Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

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CB90

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
I do not believe this has been mentioned earlier in this thread, the PWR 3 reactor in question uses highly enriched uranium, 93 percent That is bomb grade uranium. Thus any nation with such a reactor, could if they chose take the reactor, open it up, remove some uranium and make many many nuclear bombs given that the amount of uranium in question over all submarines goes into the tonnes, and the amount of uranium needed to make a single atomic bomb is 25kg

Now is Australia likely to do this, no. However we could if we really really wanted to.

Would you feel comfortable if other nations decided they required nuclear powered submarines, and those nations chose the highly enriched uranium type of reactor. Say Spain, Italy, Brazil, Indonesia, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Canada, South Africa, that is sixteen nations apart from Oz, that might in a few decades or now have the financial and technical ability to operate a nuclear submarine. What is to stop Russia from selling a nuclear submarine to one of those 16 nations, and when we protest, Russia and the nation is question can say, well it was OK for you, we are simply responding to our legitimate security needs as Australia did many years ago.
Australia has access to literal tons of uranium. If Oz decided it actually wanted nuclear weapons, they already have the capability to get there very quickly.

I would say aside from the EU, N. American, and East Asian nations you mentioned (those are incredibly unlikely, and even if they did, it'd likely be with AUKUS or NATO cooperation), the possibility of proliferation through sales from Russia or China are legitimate concerns. But at the moment, none of those really have the financial or technical ability, and it doesn't seem particularly likely. I'd also say China is a more likely proliferation threat, as Russia doesn't exactly have the cash to throw around building nuke boats for other nations unless they pay for it...and the ones who can pay for it are the ones least likely to do it.

For Japan and S. Korea, they are extremely wealthy nations with advanced technical capability and a robust nuclear power industry that lives under threat from 2 neighbors who don't love them and have nukes. If they didn't already have plans on the shelf to rapidly go nuclear, they'd be silly.

Also, it'll depend on how the reactors are fueled up. Reactors use fission poisons to moderate the reaction (and prevent it from doing what you would want a weapon to do). Separating those out would be yet another complication...and at that point, why not just enrich the uranium just sitting around in the country's mines?
 
Australia has access to literal tons of uranium. If Oz decided it actually wanted nuclear weapons, they already have the capability to get there very quickly.
Ahem, taking natural uranium and turning it into highly enriched uranium is very hard (exceptionally hard), You need centrifuges, or caultrons, or gas diffusion. Iran has spent decades along this route and is still some way off. It is really expensive, really difficult, and needs a lot of really high tech equipment. Iraq spent years on trying to make high grade uranium and was unable to get there.

Once you have the material, making the bomb is relatively easy. A plutonium bomb is simpler than a uranium bomb, however both devices are much much simpler to make than getting the fuel to make them.

I have posted this before but both Germany and Japan have large stockpiles of Plutonium from the civil nuclear power industry. Each nation could use this plutonium if it chose to, to make nuclear weapons. Politically that is exceptionally unlikely, technically it is reasonably easy

The french submarine uses medium enriched uranium, this is unsuitable for bomb making, The downside is that the core does not last as long, and after ten years (versus thirty years) you have to take the reactor back to France for refuelling. The uranium itself is stored in rods. There are also control rods that go up and down to control the power of the reactor. Removing the fuel rods from a reactor bu going rogue, means having to design your own equipment to remove the rods remotely, this is hard, but not exceptionally hard. After that the uranium is melted down and recast into multiple individual blocks, I think the number is around thirty or so. The uranium bomb works by firing all these blocks at the exact same time so they reach the centre at the right time and push into each other. To do this you need exceptionally fast switches (krytrons) which are controlled items, Saddam Hussein was filmed playing with these switches on a video. The plutonium bomb is much simpler, you take 2 hemispheres of Plutonium, but them in a tube and fire them at each other and it goes boom.

