There's a pic and report on the RAN website which also covers trial activities.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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The deck paint for the B's was developed a couple of years ago, it is a fairly specialised paint just for the heat generated by the down turned nozzle.
They are still a way off us seeing them on the Canberra's, so my guess would be we will just be using our standard flight deck mix for the time being, also not sure what certification we will be having for the Canberra's, but IIRC it will only be for Helo ops and not fixed wing. Others may be able to clear that up ?
Cheers
Probably not right away, but whenever one of the Aussie LHDs participates in a exercise with either the British or the American F-35Bs, and there are plans to use them, I am sure at that time they will be prepared appropriately. We'll cross that bridge when the time comes. At the moment we have our hands full getting the ships ready for our helicopters.
I understand that the rear deck spot is suitable for Ospreys and they generate a fair amount of heat. I guess some suitable deck paint has been planned.
weegee
Active Member
Armidale cracks again
Hey guys,
I came across this article this morning
Navy's asylum seeker patrol boats docked in Darwin after large cracks found | ABC Radio Australia
Is this all spin with a little truth to it? or are the little boats really struggling this much due to operation tempo past and present?
If they are cracking up again as they were a couple of years ago does this mean that the patrol boat replacements should come before the replenishment ship replacement?
Either way the government is going to have to put its hands in its pockets for some form of ship building exercise very soon. Whispers in the media seem to believe that something will be announced around budget time.
Who will win an industry begging for more work before the valley of death? or Austral who has a defence minister from the same state? Which would also help with their strong stance of boarder protection from the evil asylum seekers? There can be only one winner!
Hey guys,
I came across this article this morning
Navy's asylum seeker patrol boats docked in Darwin after large cracks found | ABC Radio Australia
Is this all spin with a little truth to it? or are the little boats really struggling this much due to operation tempo past and present?
If they are cracking up again as they were a couple of years ago does this mean that the patrol boat replacements should come before the replenishment ship replacement?
Either way the government is going to have to put its hands in its pockets for some form of ship building exercise very soon. Whispers in the media seem to believe that something will be announced around budget time.
Who will win an industry begging for more work before the valley of death? or Austral who has a defence minister from the same state? Which would also help with their strong stance of boarder protection from the evil asylum seekers? There can be only one winner!
Chief of Navy is saying design faults, hopefully this will be the final nail in the coffin for a Cape class buy for the RAN.
The crews and maintainers have been battling problems caused by the boats being used differently than intended since day one. The fact that the design doesn't measure up cannot be held against navy, DMO or industry, as the navy gets what they are given, DMO manages what they are told to buy and industry supplies what the customer tells them what they want. Basically the government of the day ignored experience and advice, not to mention the fact there was an existing project for a far more capable class of corvettes, and decided that all the RAN needed was inshore patrol boats.
In a nutshell the government decided, during the mid 90s to life extend the Fremantles and subsequently to replace them with an other inshore PB design intended primarily to stooge around the coast in fair weather and chase illegal fishermen. The ACPB design meets this spec and would likely have proven a success had this been all it was doing.
The ironic thing is a class of corvettes would have well and truly been up to the job at hand and would have also prevented the valley of death that Australian shipbuilding went through following the ANZAC Project. This flowed on to cause the cost overruns and schedule slips in the AWD.
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Interestly I was just reading this which pretty much backs up what I was saying about the previous valley of death.
http://www.asiapacificdefencereporter.com/articles/395/Playing-the-fiddle-while-Rome-burns
I wasn't aware it was only ten years ago that the Sea Kings lost their ASW role, I had always thought this had happened much earlier and was the ALPs stuff up. It's looking more and more that, apart from divesting the RANs carrier capability, most of the seriously retrograde capability and procurement desissions actually occured under Liberal governments. The ADF appears to be between a rock and a hard place with Labor cutting its budget and the Liberals stuffing up procurement, both adversely affecting capability.
The crews and maintainers have been battling problems caused by the boats being used differently than intended since day one. The fact that the design doesn't measure up cannot be held against navy, DMO or industry, as the navy gets what they are given, DMO manages what they are told to buy and industry supplies what the customer tells them what they want. Basically the government of the day ignored experience and advice, not to mention the fact there was an existing project for a far more capable class of corvettes, and decided that all the RAN needed was inshore patrol boats.
In a nutshell the government decided, during the mid 90s to life extend the Fremantles and subsequently to replace them with an other inshore PB design intended primarily to stooge around the coast in fair weather and chase illegal fishermen. The ACPB design meets this spec and would likely have proven a success had this been all it was doing.
