Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[Volkodav]

Just on the so-called "valley of death", it's already here and no amount of acceleration of SEA5000 will fill it in.

In fact, I doubt we'll ever see major hull block construction here ever again.

The shame is, with the exception of the original keel blocks from BAE, which threw out the entire schedule, the fabrication, consolidation and errection of the platforms, less the effects of late design changes, has actually gone quite well. The problems with the keel blocks can be, for a major part, blamed on the previous valley of death following the successfully ANZAC build.

Governments of both shades are guilty of lacking vision and understanding as exhibited by delaying and/or reducing orders, slipping schedules and pork barrelling that have driven up costs and reduced efficiencies. A proper strategic plan, draw up in the 60's if followed would have seen a very different, world standard, industry today.

 

[Punta74]

Link to Defence Issues Paper released today.

http://www.defence.gov.au/Whitepaper/docs/DefenceIssuesPaper2014.pdf

 

[StingrayOZ]

Link to Defence Issues Paper released today.

http://www.defence.gov.au/Whitepaper/docs/DefenceIssuesPaper2014.pdf

Very interesting read. I think the new whitepaper will be a much more interesting document than the last one.

Principle equipment lists are interesting if you read all the subnotes.

I don't read an exceptionally clear statement about submarines in it (going off shore). Accelerating Sea5000 to fill a hole is silly as its the biggest project in Australia why on earth would you speed it to keep people busy. I would have expected a 2048 p5 announcement as a hole filler.

 

[hauritz]

I wonder what real benefit there is in building submarines in Australia any way.

You could take the $36 billion dollars earmarked for the Collins replacement and build in Australia. In that case I suspect the bulk of that money will go overseas anyway. Combat systems, weapons, drive trains batteries and a whole lot of other stuff is going to be sourced offshore anyway.

On the other hand we could build the submarines offshore entirely and save billions. That money could then be used to fund an on going ship building program for OCVs.

The result would be would be that we would still have a sustainable ship building industry and the navy would have more and better ships for probably around the same price.

 

[Milne Bay]

Very interesting read. I think the new whitepaper will be a much more interesting document than the last one.

Principle equipment lists are interesting if you read all the subnotes.

I don't read an exceptionally clear statement about submarines in it (going off shore). Accelerating Sea5000 to fill a hole is silly as its the biggest project in Australia why on earth would you speed it to keep people busy. I would have expected a 2048 p5 announcement as a hole filler.

The thinking is that the Future Frigate programme will be based on the AWD hull form - so there is an opportunity for those shipyards that are currently involved in the keel blocks for AWD, and have the expertise to continue to build them - begin work on future frigate hulls.

This keeps the yards going, and as the keel blocks are continually built the costs per hull are amortised.
To quote the Minister:
My second priority is to ensure that everything is in place to ensure a continued naval shipbuilding industry is in Australia should Industry demonstrate it can meet an acceptable benchmark for productivity and cost.
The Government has agreed to an investigation of the continued build of the AWD hull, but with the Australian CEA Radar and the Adelaide based SAAB 9 LV combat system. The ship itself would have a primary role of Anti-submarine warfare but would also be highly capable of air defence. We have recently signed a number of contracts to support this.
This is allowing us to keep open the option of a following build to the Air Warfare Destroyer. This opportunity is of such significance it may establish a sustainable industry.
It begins with 8 ships and may endure if we cycle keel rotations in line with Navy’s overall needs. This program dwarfs AWD in terms of long term opportunity.
So when I say I want a continuous build – that is what I mean. But I need your help to fix AWD and also design a Future Frigate program that follows on from AWD with minimal industry disruption.
Part of the work on the future frigate program is to examine whether we could commit to the construction of some early blocks to ensure that there is no break in production overall. To this end I am asking RAND to assist Defence and the DMO to develop the enterprise level future ship building program.

MB

 

[Punta74]

Sounds like they are looking at 3 new hulls to the Anzacs. Total 11.

JOHNSTON: . There’s potentially 11, 6,500 tonne, highly-complex warships in the Future Frigate programme, virtually all for South Australia – that’s what’s at stake.

Defence Ministers » Minister for Defence – Doorstop – Defence + Industry Conference 2014, Adelaide

 

[Milne Bay]

Sounds like they are looking at 3 new hulls to the Anzacs. Total 11.