Many years ago when the British had their first bomb, they were going to take it to Oz for testing on some islands off the coast of Western Australia. The two hemispheres were taken in the back of two cars to the airport for transport, however one of the cars broke down, so they took the other hemisphere and placed it in the back of the other car along with the first hemisphere. I assume and really hope that nuclear security has improved since then
 

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
I didn't go off topic I replied to a post in this discussion where the poster said the Chinese one child policy was shaping Chinas forward thinking, that one child policy did shape forward thinking, to the point where they realised it was a dud and cancelled it. By the time the RAN get these subs in the water the Chinese (might) have a whole fleet of freshly minted late teen and early 20's bodies, if they start having more children which isn't a given.

As has been discussed earlier the RAN also has recruitment and retention problems, they can't crew all the vessels they have now, with the shrinking birth rates won't this be even more difficult in the 2030's when they have more vessels to crew? How many sailors would be prepared to be away from home and family for the length of time an SSN can deploy? UK and US SSN's patrol for up to 6 months, would Australia be any different?

You were warned and being argumentative about it isn't helping you. The Moderators are going to discuss what sanctions we may or may not apply. In the meantime you are banned from posting on the RAN thread for seven days.
 

ddxx

Well-Known Member
By all measurements the Hunter Class is very much a multirole large surface combatant capable across the full spectrum. It will of course have particularly capability in the area of ASW, but with AEGIS and CEAFAR the same could be said of its AAW and ASuW capabilities.

Given Hunter's size and capabilities you could easily classify it as either a DDG or FFG, in fact, in the Indo-Pacific, the term Frigate is very much used for smaller surface combatants regardless of role. This is indeed the case for most of the world, where DDG isn't AAW specific to the extent it is under RN doctrine.

It's worth checking out this video from the ASPI 'Future Surface Fleet' conference in 2015, where Commodore Rob Elliot explains that SEA 5000 (now Hunter Class) had very much evolved into a need for a highly capable combatant with full spectrum capability, not just in ASW.

 
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Redlands18

Well-Known Member
For an ASW asset, I imagine the most capable shipborne (excluding the helo) weapon to prosecute a ranged submarine contact is an ASROC type munition.
ASROC is VLS launched, correct??

Considering the VLS magazine capacity and competition for various munition load types, I reckon the VLS number available is crucial to the vessels persistence in the forward AO.
Assuming that the ship would not intentionally leave the AO to re-arm, unloaded with an empty magazine, a % of the magazine is already probably considered optimally ‘unusable’.
Australia doesn't have ASROC and at this stage there is no publicly stated intention to get it. We seem to be more likely to be concentrating on deploying underwater Drones.
 

Redlands18

Well-Known Member
Agreed. Burkes were designed with the Cold War mentality and technology. You needed multiple Air Defence missiles to shoot down one anti-ship missile. The design and technology of the T45 showed that if you can achieve closer to a 1:1 ratio of Air Defence missile to anti-ship missile you don't need to fill your ship with VLS. Your sensors/FCS/ordinance tech allow you to get that ratio. This means space spent on CMS/sensors can reduce space for the ordinance.

And of course, lets not forget ships work in teams. 2 Hunters and a Hobart are going to be a potent TG package.
Throw in an SSN as well as part of that TG and you have a formidable capability, the ability of the SSNs to keep up with your Surface Combatants is going to be a game changer for the RAN. Though the YT Doco i posted a few posts back was more about the ageing condition of HMS Trenchant, later in the Video it shows how a Frigate and Submarine combo told a Russian Sub to stay out of UK Waters.
 

Boagrius

Well-Known Member
Agreed. Burkes were designed with the Cold War mentality and technology. You needed multiple Air Defence missiles to shoot down one anti-ship missile. The design and technology of the T45 showed that if you can achieve closer to a 1:1 ratio of Air Defence missile to anti-ship missile you don't need to fill your ship with VLS. Your sensors/FCS/ordinance tech allow you to get that ratio. This means space spent on CMS/sensors can reduce space for the ordinance.

And of course, lets not forget ships work in teams. 2 Hunters and a Hobart are going to be a potent TG package.
If I am to play devil's advocate, I'd submit that a more Cold War style mentality may actually be appropriate going forward. While we are now be adept at dealing with traditional subsonic and supersonic ASMs, the same may not be true for the hypersonic variety. I suspect full up VLS cells (with SM-6/GPI) may become precious again when anti-ship HCMs, ASBMs and HGVs enter the equation..?
 

ddxx

Well-Known Member
Depends on layout of the forward section. Just because a model shows room on top, doesn't mean the rest of thar section isnt already mapped out.

