Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[ASSAIL]

Time and again we hear from the ACPB guys that DMS basically fixes what it wants, not what the operator wants and priorities for sustainment are DMS priorities and ship mantainers are FORBIDDEN to touch anything. (Icelord, is this correct)
The whole point of Rizzo was that there should be more accountability by empowering organic sustainment, ie ship's crew maintainers and, when they are ashore, for Navy techo's to have more involvement in the maintenance of the boats.

This seems to me to be a direct contradiction to all the recommendations in the report.

 

[ASSAIL]

Edit: Rather than a new post will just ad this link to youtube of Cantabria departing for Australia

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o008HBsss0o"]B.A.C. CANTÃBRIA saliendo de Ferrol rumbo a Australia. - YouTube[/nomedia]

Looks to be a bit o the small side to me, prefer MARS, L&C or HK

Did she bring organic air or will the RAN use our helos?

 

[Volkodav]

Time and again we hear from the ACPB guys that DMS basically fixes what it wants, not what the operator wants and priorities for sustainment are DMS priorities and ship mantainers are FORBIDDEN to touch anything. (Icelord, is this correct)
The whole point of Rizzo was that there should be more accountability by empowering organic sustainment, ie ship's crew maintainers and, when they are ashore, for Navy techo's to have more involvement in the maintenance of the boats.

This seems to me to be a direct contradiction to all the recommendations in the report.

The flip side is scope creep; the pendulum appears to be too far on the “its not in the contract” side of the equation but the screaming is just as loud when everything that needs to be done (and more) is done and charged for. The powers that be need to realise if usage goes up so do maintenance requirements and costs.

 

[aussienscale]

Time and again we hear from the ACPB guys that DMS basically fixes what it wants, not what the operator wants and priorities for sustainment are DMS priorities and ship mantainers are FORBIDDEN to touch anything. (Icelord, is this correct)
The whole point of Rizzo was that there should be more accountability by empowering organic sustainment, ie ship's crew maintainers and, when they are ashore, for Navy techo's to have more involvement in the maintenance of the boats.

This seems to me to be a direct contradiction to all the recommendations in the report.

This is the problem with outsourcing, profit first, profit second, profit third........ It is a conflict of interest of the highest degree and it will blow up in our faces eventually, I just hope not with the death of anyone, but unfortunately history tells us that it will take several deaths before something happens.

They are in the business of making money, not spending it !

Not sure on the Cantabria having a helo on board, I would probably guess not as we would probably want to trial our own pilots and crew on the platform for assesment purposes ?

Having a Spanish airframe onboard creates a lot of hassle for assement and operational purposes

 

[DR-L337]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't ASC currently under 100% Government ownership?

Yes it has its partners in the AWD alliance, so doesn't that mean that whatever "share" of the profits it make out of the AWD project goes back to the Government? Eg, you, me and all the taxpayers of this Country.

And isn't also reasonable to assume, that if ASC stays in Government hands, that ALL of its profits from the replacement Submarine project, Future Frigates, etc, goes back to the Government? Again, eg, you and me!!

And that's apart from all the taxes the Government is going to make out of Company tax and Personal tax from all those projects too.

Sounds like a win win to me!!!

Profit is defined as revenue minus costs in money; Government controls the money and can create or destroy it in a keyboard stroke so profit is meaningless to Government. When the govt spends the RBA just credits bank accounts out of thin air; it doesn't need money from taxes or selling submarines (the other side to this coin is of course when you pay your taxes, which go into a bank account and are simply debited by the RBA i.e. destroyed). The Budget, the public debt, the deficit etc is all just accounting. govt can buy as much as it wants full stop, at least until the economy reaches its productive limit at which point prices are simply going to rise instead (unless the govt wants to use productive capacity currently being used by the private sector, in which case it will decrease private demand with tax hikes).

