Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[gf0012-aust]

There was an article in the Age Newpaper today, July 3 2011 by Natalie OBrien. I would add a link but they are not allowed here. In short it says that not one of the 200 illegal entry vessels (refugees / people smugglers, whichever term you prefer) has been detected by the 1.8 billion dollar JORN radar network. Apparently the JORN (jindallee over the horizon radar network) is only designed to look for vessels of the Armidale class and larger, 56m long.

sorry, thats crap.

1) because the system has picked up smaller assets than that
2) because even when it was a stufded unit 10 years ago I remember seeing it pick up metal assets the size od a landrover
3) OTHR is not designed to pick up wooden boats, in fact all radar systems will struggle with small wooden craft

If I recall correctly one boat tied up to the warf in Darwin Harbour and that was the first anyone knew of it.[

CREF above. I say that as someone who has seen the system in operation

Perhaps a contributing factor is that these undetected vessels was that they are built of wood as opposed to steel or aluminium (me thinking out loud). and hence give lower radar returns.

CREF above

Perhaps a cost effective (much less than 1.8 billion) might be an array or fixed unmanned radar stations off the north west coast. Apparently we are to get one on Christmas Island (after about 50 people drowned). If put on a high stand like a tripod and powered by solar panels it could be a useful and cost effecitve addition to JORN. May as well add an air search radar as well. You would need a satellite dish too to pass on data. May as well add some high quality remote controlled TV cameras (both visible and infrared). Say at a height of 70m above sea level (when in an attol) such a setup would provide a useful local reconnaisance capability for modest cost.

doesn't work and this has been trialled on christmas island in the last 6 months - it was also exhaustively tested off FNQ years ago.

On a fixed station, quality of the information would be better than something moving around in a seaway.

One for Christmas Island, maybe one for Heard Island (illegal fishing - surface radar only and wind powered) one for Ashmore reef, one on the NW corner of Melville Island. One in the Torres straight somewhere, one anchored to an attol off the great barrier reef.

There might be a need for a helicopter platform for maintenance. Environmental impact would be modest, cost modest too. Just an idea.

It is not only people coming seeking asylum that are an issue. There is thing called terrorists, drug smugglers and illegal fishing vessels. Quarantine issues would be another reason why detecting small wooden boats whilst at sea would be advantageous

the journo is an idiot and she needs to speak to someone who does understand how these systems work in the first place. she has a fundamental misunderstanding of the capabilities when she says rubbish like this.

the cost to effectively monitor the north west and pick up wooden boats would make the spend on the 12 subs and JSF look like a firesale - and still no guarantee.

JORN was designed for warfighting - not for border protection - now if we ever get invaded by a fleet of wooden boats capable of launching missiles or landing troops in invasion numbers, then JORN will have failed.

Its a pity they don't have "OTHR for Dummys", "SWR for Dummys" and "Arrays for Dummys" - it would have helped her.

 

[wrs]

sorry, thats crap.

1) because the system has picked up smaller assets than that
2) because even when it was a stufded unit 10 years ago I remember seeing it pick up metal assets the size od a landrover
3) OTHR is not designed to pick up wooden boats, in fact all radar systems will struggle with small wooden craft




CREF above. I say that as someone who has seen the system in operation



CREF above



doesn't work and this has been trialled on christmas island in the last 6 months - it was also exhaustively tested off FNQ years ago.



the journo is an idiot and she needs to speak to someone who does understand how these systems work in the first place. she has a fundamental misunderstanding of the capabilities when she says rubbish like this.

the cost to effectively monitor the north west and pick up wooden boats would make the spend on the 12 subs and JSF look like a firesale - and still no guarantee.

JORN was designed for warfighting - not for border protection - now if we ever get invaded by a fleet of wooden boats capable of launching missiles or landing troops in invasion numbers, then JORN will have failed.

Its a pity they don't have "OTHR for Dummys", "SWR for Dummys" and "Arrays for Dummys" - it would have helped her.

