Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

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StingrayOZ

StingrayOZ

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Regarding building some sort of arsenal ship..
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www.navalnews.com

U.S. Navy's Virginia Class Submarines To Get 76% More Firepower - Naval News

Quantity has a quality all of its own. And when the quality relates to U.S. Navy missiles, having more of them is inevitably a massive increase in capabilities. The latest Block V Virginia Class submarine will greatly increase the number of missiles which can be carried. In effect this will make...
www.navalnews.com www.navalnews.com

No need for a huge load out of SM-2/6 or ESSM. Tomahawk has land and maritime strike capability. No extra crewing required. Not many fleets would be able to defend themselves from a volley of 40 Tomahawks/hypersonics.
 
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aricho87

New Member
Late to the discussion but does the hunter class have the ability or is it being discussed to replace the multi mission bay (apparently can hold 10 x 20ft containers) with extra VLS tubes?

The weight shouldn’t be an issue given ship displacement is closer to a DDG/CG weight and the height of the strike version is 7.7 meters.
 
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Meriv

New Member
I'm sorry for the question out of the blue. Sorry if it isn't adequate.

Lurking I read constantly about range as a primary requirement for the RAN ships&subs.

Pretty often talking about patrols.

Can I ask, do the PLAN ships have the range to menace your continent? Or would they need to create intermediate bases?

Or you expect (in the worst case a conflict erupts) to bring the fight to them?
 
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aviation_enthus

Member
Meriv said:
I'm sorry for the question out of the blue. Sorry if it isn't adequate.

Lurking I read constantly about range as a primary requirement for the RAN ships&subs.

Pretty often talking about patrols.

Can I ask, do the PLAN ships have the range to menace your continent? Or would they need to create intermediate bases?

Or you expect (in the worst case a conflict erupts) to bring the fight to them?
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I can’t directly answer your question, but I think any sustained “menacing” would require closer bases given the distances involved.

I’m sure in the next 10 years we will see a significant PLAN fleet operating regularly in the Indian Ocean, but not so sure about the Pacific/Tasman. That being said there has been regular stories of Chinese interest in ports to our NE.

 
oldsig127

oldsig127

The Bunker Group
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Meriv said:
I'm sorry for the question out of the blue. Sorry if it isn't adequate.

Lurking I read constantly about range as a primary requirement for the RAN ships&subs.

Pretty often talking about patrols.

Can I ask, do the PLAN ships have the range to menace your continent? Or would they need to create intermediate bases?

Or you expect (in the worst case a conflict erupts) to bring the fight to them?
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I'll answer with an example.

The great strength of submarines is the high degree of uncertainty they provide to enemy planners. After leaving base and submerging they can go in effectively any direction while requiring disproportionate effort to detect and be patrolling at length *somewhere*.

That's bad enough for the enemy, but consider that (crudely) a sub with twice the range can be anywhere in an area *four* times as great endangering shipping and making detection much more difficult.

Applying that to a situation where a target might be in the South Chinese Sea supporting forces in the Coral Sea but still under threat by boats based in Sydney the enemy needs to stretch his assets to both places...and also cover a very large chunk of the Pacific, and all of the waters of SE Asia, just in case.

Defending Australia *closely* is made easier by the mere possibility the subs can be far away. In this part of the world "far away" can be very far. Bringing the fight to them doesn't need to mean attacking Beijing just making every mile dangerous.

oldsig
 
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alexsa

alexsa

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aricho87 said:
Late to the discussion but does the hunter class have the ability or is it being discussed to replace the multi mission bay (apparently can hold 10 x 20ft containers) with extra VLS tubes?

The weight shouldn’t be an issue given ship displacement is closer to a DDG/CG weight and the height of the strike version is 7.7 meters.
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Short answer is no based on the current arrangement. The CSC had a different arrangement of VLS tubes as did the UK T26. There are option to add different tube (and tube designs) in other locations.