Therefore the public doesn't benefit economically from profits of govt enterprises (although they may very well benefit from the services provided by the enterprise itself). The public benefits from growth in the economy's productivity; when we produce more for the same or less effort as before. If privatising the ASC ultimately produced the exact same subs for a lower cost (less time and other resources wasted messing around with beaurocratic nonsense maybe?) then the public would benefit, as we could use those resources saved for something else. Even if this were the case I imagine it'd be better to keep it public to more easily control it and keep it active in particular areas etc. The most important thing ultimately is being able to design, produce and support submarines domestically. Actually being able to build your own stuff is the most important thing for defence in general and is a prerequisite for having a real defence force that can actually be used in real combat instead of a just bunch of cool toys you get to play with occasionally when your current Great and Powerful Friend invites you over. Of course the only time we've ever had a real defence force was during the 40's (after 1942 at least)

 

[hairyman]

. Of course the only time we've ever had a real defence force was during the 40's (after 1942 at least)

In that period we were producing a number of different warships, plus building aircraft here such as Kittyhawk, Beaufighter etc. I imagine we were manufacturing more weapons for the army then too.
I doubt if we will ever see those days again.

 

[icelord]

Time and again we hear from the ACPB guys that DMS basically fixes what it wants, not what the operator wants and priorities for sustainment are DMS priorities and ship mantainers are FORBIDDEN to touch anything. (Icelord, is this correct)
The whole point of Rizzo was that there should be more accountability by empowering organic sustainment, ie ship's crew maintainers and, when they are ashore, for Navy techo's to have more involvement in the maintenance of the boats.

This seems to me to be a direct contradiction to all the recommendations in the report.

About to start the 2nd week of 2 week Maintanence and have only seen a handful of contractors doing regular work and things programmed before christmas...DMS come back to work monday while the PB fleet runs all year round, seems they forgot that

There are some charges running around who dont like to wait for DMS to get off their arse to fix something they can do themselves, so they handle it, "forget to report the problem" and fix it and then pass that on at handover so the next charge knows whats going on...the list of things charges handover to each other is growing, its just easier to do your job.

I constantly find the hands off approach funny as hell, walking along our decks we've got a camofluage effect running as they have just painted grids over the peeling deck with a different shade of grey(theres apparently 50 shades to use before it gets wet)

This is the problem with outsourcing, profit first, profit second, profit third........ It is a conflict of interest of the highest degree and it will blow up in our faces eventually, I just hope not with the death of anyone, but unfortunately history tells us that it will take several deaths before something happens.

They are in the business of making money, not spending it !

And thats the problem, DMS have been running at a loss with regards to the ACPB support for years now, and i dont think they will want the OPV role as much as we dont want them, the problem is someone genius will just change the name and dates on the DMS contract, and re-issue it. And those who work for DMS will start with whoever takes over and bring their half arsed attitudes or limitations with them.
Theres a senior staffer of DMS on the ACPBs that openly got into conflict with the new boss of DMS during a forum as the new guy was all for pro-active resoloution, while this staffer was not. It may be the head of DMS has a weekly meeting with CN to explain why the boats keep failing and wants to work something better out. If we want progress, we better take another look at the contract in the name of national security which is where its heading.

 

[ASSAIL]

There are some charges running around who dont like to wait for DMS to get off their arse to fix something they can do themselves, so they handle it, "forget to report the problem" and fix it and then pass that on at handover so the next charge knows whats going on...the list of things charges handover to each other is growing, its just easier to do your job.

Theres a senior staffer of DMS on the ACPBs that openly got into conflict with the new boss of DMS during a forum as the new guy was all for pro-active resoloution, while this staffer was not. It may be the head of DMS has a weekly meeting with CN to explain why the boats keep failing and wants to work something better out.

Its admirable that the crews take things into their own hands but the ultimate result of all this is that Navy has no clear understanding of the true state of the boats, there is probably optimistic reporting of the state of the fleet to CN by DMS (a major problem found by Rizzo, even when reported by ship's engineers), and when the govt gets told that tasking cannot be achieved a la Yasi, Navy cops the blame.

Th.is is one fick up we can't blame on Smith, this contract was Howards doing

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Of course the only time we've ever had a real defence force was during the 40's (after 1942 at least)

What weapons don't work when they are built overseas? Israel did a pretty good job defending itself from 1948-73 with weapons almost universally imported. Since Australia isn't planning on doing a North Korea anytime soon we can get by with an external weighted mix of weapons supplies.