Apart from the massive investment by the Australian Government,more interesting is the fact that when Telstra ran the program, before IBM finished it, they sold the Intellectual Property to BAE for a few million, and we now no longer own the IP.
A lot of money for nothing!

 

[icelord]

While these systems would be able to monitor the area locally, their range would be hampered by the fact they could only see to the Horizon. As far as I am aware, the primary means BPC use to detect illegal fishermen and boat people is *NOT* with the patrol boats, but rather through use of radar equiped Dash 8's and RAAF AP-3C's. These can cover much larger areas's of ocean in a single sortie then a Patrol boat or Fixed radar could ever hope to do.

Thats why the RAAF and RAN wanted UAVs to cover the North. Its was seen as more "financially viable" to defer the decision...and even then next year they are looking to reduce the amount of flying hours by the Dash 8s, brilliant!
Guess we will need more boats washing up on Christmas island before people realise the tools are available, its just the lack of Govt. will to procure them

 

[gf0012-aust]

Apart from the massive investment by the Australian Government,more interesting is the fact that when Telstra ran the program, before IBM finished it, they sold the Intellectual Property to BAE for a few million, and we now no longer own the IP.
A lot of money for nothing!

Not all the IP was telstra, in fact telstra stuffed a lot of what they were doing anyway.

some of the core IP is owned by other australian entities as well. i can think of 3 other cottage tech companies that were involved and they weren't sharing their IP with Telstra and/or BAE. As they were subcontracting comms engineers they managed how their IP was integrated. Some of that tech also was developed by DSTO and it was not commercialised or onsold to the private sector.

I can't think of anyone in this technical space who would even remotely regard BAE as a player in the OTHR technology game.... not with the tech that they picked up from telstra anyway.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Thats why the RAAF and RAN wanted UAVs to cover the North. Its was seen as more "financially viable" to defer the decision...and even then next year they are looking to reduce the amount of flying hours by the Dash 8s, brilliant!
Guess we will need more boats washing up on Christmas island before people realise the tools are available, its just the lack of Govt. will to procure them

even BPC who have been a sacred political cow were unable to get their UAV plan up, and the manned hours were cut.

Govt disinterest is the issue, you can cover these areas if you integrate a number of technologies and you're prepared to spend....

 

[jeffb]

even BPC who have been a sacred political cow were unable to get their UAV plan up, and the manned hours were cut.

Govt disinterest is the issue, you can cover these areas if you integrate a number of technologies and you're prepared to spend....

Lets be honest here, there is no real threat to our borders from asylum seekers, no evidence of terrorists trying to land ships on our shores and little evidence of drug smugglers doing the same. It is easier for them all to use the existing legal infrastructure, ports and airports, in most cases.

Sure we could spend a heap of money tracking every single boat across the north of Australia, it would mean little if any difference in outcomes though. The existing system works fairly well at what it is meant to do.

There is no point throwing money after a problem that only exists in Western Sydney when other areas of Defence actually need the money.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Lets be honest here, there is no real threat to our borders from asylum seekers, no evidence of terrorists trying to land ships on our shores and little evidence of drug smugglers doing the same. It is easier for them all to use the existing legal infrastructure, ports and airports, in most cases.

having worked with refugees in the early 80's I am fundamentally disappointed with how both sides of politics have marginalised this issue and turned it into a popular problem without merit. Both sides have conveniently ignored how many overstayers we have from commonwealth partners - 10-15 times higher than our worst illegal entry count - and yet we don't chase the overstayers down the rabbit hole.

a pox on both their houses.

Sure we could spend a heap of money tracking every single boat across the north of Australia, it would mean little if any difference in outcomes though. The existing system works fairly well at what it is meant to do.

cref above

There is no point throwing money after a problem that only exists in Western Sydney when other areas of Defence actually need the money.

ditto prev - and which actually isn't the problem its made out to be.

 

[Samoa]

sorry, thats crap.

