Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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An interesting tweet from Pete 
Electric Boat and ASC for Collins sustainment and LOTE ? Sorry if this had been announced somewhere before but first I have head of this !!
Anyone ?
Electric Boat and ASC for Collins sustainment and LOTE ? Sorry if this had been announced somewhere before but first I have head of this !!
Anyone ?
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
The Americans are the experts in keeping ageing vessels relevant and operational, while the LAs are getting long in the tooth there is no signs of any issues operating them, same as the Tico Cruisers, Nimitz class, the Blue Ridge class.An interesting tweet from Pete
Electric Boat and ASC for Collins sustainment and LOTE ? Sorry if this had been announced somewhere before but first I have head of this !!
Anyone ?
Or even blk 4 Virginias for that matter made 40 years later.
Not very. Crewing wise this would be a disaster. 3 very different types of boats at the same time or overlapping. Operating a sub isn't like driving a car. The crew needs to be familiar with every valve, switch, cable, latch and hatch. You would be branching it into three different streams. nightmare.
Need to go have a cold shower.
EB I believe had done some consulting design work on Collins to fix it. There was much talk about privatizing ASC with EB buying in.
Would love to have the americans see what they could do with Collins.
Yep absolutely agree, the lifespan they get out of their kit, and keeping it relevant is second to none, was just the first I have heard of EB being directly involved in Collins sustainment and LOTE ? I know they have had involvement all the way through and in the background, but I read this as a bit more official, but hey it is Twitter after all and a lot of detail to come in this process
Cheers
Well we only just found out its going to happen in Osborne the other day.
The LOTE of collins is looking pretty huge.
- New Diesel engines (MTU)
- New Generators
- New electric motor (permanent magnet)
- Optronic masts (no more periscope)
- New Sonar setup
- New revision of combat system
- New power distribution system (new lead acid batteries?)
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
Another thing about EB they were also involved with fixing the S-80 issues for Spain.
Lolcake
Active Member
Seems like a massive cost that could be better spent on building infrastructure for the nukes or the new boats themselves but that would only happen if we could somehow secure the lease of the Virginia's/improved LA with US co-crewing arrangements as an option. First few boats obviously to built in the US. In the cold war the US was turning over 3-5 LA classes on an annual basis, the potential is there.
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And the Astute's for the UK, the man they sent over ended up running the program
A lot of those costs were spun off from the Attack class program.
The engines, the motor, the sensors, the combat system, the power distribution.
Some of the infrastructure is dual use. Now there is a commitment to nuclear boats that money will be spent.
The Collins LOTE program imo will be a good test run to get things up and rolling.
Sending Electric Boat downunder to do the Collins LOTE, is like sending the Wolf in Pulp Fiction. EB is tremendously respected and there is seemingly no problem that they can't fix.
As mentioned, they saved the Astutes, resurfaced the S80 (literally) a great example of Spain/French collaboration, and fixed Collins once before.
John Newman
The Bunker Group
A few days ago (post #30,707), I did suggest that General Dynamics (Electric Boat) should be made prime contractor/yard manager for the Governments SSN project.And the Astute's for the UK, the man they sent over ended up running the program
Bringing GDEB in for the Collins LOTE could well be the start of that process.
Def Min Dutton must be reading DT and thought my idea to be good! Thanks Pete, ha ha!
Cheers
(PS, I gave my crystal ball a good rub and that’s what I came up with! Now if only my crystal ball can deliver on the winning Lotto numbers too!!!)
HAHA John not sure we want to know what your are rubbing
But yes interesting announcement, brings a hell of a lot to the table, this is a real guessing game at the moment though what direction we take platform wise with most of the input and news coming out of the US, would have thought Boris and the UK would have been a lot more active in this at the moment ?
Yep get that the announcement has basically only just been made for AUKUS and the trips are focused on the US at the moment but would have thought there would be more rallying from the UK, or are we just not seeing it in the current reporting.
Interesting times
RAN IndoPacific in Cam Ranh..
Lovely looking ships arriving at interesting times.
Lovely looking ships arriving at interesting times.
John Newman
The Bunker Group
Mate, don’t want to know what I’ve been rubbing?HAHA John not sure we want to know what your are rubbing
But yes interesting announcement, brings a hell of a lot to the table, this is a real guessing game at the moment though what direction we take platform wise with most of the input and news coming out of the US, would have thought Boris and the UK would have been a lot more active in this at the moment ?
Yep get that the announcement has basically only just been made for AUKUS and the trips are focused on the US at the moment but would have thought there would be more rallying from the UK, or are we just not seeing it in the current reporting.
Interesting times
Well I’m sure you know the old joke “why do women stretch their arms in the air when they wake up? Because they don’t have balls to scratch!” Ha ha!