These vessels are focused on ASW but should be a very capable AAW platform. As noted by others the ASM's are not carried in the VLS (at the moment) and there is deck space for 8 SSM's on deck (depending on deck weight there may be room for more).

AS indicated in previous posts you cannot simply cut stuff out of a ship and any changes do require a careful redesign and review of the vessel stability. The deck above the multi-mission bay houses the SSM's cannisters, Nulka and the torpedo decoy system looking at the model displayed.

The multi-mission bay could conceivably house USV that assist in the vessels primary function as well as an additional helo. Getting rid of it would appear to be a retrograde step.

Finally the Hunters are to be built in batches so you may see some growth in batch II compared to batch I. More importantly the final configuration on the Batch I vessel is still being settled (which may be part of the reason for the delay in production proper) so I think we should wait and see what comes out of this.
 
StingrayOZ

StingrayOZ

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The american LHD's (LHA?)are impressive.. Its when you see the airwing out on deck, it gives you some idea how capable they are. I like the configuration on the photo below with the F-35's at the back.

Its easy to forget that the LPD's have quite large flight decks as well.
www.c7f.navy.mil

Expeditionary Strike Group 7 arrives for Talisman Sabre 21

CORAL SEA (July 16, 2021) – The forward-deployed ships of Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 7, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, arrive off the coast of Australia in preparation for the
www.c7f.navy.mil

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FormerDirtDart

FormerDirtDart

Well-Known Member
StingrayOZ said:
The american LHD's (LHA?)are impressive.. Its when you see the airwing out on deck, it gives you some idea how capable they are. I like the configuration on the photo below with the F-35's at the back.

Its easy to forget that the LPD's have quite large flight decks as well.
www.c7f.navy.mil

Expeditionary Strike Group 7 arrives for Talisman Sabre 21

CORAL SEA (July 16, 2021) – The forward-deployed ships of Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 7, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, arrive off the coast of Australia in preparation for the
www.c7f.navy.mil

View attachment 48380
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The USS America (LHA-6) is a Landing Helicopter Assault, as it has no dock (D)
 
FormerDirtDart

FormerDirtDart

Well-Known Member
John Fedup said:
Aren’t later builds of the America class going to have docks?
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Flexson said:
But a big deck amphib with a dock can still be a LHA, as seen with the 5 Tarawa Class LHAs... tricky hey?
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I considered adding that an LHA can have a dock, but an amphibious assault ship without a dock can not be a LHD
And yeah, I have no idea why the USN changed the naming convention from the Tarawa LHA to the Wasp LHD. Other than that the Tarawa's were classified as "general purpose amphibious assault ships" while the Wasp's were "multi purpose amphibious assault ships"
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
S

Stampede

Well-Known Member
DDG38 said:
Great RAS shot of HMAS Ballarat and USS America during Talisman Sabre 2021. Image Source - ADF Image Library
View attachment 48377
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Thanks for the pic

One has to be impressed with their ability to park and move aircraft around the flight deck.
How would you like to be handling that forward V-22 and positioning it so close to the flight deck edge.
Not to mention how close all the other various aircraft are parked to each other.
Add to this is the fact that the flight deck is such a dynamic space.
Yep
These aircraft actually fly!!!!!
They get moved back and forth, fueled armed, take off, land, parked and get stowed in he the hangar via lifts with yet again more moving and parking.
All this on a big floating thing that moves, pitches and roles.
It's truly an amazing process.

I wonder how the ADF are going in the Crawl ,walk run sequence in getting to grips with the Canberra Class.
Does any one know the most number of aircraft we have taken to sea. ( On deck and in the hanger ) ????

Curious

Regards S
 
StingrayOZ

StingrayOZ

Super Moderator
Staff member
The V-22's are so compact! Self folding!. So much fast air lift in such a tiny space.

Then you have the performance capabilities a V22 can carry nearly twice as much as a Nh90, twice as fast. CH-53E which can carry what 60% more than a Chinook. All that gear is expensive, but in terms of moving and inserting by air, its a huge difference.
 
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