1) because the system has picked up smaller assets than that
2) because even when it was a stufded unit 10 years ago I remember seeing it pick up metal assets the size od a landrover
3) OTHR is not designed to pick up wooden boats, in fact all radar systems will struggle with small wooden craft




CREF above. I say that as someone who has seen the system in operation



CREF above



doesn't work and this has been trialled on christmas island in the last 6 months - it was also exhaustively tested off FNQ years ago.



the journo is an idiot and she needs to speak to someone who does understand how these systems work in the first place. she has a fundamental misunderstanding of the capabilities when she says rubbish like this.

the cost to effectively monitor the north west and pick up wooden boats would make the spend on the 12 subs and JSF look like a firesale - and still no guarantee.

JORN was designed for warfighting - not for border protection - now if we ever get invaded by a fleet of wooden boats capable of launching missiles or landing troops in invasion numbers, then JORN will have failed.

Its a pity they don't have "OTHR for Dummys", "SWR for Dummys" and "Arrays for Dummys" - it would have helped her.

I worked on JORN as part of the integration team. It was finished off by RLM (not IBM as incorrectly stated by wrs). The radar is specifically designed to track airborne targets which have a reasonable doppler, ie moving at higher speeds. The surface tasking has difficulties with extracting targets from sea clutter, due mainly to the long wavelength of HF. This means the resolution is large and given the system is not using a line of sight principle (ie it bounces the signal off the ionosphere), the prediction alogorithms and real time inonspheric model used to calculate the height of the ionsphere induce extra range errors. That together with the minimal target returns (when it bounces from the ionoshpere is suffers a significant signal degradation) means a target that has no doppler (ie slow) and offers a poor RCS (Radar cross section at HF frequencies, ie a wooden boat) in high sea clutter (ie. rougher seas) is unlikely to be seen. But having said that it was NEVER designed with that intention in mind. I have seen the capability of the system from both the radar sites control centres and the JCC at RAAF Edinburgh and the system is the leading development in wide area OTHR systems, a credit to the 500 engineers and scientists who worked on it.

DSTO are currently investigating the installation of a more advanced doppler based navigation radar derivate to support surface surveillance from Xmas Island. This has the ability to extract small RCS targets in high clutter. An early variant is actually deployed on HMAS Perth as the new dual head 360 degree coverage Nav radar, under the ASMD project. A similar system but more advanced is to form the Helo approach radar on LHD, using a military based tracker to replace a conventional and inferior ARPA based system as used on most Nav radars.

Hopefully this will clear up the situation, as there is a lot of misinformation and biased information provided on this site.

 

[Samoa]

As I understand it, yes top weight and stability was a major concern for the CEA upgrade, Not sure how much but Perth did have extra ballast added down low, others may be able to comment on amounts added, the adding of ballast has obvious flow on effects to what can be done in the future

Each of the ANZACs have different levels of remaining stability margin, the older ships have less. Its surprising because a significant contributor to margin reduction is ships store, shoring and extra non-engineering fitments (ie crews own fittments). Obviously the margin is eaten away by ongoing capabilities upgrades and fittment over the life of class. Problem is the RAN/DMO seem to want to take what was originally designed as a frigate and fit the capability of a much larger class, hence the weight issues. HMAS Perth underwent major modifications aimed at addressing this class issue prior to the ASMD upgrade. The quarter deck was fully plated, minimising the chances of flooding in high sea states under a heavy ship condition, the second was the adding of 13 tonnes of lead ballast, plus a major amount of rework to ditch items such as the SPS49 cooling plant and at the same time locating the now combined SPS49 and PAR cooler low in the hull into the machinery space. HMAS Perth underwent specific tests following the ASMD upgrade to verify the ship stability with high turn maneouvers and using the stablisers to intentionally throw the ship into a 20 degree starboard to 20 port induced oscillation. All the work paid off as the ship is now more stable that prior to the ASMD upgrade.