Defence Ministers » Minister for Defence – Doorstop – Defence + Industry Conference 2014, Adelaide

11 X 6500 tonne ships are new builds.
The ANZAC class are not that big
MB

 

[Punta74]

11 X 6500 tonne ships are new builds.
The ANZAC class are not that big
MB

Sorry I was Referring to the replacement "Anzacs"

Not sure if he's referring to 8 New + Current 3 AWD - OR - 11 New though. The word "Potentially" seems to incite there could be 3 extra hulls (11) - Making a total of 14 hulls and allowing a continuous build program as he stated.

 

[ngatimozart]

If you go down the road of using the AWD hull for the future frigate, does the hull have enough room left for future growth? What I'm getting at is the future frigate having a fully laden displacement of 6500 tonnes and having say 8 strike length Mk41 VLS cells, 8 normal length Mk41 VLS cells, quad Harpoon launchers, 1 or 2 triple torpedo launchers, 5in gun, CIWS (or similar) and CEAFAR etc., on or above the main deck. So will there be enough room to add equipment topside years down the track? Don't really want a repeat of the ANZAC FFH stabilty and freeboard situation.

 

[Todjaeger]

If you go down the road of using the AWD hull for the future frigate, does the hull have enough room left for future growth? What I'm getting at is the future frigate having a fully laden displacement of 6500 tonnes and having say 8 strike length Mk41 VLS cells, 8 normal length Mk41 VLS cells, quad Harpoon launchers, 1 or 2 triple torpedo launchers, 5in gun, CIWS (or similar) and CEAFAR etc., on or above the main deck. So will there be enough room to add equipment topside years down the track? Don't really want a repeat of the ANZAC FFH stabilty and freeboard situation.

IIRC the AWD is to have a total of 40 VLS cells, plus the above mentioned armament, and the SPY-1D arrays which are fairly weighty. Having only 40% of the VLS cells would shave off some weight, plus of course the lack of munitions. That and IIRC the overall hull is supposed to have margins to allow growth up to 7,000 tons.

There should be some room to maneuver with.

 

[Milne Bay]

If you go down the road of using the AWD hull for the future frigate, does the hull have enough room left for future growth? What I'm getting at is the future frigate having a fully laden displacement of 6500 tonnes and having say 8 strike length Mk41 VLS cells, 8 normal length Mk41 VLS cells, quad Harpoon launchers, 1 or 2 triple torpedo launchers, 5in gun, CIWS (or similar) and CEAFAR etc., on or above the main deck. So will there be enough room to add equipment topside years down the track? Don't really want a repeat of the ANZAC FFH stabilty and freeboard situation.

Most of this kit is currently carried on the Anzac class frigates which are 3600 tonnes.
I think that there is plenty of room for growth in the AWD hull form at this stage.
MB

 

[TheRealist]

Sounds like they are looking at 3 new hulls to the Anzacs. Total 11.

Considering the population of OZ is increasing at a reasonable pace, I'm not surprised there's talk of extra hulls. We have to increase the numbers eventually. I mean we'd be the joke of the ocean if we still had 11 hulls with a population of 40 or 50 million.

 

[Nick underscore]

Considering the population of OZ is increasing at a reasonable pace, I'm not surprised there's talk of extra hulls. We have to increase the numbers eventually. I mean we'd be the joke of the ocean if we still had 11 hulls with a population of 40 or 50 million.

Population growth is not really the argument to justify further increase in hull numbers.. Geography, platform capability and threat matrix would be better justifications for an increase/ decrease if required.

 

[TheRealist]

Population growth is not really the argument to justify further increase in hull numbers.. Geography, platform capability and threat matrix would be better justifications for an increase/ decrease if required.

Well at least with an extra 10 or 20 million people living here, manning extra ships shouldn't be an issue .

 

[Nick underscore]

Well at least with an extra 10 or 20 million people living here, manning extra ships shouldn't be an issue .

Agreed.

Would be interesting to visualise the RAN (and ADF as a whole), if it could 'fill' to its actualised size, assuming the manning levels were there and not a core issue/ concern w.r.t budgetary requirements relating to that problem.

Would the increase in population help the retention rates that seem to persist?

 

[t68]

Considering the population of OZ is increasing at a reasonable pace, I'm not surprised there's talk of extra hulls. We have to increase the numbers eventually. I mean we'd be the joke of the ocean if we still had 11 hulls with a population of 40 or 50 million.