Anzacs being am example, the section forward under harpoons is Chart house, Armourey with Forward Magazine. Looking at a model looks like plenty of space.
Absolutely, models and renders are always only indicative. Construction photos of Glasgow probably provide the best idea of space below deck in the base design.

We'll just have to wait and see what the final specs are, especially after the growth in FLD from 8,800 to ~10,000 tonnes.
It's worth keeping in mind that, to my knowledge at least, neither the Navy or Defence has ever confirmed the number of VLS cells.
32 only comes from the models, renders and the original BAE GCS-A basic design bid for Hunter, with a FLD some 1,200 tonnes lighter.
 

Geddy

Member
Another aspect of this is surely the CIWS capability of the RAN. It's good to see additional Phalanx mounts and the upgrades , however they seem to be at the end of their lifecycle, or at least in need of a complimentary capability such as RIM-116? Is there anything out there that points to consideration of that sort of capability?
 

Tasman

Ship Watcher
Verified Defense Pro
If we have one in the water by 2040 that will be a good result, don't know about you but I will probably be tottering around the Old Geezers home suffering from Oldtimers disease by the time we have one commissioned.
I'll be happy if I am still tottering at all. In fact I'll be happy to see the first steel cut. IMO, going nuclear ranks with the establishment of our first fleet unit built around the battlecruiser Australia just before WWI and the setting up of the carrier force after WW2 for significance.
Tas
 

Redlands18

Well-Known Member
I'll be happy if I am still tottering at all. In fact I'll be happy to see the first steel cut. IMO, going nuclear ranks with the establishment of our first fleet unit built around the battlecruiser Australia just before WWI and the setting up of the carrier force after WW2 for significance.
Tas
Maybe the 2 LHDs not far behind.
 

Zorborg

New Member
Good day folks, as a suggestion can we please keep the discussion in the real world. Fantasy post tend to prompt a reaction from the Mods. Suggestion such as having 8 SSN's by 2033 are meandering into that category.

alexsa
Was it neccesary to delete all posts from the 25th to the 29th? There was a fair bit of interesting discussion in there. Not sure what purpose hiding all those posts serves.
 

Todjaeger

Potstirrer
Was it neccesary to delete all posts from the 25th to the 29th? There was a fair bit of interesting discussion in there. Not sure what purpose hiding all those posts serves.
Posts were moved to two new RAN-themed threads found here and here. Some of the discussion is fairly considered thought, OTOH some of it has taken to flights of fantasy and significant speculation.
 

Zorborg

New Member
Posts were moved to two new RAN-themed threads found here and here. Some of the discussion is fairly considered thought, OTOH some of it has taken to flights of fantasy and significant speculation.
Thanks for explaining in place of the mods.

On the topic of a regional shift in strategy, to what extent do people think the Navy expects to operate with land-based air cover? One of the things I'm concerned about is that RAAF assets, particularly, fighter jets, may be unable to provide meaningful cover for Navy ships operating in key areas.
 

DDG38

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
New rig for the RAN :
"Warrant Officer Andrew Lee wears the Royal Australian Navy's new Maritime Multi-Cam Pattern Uniform at HMAS Coonawarra, Darwin, NT."
"Navy’s new Maritime Multi-Cam Pattern Uniform roll-out will commence in October 2021. The new lightweight contemporary uniform utilises the latest technology, enhancing the safety and comfort of members wearing it. Manufactured in Australia, the MMPU has retained its gray tone similar to that of the Disruptive Pattern Navy Uniform (DPNU), but a point of difference are the two variants now available, a flame resistant and non-flame resistant version, depending on the roles of the member. The uniform roll-out has started in the warmer tropical states of the Northern Territory and North Queensland and issued to other units with an expected completion at the end of 2022." Image Source : ADF Image Library
20211001ran8565840_0020.jpg
 
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