice breaking thing, bought from the Bahama's.
I was hired as the deckie, and helped see a re-fit in Cairns. It was so rusty, had holes in hull. A lot of money was spent trying to turn her into a silk purse, but she was always going to be a pigs ear. I wonder if we are talking about the same boat? Her owner was a well known guy, Dave, I won't say his surname, a pretty eccentric Canadian/Bahama guy. He ended up as an episode on "I shouldn't be alive" after doing a some filming in the Soliman Islands of an underwater volcano, that went wrong.

 

[ASSAIL]

The Flamingo Bay?
I have a feeling I know that ahhhh "boat" hahahaha.
If its the one from Cairns.
It was an 1956 ex Belgian ice breaking thing, bought from the Bahama's.
I was hired as the deckie, and helped see a re-fit in Cairns. It was so rusty, had holes in hull. A lot of money was spent trying to turn her into a silk purse, but she was always going to be a pigs ear. I wonder if we are talking about the same boat? Her owner was a well known guy, Dave, I won't say his surname, a pretty eccentric Canadian/Bahama guy. He ended up as an episode on "I shouldn't be alive" after doing a some filming in the Soliman Islands of an underwater volcano, that went wrong.

You’re right about the owner, I knew him well from his time in Darwin, however;
This Flamingo Bay was the original, an ex trawler which he used for so called research first in Darwin then in Cairns. Navy sent a MCDO up to appraise the ship before sale, he was a year senior to me and an ex neighbour. I advised him not to touch the boat, it was out of Hull life but above water it looked very slick and white with lots of deckchair space, the rest is history.
The hull gave up enroute to Sydney and despite repairs in Port Macquarie she was deemed unsuitable for naval service and disposed of.
I did see the second edition in Cairns, thought it was an ocean tug but very odd indeed.

 

[aussienscale]

For those that are interested, Sea Power Conference 2019 kicks off tomorrow, will be a lot of information to digest and read through, also plenty of videos posted.

Always worth checking out

Cheers

Sea Power Conference 2019 | Royal Australian Navy

PACIFIC 2019 : INTERNATIONAL MARITIME EXPOSITION : SYDNEY AUSTRALIA 8-10 OCTOBER

 

[AndyinOz]

NoCookies | The Australian Not a subscriber to The Australian so I can't really speak to the article or the context of the headline (maybe someone can help out there) but those sorts of headlines and opening sentences I suspect could well cause multiple random cases of 'frothing of the mouth' to occur all over the place.
From the perspective of someone who is a complete novice of such matters I would suggest that we are going to have our hands full with introducing the Attack Class without the additional layer of complexity of trying to switch from conventional to nuclear propulsion, with all of the supporting infrastructure, institutional knowledge and experience that would require and entail. I would be curious to know if it was somewhat of a click-baity attempt by the journalist or something other. (Apologies in advance for posting on this particular topic and a link I had not read through the material on bit it just caught my eye).

 

[DaveS124]

Two things:

(1) Thanks, Ngati & Co. for the recent activity at HQ DT re this thread,
(2) Looks like the pennant number for the future HMAS HUNTER will be F101. The last time those digits got wet was when the patrol boat BAYONET was poncing around the parish. Am confident that BAE would not have marked this model thusly without RAN approval, and
(3) ASSAIL's comments re current and projected RAN TGs are correct. When Tim Barrett was CN he announced their return as part of Plan Pelorus. Single-ship patrol deployments a la Dibb/Defence of Australia doctrine are rapidly becoming unhappy history. Good.

 

[StingrayOZ]

For those that are interested, Sea Power Conference 2019 kicks off tomorrow, will be a lot of information to digest and read through, also plenty of videos posted.

Always worth checking out

Cheers

Sea Power Conference 2019 | Royal Australian Navy

PACIFIC 2019 : INTERNATIONAL MARITIME EXPOSITION : SYDNEY AUSTRALIA 8-10 OCTOBER

Btw happy to catch a beer with any members attending. Pm me.

 

[ngatimozart]

Vice Admiral Michael Noonan opening speech at Pacific 2019 yesterday.

Xaviers report from Day 1 of Pacific 2019

 

[aussienscale]

Two things:

(1) Thanks, Ngati & Co. for the recent activity at HQ DT re this thread,
(2) Looks like the pennant number for the future HMAS HUNTER will be F101. The last time those digits got wet was when the patrol boat BAYONET was poncing around the parish. Am confident that BAE would not have marked this model thusly without RAN approval, and
(3) ASSAIL's comments re current and projected RAN TGs are correct. When Tim Barrett was CN he announced their return as part of Plan Pelorus. Single-ship patrol deployments a la Dibb/Defence of Australia doctrine are rapidly becoming unhappy history. Good.

I will check up on the numbering for the class, mate of mine Russ build that model for BAE, he builds to spec from them so they would have stipulated the numbering, so guessing that it is correct

Cheers

 

[ASSAIL]

Vice Admiral Michael Noonan opening speech at Pacific 2019 yesterday.