I think you will be waiting a long time for that to happen. According to the ABS we are not expecting to get to 50million between 2060&2110 and all this depends on how much we turn of the tele and get into the sack more often

 

[StingrayOZ]

If you go down the road of using the AWD hull for the future frigate, does the hull have enough room left for future growth? What I'm getting at is the future frigate having a fully laden displacement of 6500 tonnes and having say 8 strike length Mk41 VLS cells, 8 normal length Mk41 VLS cells, quad Harpoon launchers, 1 or 2 triple torpedo launchers, 5in gun, CIWS (or similar) and CEAFAR etc., on or above the main deck. So will there be enough room to add equipment topside years down the track? Don't really want a repeat of the ANZAC FFH stabilty and freeboard situation.

I think it would swallow that and at least another 8 vls launcher and still have significant growth capacity for systems etc. Which would be a pretty capable ship. The AWD hull/Cea/Saab combo was mentioned in the pre-whitepaper paper as well, so these sound like what we are going to get.

 

[alexsa]

IIRC the AWD is to have a total of 40 VLS cells, plus the above mentioned armament, and the SPY-1D arrays which are fairly weighty. Having only 40% of the VLS cells would shave off some weight, plus of course the lack of munitions. That and IIRC the overall hull is supposed to have margins to allow growth up to 7,000 tons.

There should be some room to maneuver with.

48 cells all up (see the RAN site) and all are strike length as far as I am aware (happy to be corrected). Agree there is pleanty of growth noting the hull can go to 7000 full load

 

[StingrayOZ]

48 cells all up (see the RAN site) and all are strike length as far as I am aware (happy to be corrected). Agree there is pleanty of growth noting the hull can go to 7000 full load

48 VLS plus the 8 harpoon on deck plus CIWS with additional growth margin on top of that of ~500 odd tons. I'm not sure that the anzac replacements would get a full 48 cells, but that would further increase the available growth (I can't imagine they would be replaced with anything heavier than loaded VLS cells).

With 11 (3 AWD and 8 Frigates) the RAN I imagine would be pretty happy with that capability. Combine that with some OCV/OPV to relieve them of chasing fishing boats and refugees that would be a huge increase in capability/availability for a very slight reduction in hulls. It would be like complaining the RAAF has fewer airframes for lift, because we didn't replace hercs 1 for 1 with C-17's, yes its a slight reduction but C-27j, c-130 and C17 as a whole are a lot more capable any way you cut it.

I going to do something very bad, but do it to illustrate the proposed future. Currently the RAN has ~44900t of warships (FFG+ ANZAC). The plan is to get 71500t-77000t of a lot more capable warships. That extra tonnage can carry more fuel, weapons, sensors, UAV's, etc. I don't think many would argue that is a reduction. Particularly if that tonnage and capability is now focused on its primary task. Looking at hull numbers doesn't tell the whole story.

In fact the weakness with this plan is its entirely too sensible. I waiting to hear its not going to happen for some wacky reason and instead we are going to double life extension ANZACs or repurpose FFG dive wrecks or buy 2nd hand US Cruisers cheap or "put missiles on gun boats".

 

[Volkodav]

We need those OPV/OCV/corvettes though otherwise the whole construct falls over and the majors will end up chasing pirates, illegal fishermen and smugglers again as they do now. We have always needed those midsized lower end combatants to do those open ocean and off shore jobs its just that every time it looks like we're going to get them,they get cancelled, delayed or caught in scope creep.

The ANZACs were meant to be patrol frigates taking on these lower level jobs from the high end destroyers and GP frigates but then someone decided to delay / cancel the replacements for the high end ships and then spent the next two decades complaining that the ANZACs aren't proper warships and $$$$$$ needs to be spent to fix the capability issues. Left as patrol frigates there weren't any capability issues to resolve, in fact they could have done without the 5" gun, torpedoes and all the resulting top weight issues had scope creep not taken hold. All we needed to do was stick to the plan and follow the ANZACs with a class of larger, more capable ships to replace the DDGs and FFGs, instead of wasting money on FFGUP and ANZACWIP etc.

All this has achieved, besides a reduction in capability and the waste of billions of dollars, is the likely death of Australian shipbuilding, to end up very roughly where we were headed anyway.