The ironic thing is a class of corvettes would have well and truly been up to the job at hand and would have also prevented the valley of death that Australian shipbuilding went through following the ANZAC Project. This flowed on to cause the cost overruns and schedule slips in the AWD.
Edit:
Interestly I was just reading this which pretty much backs up what I was saying about the previous valley of death.
http://www.asiapacificdefencereporter.com/articles/395/Playing-the-fiddle-while-Rome-burns
I wasn't aware it was only ten years ago that the Sea Kings lost their ASW role, I had always thought this had happened much earlier and was the ALPs stuff up. It's looking more and more that, apart from divesting the RANs carrier capability, most of the seriously retrograde capability and procurement desissions actually occured under Liberal governments. The ADF appears to be between a rock and a hard place with Labor cutting its budget and the Liberals stuffing up procurement, both adversely affecting capability.
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I believe they suffered from tunnel vision on a lot of things and gave very little thought to the long term strategic picture. The stategic thinking under Hawke, Keating and Rudd was clearer but hamstrung by insufficient funding before being completely derailed by successors who lacked the same level of stategic vision and understanding.
IMO it was quite clear that neither Howard (until it became vote winner) or Gillard had much interest in foriegn affairs or defence and no understanding of engineering, construction, forward planning or the needs of industry to maintain capability. Abbott has yet to demonstrate his abilities, or lack of, in those areas but looking at what has happened with the automotive industry (perhaps the biggest nursery for engineering, trades, and technical skills in the economy) we are not off to a good start.
Had the ANZAC project been followed by the corvettes as planned industry would have been ready to launch straight into a program to replace both the DDGs and FFGs. This in turn would have removed the need for both the ANZAC and FFG upgrades.
t68
Well-Known Member
Yes it's not good as fair as the national strategic situation goes, talking with the guys at Shell today, they will only be manufacturing (blending) oil in Brisbane for another 18 months since shell has sold up.
Korea decked their LHD in a heat resistant polyurethane (?) coating thing suitable for fixed wing harriers, even though clearly they weren't going to operate harriers. Normal helos etc can exhaust significant heat anyway, might as well use the best stuff there with extensive experience and hard wearing.
As I recall the JC1 went to see without proper deck coating, then after trials went back had it fitted.
Could be so is not damaged or makes difficult things are found out on trials.
What did you expect? both were lawyers.
At this stage I must declare I studied law for 2 years before joining and my daughter is a partner in a national firm, both much to my chagrin.
Yes law, the pinical of the service industry mafia, those who believe an economy can live on paper shuffling alone with lip service to digging stuff up and growing other stuff. That said I did law as a BUG subject and considered doing a entire minor in commercial law before my studies ground to a halt when we had kids. I think it would actually be quite fun earning a living researching and arguing point with total disregard to common sense letalone right and wrong.:fingerWhat did you expect? both were lawyers.
At this stage I must declare I studied law for 2 years before joining and my daughter is a partner in a national firm, both much to my chagrin.
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Expect to see them in and out quite frequently, why pay sea allowance when you can day shift rates and let them go home every night. As the prerequisite test results cascade and they move to larger concurrent systems tests they will stay out longer, as they will when they want to start playing with the radars and high output coms. Dont want to be near the city then.
There is only minimum RAN personnel aboard at present.
Canberra's ship company won't start getting any kind of seagoing allowances until the ship is officially commissioned into the RAN.
I bet they are. Navy find a way to get seagoing allowance without actually being at sea. They can spend zero time at sea and still get 150 days worth of allowances...
I was referring to the civy techs. Not sure on BAEs arrangements but for ASC sea pay kicked in once they left the port river if they were gone for more than 12 or 24 hours, I cant remember which. That was my understanding anyway.
With how tight money is on the project I imagine they will swing a lot of short days or hover just inside the mouth of the river as much as possible.
She has come in due to issues with the azipods, which requires Siemens to do some corrective work. Probably be in for a day or two and then out again.
Far enough. You will get teething issues, even BIW has had problems on super trials with their recent Burkes and they have them down pat after literally producing dozens of them over a couple of decades. Canberra is the first o a very radical design for the RAN so issues need to be expected.
No they certainly are not.
The day Manoora de-commissioned sea pay stopped. Sea pay on Choules started the day we commissioned. Sea pay on my new ship Adelaide, starts the day she is commissioned.
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