Xaviers report from Day 1 of Pacific 2019

I know very little about CN apart from what’s available online.
He seems to have had a dream run but I’m a little underwhelmed by his oratory style, there is little gravitas, and he seems way too youthful to be the Chief.
I see he’s had an Anzac command but also a lot of staff jobs. Maybe that’s what you need these days to learn all the corporate buzzwords delivered in that speech.
But then again I guess I’m old and cynical and not familiar with all that bs.

 

[ngatimozart]

Xaviers report from Day 2 of Pacific 2019. Today he focussed on the RAN new builds: Hunter Class FFG, Arafura Class OPV, Attack Class SSK and the shipyard build program. Of note, the SSM / AShM for the Hunter Class has yet to be decided and the model shows 32 Mk 41 cells behind the 5"gun. The towed sonar array is the same Thales array that the RN has chosen.

 

[aussienscale]

Xaviers report from Day 2 of Pacific 2019. Today he focussed on the RAN new builds: Hunter Class FFG, Arafura Class OPV, Attack Class SSK and the shipyard build program. Of note, the SSM / AShM for the Hunter Class has yet to be decided and the model shows 32 Mk 41 cells behind the 5"gun. The towed sonar array is the same Thales array that the RN has chosen.

Thanks for posting NG, these guys always do great vids, nothing too surprising there, the 32 cells on the Hunters I think was a given, nice to see the masts for the Attack's, and a nice update on the yards too

As for the SSM/AShM ? Hmmmm, I have an opinion on what we will get, the USN has already made their decision and makes a lot of sense for us in so many ways across multiple platforms and all 3 services, time will tell. I will do a post in the ADF thread when I get a chance to do so, it would be a pretty long winded post with a lot of info and links.

Cheers

 

[Volkodav]

I can. As I have said before, the Bays were appropriate for what they were designed to do. That did not, however, meet the needs subsequently identified as to what a clearance requirement might be. In particular, their inability to transit in the open ocean and independently limited their ability to meet that requirement. As inshore minehunters, alone, however, they were perfectly successful.

I recall something about cavitation between the hulls being an issue, no references on it just a conversation with someone from the MH community. Would you know anything on this? Any substance to it or is it just an unfounded story?

 

[hauritz]

There is a big writeup about the Hunter in australiandefence as well
A quiet Hunter - Navy's Future Frigate - Australian Defence Magazine
There isn't a lot of new stuff other than revealing the build schedule with prototyping starting December 2020 and full production in 2022 with a 3 year gap between the first two ships and 2 years with the subsequent builds. Bit of quick maths tells me that the last ship will be laid down in 2039 and entering service around the mid 40s.

Everything seems to be progressing nicely in the design stage.

There is a bit of speculation that it might yet be considered for the US FFG(X) but I wouldn't hold my breath with that.

 

[ngatimozart]

There is a big writeup about the Hunter in australiandefence as well
A quiet Hunter - Navy's Future Frigate - Australian Defence Magazine
There isn't a lot of new stuff other than revealing the build schedule with prototyping starting December 2020 and full production in 2022 with a 3 year gap between the first two ships and 2 years with the subsequent builds. Bit of quick maths tells me that the last ship will be laid down in 2039 and entering service around the mid 40s.

Everything seems to be progressing nicely in the design stage.

There is a bit of speculation that it might yet be considered for the US FFG(X) but I wouldn't hold my breath with that.

I thought that it was excluded from the US FFX because it wasn't in the water yet.

 

[John Fedup]

Yep and BAE has said it wasn't bidding. Besides, pretty tough to build a T26 for $800 million, a T31 yes but it isn't in the water yet either.

 

[hauritz]

Yep and BAE has said it wasn't bidding. Besides, pretty tough to build a T26 for $800 million, a T31 yes but it isn't in the water yet either.

The Type 31 isn't in service yet but the ship it is based on has been around for a decade or more. Given the remaining ships being considered for the FFG(X) program include a modified version of a coast guard cutter and a littoral combat ship they could do worse than consider the Type 31.

The Type 26 will be too expensive and won't be ready in time to be considered though. Which is kind of a shame. It could have been beneficial for Australia if the US were to operate the Type 26 as well.

 

[StingrayOZ]

I don't think the Type 26 is what the US is looking for. I don't think BAE is chasing the US anyway, they have two solid overseas customers that are ordering a significant number and significant adaptions. Chasing the US as well would likely be a program too far.

The Hunter class are going to be really nice ships for the RAN. While they will initially come with 32 VLS, quite a few were pointing out the space around the installed VLS at Pacific 19, I don't think there is much doubt about the future growth margin of the ships being quite significant.

The Attack class is progressing along quite steady. They are going to be big subs, over 5,000t. 4 diesel engines (so 4 times the diesel generation of a 212). They are going to feel a lot more like a SSN than a traditional diesel sub. More like Viginia's than Collins.