 

[Samoa]

Will the ANZACs be getting CEC?

Is CEAMOUNT compatable with SM-2?

Is there enough stability to permit the short VLS from the FFGs to be retro fitted to four of the ANZACs for ESSM leaving the full length cells for SM-2 etc?

The FFG uses a STIR to support the SM-2 for long range intercept and terminal illumination. The ANZAC CEAMOUNT doesn't have the same power and hence is reduced in range. Under Stage 2 of ASMD the true power of CEAFAR And CEAMOUNT are realised.

Older systems use long range missiles because the time taken to acquire, and engage a threat are also longer, ie they need a longer time of flight to succesfully engage the inbound. Also if the kill assessment is negative you need to be able to re-engage, even under a shoot-shoot-look operating doctrine. CEAFAR and CEAMOUNT split up the job of acquiring the target and illumination into two completely different systems and then supporting multiple channels of fire, with a very fast revisit rate, ie quick to acquire. The system offers a very high level of automation to the point of needing no man-in-the-loop. All of this means you can sit around and wait for the inbounds to get closer and still kill them. ie medium range ESSM is more than sufficient for most ASM threats.

HMAS Perth will be getting a new Link 16 capability soon, which is the first step to CEC, but that will be a while off yet. As for fitting another Mk41 VLS it is possible, but weight is very significant (even with the non-tactical length launcher). It can be done but the ship will be slower and lower in the water again, more so than already under the ASMD upgrade. I am not aware of any whispers of such an idea.

The next significant upgrades to the class are fitting of a new ESM, 3D Air Search radar and dedicated typhoon weapons stations.

 

[justsomeaussie]

So the replacement for the SPS 49 is locked in? Any ideas of solutions?

 

[gf0012-aust]

DSTO are currently investigating the installation of a more advanced doppler based navigation radar derivate to support surface surveillance from Xmas Island. This has the ability to extract small RCS targets in high clutter. An early variant is actually deployed on HMAS Perth as the new dual head 360 degree coverage Nav radar, under the ASMD project. A similar system but more advanced is to form the Helo approach radar on LHD, using a military based tracker to replace a conventional and inferior ARPA based system as used on most Nav radars.

Hopefully this will clear up the situation, as there is a lot of misinformation and biased information provided on this site.

The CI test hasn't worked, 6 months and lots of money and its gone noewhere, using a variation of what was tried and failed already in FNQ should have been a clue to them. Sea state is sea state, steel is steel, wood is wood, height is everything ...

I was involved years back when they had sub contractors such as Andrews involved - we tracked a landrover test vehicle going across the test range - so it can and has done track management beyond "air". The vagaries of ionosphere based OTHR means that there are odd track successes that can be achieved, but more an anomaly than a consistent capability. (eg ground based vehicle tracking - and its obvious area dependant. tracking a single metal object in a barren box is not going to be achievable if it was car park etc... - otherwise 2D track management for air is its designed niche. There is also the issue that the US is keen to assist in developing support systems to try and make it more akin to 3D/"holographic" etc....- eg as part of their own BMS systems

the system and OTHR in general is a 2D track manager (in really rough terms)

the journo was full of horse manure and could have done a more credible article if she had just done some research.

 

[PeterM]

Interesting that none of the defence professionals seem to be commenting too much on the increased budget for the sealift ship, or the LCH replacement for that matter.

I guess that is understandable, but I am curious as to the underlying change in strategic planning that prompted this extra funding.

 

[gf0012-aust]

I guess that is understandable, but I am curious as to the underlying change in strategic planning that prompted this extra funding.

The strategic planning issue is that continuing on as prev would have impacted on force structure and availability.

look at how quickly ET, Fiji, Vanuatu and at some point, a risk of PNG going/went pair shaped.

a hole in force delivery and capability is not something that could be tolerated

 

[PeterM]

The strategic planning issue is that continuing on as prev would have impacted on force structure and availability.

look at how quickly ET, Fiji, Vanuatu and at some point, a risk of PNG going/went pair shaped.

a hole in force delivery and capability is not something that could be tolerated

Nice to see this being prioritised.