Ohh yes and BTW in 1941-43 when Australian domestic weapons production was at its highest level ever there was an equally strong feeling of insecurity and that our defence wasn't up to the job. Strange that strategic circumstances have that kind of primacy in determining levels of national of security, not sources of weapons supply

 

[alexsa]

If we build enough ships locally and keep our yards busy the prices will drop through efficiencies derived from continuous improvement. Add to this the percentage of money spent on the project returned to the economy, the critical mass gained by supporting industries making them more productive through economies of scale and the up skilling of our engineering, project management and trade skills nationally. It’s a concept that seems to beyond most of our politicians, public servants and unfortunately also most members of the public.

No argument, but there were other contenders and even the bigger options could have been built here. In myview it is still a lot of money for the capacity they are getting.

 

[ASSAIL]

No argument, but there were other contenders and even the bigger options could have been built here. In myview it is still a lot of money for the capacity they are getting.

Agree entirely, the expansion of the shiplift at Techport Port Adelaide to 200 mtrs. 20,000 tonnes would see the way clear to build almost any RAN support ship.

 

[ngatimozart]

anyone the approximate streangth of the navy clearance diver teams? Approximate, eg, Troop , Company?
Cheers dave.

Hey Dave isn't this question something that shouldn't be asked on an open forum. Not being smart or pendantic, just thinking a matter of discretion.That's all. Paul.

 

[old faithful]

Yeah,not asking posted strength, or how many are operators,just Clarence divers or support crew. Am just interested on approximates. What is a team? Approximately company size,troop size? Or somewhere in between?

SASR approximates are in public domains, so hy not CDT,s?

 

[StoresBasher]

Yeah,not asking posted strength, or how many are operators,just Clarence divers or support crew. Am just interested on approximates. What is a team? Approximately company size,troop size? Or somewhere in between?

SASR approximates are in public domains, so hy not CDT,s?

Obviously they are not public domain for a reason!
As already said your not going to get an answer here, that sort of stuff must be classified.

 

[icelord]

Yeah,not asking posted strength, or how many are operators,just Clarence divers or support crew. Am just interested on approximates. What is a team? Approximately company size,troop size? Or somewhere in between?

SASR approximates are in public domains, so hy not CDT,s?

[from public sources] theres 2 teams on the East, and 2 in the West not counting Reservist members in the teams as well. Then theres CDs onboard mine hunters, seconded to TAG teams and other positions within ADF(Explosive) as well as HQ and shore billets and other positions in the RAN as Dive yeomans, so numbers are hard to say.

 

[gf0012-aust]

SASR approximates are in public domains, so hy not CDT,s?

they're only representative and are next to being a woftam as far as a planning event or analysis is concerned

diffo for the cd's....

 

[old faithful]

OK, reason I. Ask is wiki has Aust CDT,s down as Regt size. I doubt it, unless there has been a major restructure.
As for secrecy about it, I know about compromise, I have spent a fair bit of time at Swanbourne and am probably more familier with Campbell barracks than most people on here.
was just enquiring because of the wiki thing. I know there is a det with 2 Cdo.
Makes me laugh, the pedestal that some posters put SF on, yes they are very good at what they do, but the mystery and myths that surround SF is sometimes comical.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

OK, reason I. Ask is wiki has Aust CDT,s down as Regt size. I doubt it, unless there has been a major restructure.

A regiment can be as small as two companies and those two companies can be understrength… There are some regiments in the Australian Army with as little as 250 personnel on strength and just over 300 on establishment.

 

[StoresBasher]

OK, reason I. Ask is wiki has Aust CDT,s down as Regt size. I doubt it, unless there has been a major restructure.
As for secrecy about it, I know about compromise, I have spent a fair bit of time at Swanbourne and am probably more familier with Campbell barracks than most people on here.
was just enquiring because of the wiki thing. I know there is a det with 2 Cdo.
Makes me laugh, the pedestal that some posters put SF on, yes they are very good at what they do, but the mystery and myths that surround SF is sometimes comical.

No mate I don't put anyone on a pedestal, but there is a thing called OPSEC, and I can get in big shit for breaking that. There is so much I would like to say about many things that go on in the RAN, but obviously I cannot

 

[blueorchid]

In that period we were producing a number of different warships, plus building aircraft here such as Kittyhawk, Beaufighter etc. I imagine we were manufacturing more weapons for the army then too.
I doubt if we will ever see those days again.

Just to let you know, although the RAAF used more than 700 Kittyhawks during WW2, none were built in Australia.

Cheers