I was shocked when Australia took the French offer for a submarine. Because trying to get technology transfer out of them is almost impossible. The French will happily sell you a ship but they want to do all the maintenance and refits and control "their" technology.
Is it? I seem to remember the Mistral deal with the Russians. If that had been completed as agreed and signed the Russians would have been building ships 3 and 4 in Russia. Then there aare the joint ventures that they have done, such as Concorde, the SEPECAT Jaguar and the Transall C-160 just to name a few. Then of course is Airbus and NHI which manufacture the NH90 helicopter.
Not a naval vessel but didn’t the Queen Mary 2 get built in France?
That's just the ship. The Russians were putting in all their own electronics. It's the same situation for the FREMM with the US though that one is Italian driven. The deal with Australia includes a full technology transfer AFAIK. All of it. Sonars, combat systems, etc... This means IP transfer to Australia.
Yeah where stuck with the French design now. But with the benefit of hindsight wouldn't it have been easier to just continue building the Collins class. We could have just built them in several tranches incorporating improvements and upgrades with each new batch. Unfortunately the Collins got a ridiculous amount of bad press at the time which pretty much made the Son of Collins untenable.Plan A - Build attack subs with naval group
Plan B - Build attack subs with naval group with a very tense relationship with lots of pushing and shoving
Plan C - take work done and paid for so far, go to the Americans to help finish, go back to the French and build attack class
Plan D - take the work done and paid for so far, go to the Americans build without the French involved at all.
Plan E - Build more enhanced Collins - Would only happen if the design had terminal issues that were irresolvable.
We have been here before.
F-111, Collins, F-35, E7 wedgetail, pretty much every big military program. Not just Australia, every bloody country that tries and ambitious program. Not just defence. Harbor bridge and the Opera house had their fair share of dramas as well.
Submarines are important. Failure is not an option. Double your efforts.
The Combat Systems are actually US not French, they are getting the same CMS as the Virginia class, the AN/BYG-1 and at this stage they will be carrying the US Harpoon SSM and MK 48 HWT.
The Bow Sonar is German(Atlas Electronik) Flank Sonars are French(Thales)
This is a hell of a claim and you have provided nothing to justify this. The other point you missed is one of the sticking points in the negotiations was the desire of the Naval Group for the transfer of Australian IP to the Naval Group. This was not agreed to and did hold things up.
Canada is part of the ESSM consortium and ESSM purchases are FMS. If it's not built in Australia and both have worked on the project it's likely an easy putt FMS case. ITAR rules. As long as US Congress thinks there is US IP in something it belongs solely to the US and they control it. They sign off on whether Australia can purchase any Torps at all from whatever company builds them. Kinda like what I was talking about with French IP.
So on one hand you accuse me of no justification for France looking out for their own interests and in the next sentence you point out that they were trying to get their hands on Australian IP? So their plan wasn't to retain their own IP it was to grab someone else's? Freely given industrial espionage, well done France! Apparently, my speculation was backwords.
Australia has its own IP on systems and equipment developed in Australia. The Naval Group are contracted to hand over the IP on the design of the Attack Class but were not to be given Australian IP for future use in different projects. Sensible precaution really.
Bad memories.
www.aspistrategist.org.au
Lockheed Martin Australia is the contracted combat system integrator. Effectively, Naval Group supply the boat and LMA, both direct and via FMS, provide the combat system.