I was thinking disaster relief operations also being a factor.

It is good to see lessons finally being learned from the dramas around Kanimbla, Manoora and Tobruk. Though I guess when you have to make emergency procurements from the RN and go to the kiwis to joint share the Canterbury, things are pretty well disasterous.

With the increased funding for the LCH replacement is it envisioned they will play a much larger role than the Balikipapans have historically?

 

[ADMk2]

Interesting that none of the defence professionals seem to be commenting too much on the increased budget for the sealift ship, or the LCH replacement for that matter.

I guess that is understandable, but I am curious as to the underlying change in strategic planning that prompted this extra funding.

It has been talked about, just not on the front page, go back a page or 2 and you'll see the question about what we are getting with this extra money appears to already have been answered...

 

[PeterM]

It has been talked about, just not on the front page, go back a page or 2 and you'll see the question about what we are getting with this extra money appears to already have been answered...

Thanks, I must have missed it

 

[StingrayOZ]

You can pretty much guarantee that these ships will be deployed in the next 10 years, with a significant chance within the next 5 years just for political instability. It’s going to happen. ET, Fiji, PNG, Samoa, Tonga, etc one of them is going to get into strife/implode in the next 10 years, it’s a mathematical certainty. While it may not be a major amphib assault (it may well be), they will certainly be a base of operations. I would say there is also certainty within 10 years of a major natural disaster with-in the region as well.
Add to that any local disaster or major international mission (military or aid) you come up with a dam convincing list of reasons why we need a fleet of LHD’s. If you look over the last 15-10 years you have ET, crisis in Fiji, Samoa, a couple of Tsunamis, a few major wars were we turned up and could have used the asset. Look at the shelf today and we have nothing, further highlighting that you actually need to have ships available and not just rusted hulks in dry dock. We turned to our allies and the best we could do is sign a deal with nz for part use of a ferry.
Now it looks like reason and logic has prevailed and we have the 3 we always needed and 1 huge LSD capable of also supporting and helping out (that LSD was always in the plan, we just got it earlier due to good luck).
Eventually someone is going to look at the issues of sending in amphibs with no escorts or at best 1 AWD for 2 LHD’s. I still believe we will get a 4th AWD, we always needed a 4th AWD. While allies have more escorts than LHD’s, they are tightly held and won’t always be available for our whims or needs. The 4th AWD will mean we will always be ready with 1 and much of the times have 2 available and sometimes, at a pinch we could squeeze 3 with planning. That 2 number is what we should be aiming for.

If we learned anything from ET it should be we have to be able to provide the core of the operation we want to lead. If we can’t do that then we cannot lead a mission. If we can’t lead a mission then we can’t make decisions about international regional issues like E.T. This would have very, very bad and have serious repercussions for Australia.

 

[Milne Bay]

Eventually someone is going to look at the issues of sending in amphibs with no escorts or at best 1 AWD for 2 LHD’s. I still believe we will get a 4th AWD, we always needed a 4th AWD. While allies have more escorts than LHD’s, they are tightly held and won’t always be available for our whims or needs. The 4th AWD will mean we will always be ready with 1 and much of the times have 2 available and sometimes, at a pinch we could squeeze 3 with planning. That 2 number is what we should be aiming for.

Well the Commonwealth of Australia did acquire 4 Aegis sets.
I thought that the fourth was for training or calibration or some such. Not sure now - it's some time back.

 

[StingrayOZ]

May have been for intergration development etc.

Ceafar/Auspar and getting that to talk to the AWDs. Hopefully it can act like a mini-aegis and can also intergrate tightly with the Aegis on the AWD's. If it works that would be awesome and significantly improve the AnzacII's and the RAN as a whole. Still doesn't mitigate the need for a dedicated AWD IMO.