On a slightly more serious note, why is there little coming out of the UK camp at the moment?
I’d suggest the ‘front of house show’ is important to not only Oz, but especially to the US too, lots of PR spin etc.
The ‘back of house show’ is probably where the real action is, and maybe that is where the UK is doing it’s work quietly with Oz, maybe?
I’ll have to give my crystal ball another good rub to find the answer!
Cheers,
Hi
I know this has been covered but I still don't get it.
Why do the Astute class take so long to build? Both tables are sourced from Wiki. Astute's take 8 to 10 years to produce. The larger Virginia's take 2 years. Is it production techniques, government mandated continous build tempo, too complicated to go together quickly. I thought, we need our subs quicker than the UK schedule.
Regards
DD
I know this has been covered but I still don't get it.
Why do the Astute class take so long to build? Both tables are sourced from Wiki. Astute's take 8 to 10 years to produce. The larger Virginia's take 2 years. Is it production techniques, government mandated continous build tempo, too complicated to go together quickly. I thought, we need our subs quicker than the UK schedule.
Regards
DD
Build tempo for continuous build. If the UK wants and has the resources - and our money - it's able to accelerate BUT why does that matter if the subs are going to be built at Osborne?
oldsig
Edit: typo
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Honestly your question is hard, and perhaps impossible to answer without additional information but a number of logical potential explanations do come to mind though. One thing to keep firmly in mind is that the USN's nuclear submarine build programme is quite a different animal to that of the RN's, and attempting to make direct comparisons between the two is really going to be an apples to oranges-type comparison.
For instance, the USN orders nuclear attack subs built by two different yards, with both able to maintain comparable length production schedules. Does the British yard producing Astute-class subs have the same production capacity as the US yards do? Does it have a workforce of both comparable size and skill, as the US yards do? Given what I have been able to find, it does appear that the US facilities are larger and I would suspect the US facilities also have larger workforces.
Additionally, one has to consider the likelihood of issues with the different industrial capacities of the UK and US. The US is clearly able to produce and/or procure the needed systems in order to complete the subs as they are built. The UK likely is unable to match the US production speed for certain key systems and there could be deliberate effort to maintain things as they are currently. Take the powerplant for nuclear subs as an excellent example. The US has need for a large number of nuclear plants to be built over time for naval vessels, given the CVN, SSN, and SSBN programmes which are underway. Given the number of RN nuke boats, there not nearly the number of reactors going to be in service, and if the RN were to establish facilities large enough to rapidly churn out reactors, the work would quickly be finished and the workforce to make reactors would likely sit idle for several years...
The US is like "in concept" a car production line. Build volume is huge. Effort is put into making the build faster. They manage production to be efficient not just to happen. They have a huge workforce. As expected their program is ten times bigger
The UK is like a hand crafted Bentley or Aston Martin. In comparison, they never get the build volume. Also if they build it quicker, they build themselves out of a job, the UK mod isn't ordering more subs because they did the job quicker. They build at a constant rate. As mentioned previously they are often limited by their reactor build. France also has this issue.
BTW the first Virginia took more than 2 years.. It took 5+ years at their best yard. You can't compare built time of job ~#30 with job #1.
As you can see build and commissioning length of time varies even during a build.
Missouri was a lightening 1.8 year build. The same yard took 3 years to build Colorado, years later.
Work capacity varies depending on refueling refits and life extensions and any other work the yard might be doing.
Australia would be stupid to throw away the skills at ASC. The US certainly doesn't want that to happen. Having a yard experienced in their subs, would be a huge benefit for them. EB would bring with them all their experience and skills operating in the US.
The more I look at it, the more it seems like we are building Virginia Block IV boats. Sweet. I presume 6 + Collins LOTE. In the big scheme 30 extra sailors per boat may be easier to address than exploring other options. I imagine future classes may have reduced crewing.
Meanwhile in the working Navy :
"HMAS Sirius conducts a dual Replenishment at Sea with HMA ships Canberra and Anzac during Indo-Pacific Endeavour 21."
Image Source - ADF Image Library
"HMAS Sirius conducts a dual Replenishment at Sea with HMA ships Canberra and Anzac during Indo-Pacific Endeavour 21."
Image Source - ADF Image Library
65% of Crimean's are ethnically Russian, we'll just park that one, there's no point in arguing the point.
The big three operators in New Zealand Talley's, Sealord and Sanford all hire Russian/Ukranian crews, kiwis are happy to work the inshore vessels but are not happy to be at sea for several months like the deepsea vessels. These crews are well paid.
Your reflagging article is from 2012.
@KiwiRob Enough is enough. You are repeating yourself and the discussion is off topic.
Ngatimozart.
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