Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

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Life under Malcom

The federal member for the South Australian seat of Sturt is being touted as a contender for the post of defence minister. If selected, those adept at reading the political tea leaves believe that that would be a clear signal that the Collins replacement subs will definitely be built in SA.
Interesting times ahead.
rb
 
Sometime ago the conversation talked about small combat boats for brown water operations, I just came across this new boat for the USN the MK VI Patrol Boats, capabile of operating in brown green and blue water. They are a bit pricey but seem good value for the capabilty and armed with 2x MK-38 Mod2 25mm guns, small arms mounts and six crew served 50-caliber machine guns, and also enhanced C4SI

These patrol boats will replace the ppatrol boat fleet of US Naval Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) and will support the Coastal Riverine Force (CRF) with accomadation for 10 crewman and plus 8 pax it's able patrol for a few days, thought they would be a good fit for SOCOMD NORFORCE and should be able to use the well dock of both the Bay &Canberra class ships.


Navy orders two Mark VI patrol boats with on-board networking and flat-screen displays
 
rossfrb_1 said:
The federal member for the South Australian seat of Sturt is being touted as a contender for the post of defence minister. If selected, those adept at reading the political tea leaves believe that that would be a clear signal that the Collins replacement subs will definitely be built in SA.
Interesting times ahead.
rb
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CP getting the job is no guarantee about subs being built in Aust..... I'd be tempering the enthusiasm for a while as there are too many other boxes to tick
 
gf0012-aust said:
CP getting the job is no guarantee about subs being built in Aust..... I'd be tempering the enthusiasm for a while as there are too many other boxes to tick
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The thing most people don't realise is while Turnbull is a social progressive and a political moderate, he is also an economic rationalist. It is actually quite likely he will be prepared to make big changes with a long term view, rather than the old school conservative play book of the last two years. What that means to specific projects I don't know, what I hope though is they drop ideology and parochialism as well as ignoring the short term, blinkered advice of the Productivity Commission etc.
 
Volkodav said:
The thing most people don't realise is while Turnbull is a social progressive and a political moderate, he is also an economic rationalist. It is actually quite likely he will be prepared to make big changes with a long term view, rather than the old school conservative play book of the last two years. What that means to specific projects I don't know, what I hope though is they drop ideology and parochialism as well as ignoring the short term, blinkered advice of the Productivity Commission etc.
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I'm unsure where our new PM sits with regards to defence and defence spending.
My hope is that he allows defence acquisitions remain relatively free from the political tinkering that has dogged the construction of the AWDs.
 
old faithful said:
19 bn has to be a miss quote, or SA is getting more than we thought, might include a new ship building corp?
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I dont think the 19 billion for the OCV's is a misquote because it was mentioned before by Defmin back in August which was posted by rockitten......(I cannot post the link but Rockitten's post dated 5/8/15).......

Mr Abbott and Defence Minister Kevin Andrews also announced plans to spend about $19bn for an undisclosed number of offshore patrol vessels, or corvettes, which will be smaller than frigates but bigger than the navy’s existing Armidale Class patrol boats.
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So is the 19 billion just for construction of the ships or does it include the whole of program costs? Including the upgrading of bases to fit these larger types of vessels? Could it also include the building of any new bases?

I can remember talk way back regarding upgrades of one of the ports in the Pilbara - either Hedland or Karratha - and there was talk of fitting in a couple of new wharves for Navy.....it was at the time speculation. The multi nationals up there have been highly critical as well as the locals that Australia's wallet is not protected. With all the new LNG coming online the lack of naval presence reared its head again while the Northern Australia white paper was being finalised over the past year. The politicians said at the time that the lack of naval presence in the north west would be addressed in the DWP and not the Northern Australia WP.

Maybe there might be some future naval presence in the north west but even if the 19 billion does include a new base along with upgrades to existing bases it still seems a hell of a lot for 10-14 OCV's.

With the eyes on China and there subs maybe the new 19billion corvettes will be ASW?
 
Perlon said:
Maybe there might be some future naval presence in the north west but even if the 19 billion does include a new base along with upgrades to existing bases it still seems a hell of a lot for 10-14 OCV's.
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bit of caution needed when throwing numbers around.

the automatic assumption made by lots of people is that the numbers break down to platform costs - so $1bn+ for what is fundamentally a corvette then seems high.

the reality is that acquisition numbers are more than just platforms costs

apart from raise train sustain costs there are highly likely to be facilities upgrades and facilities sustainment costs

australian acquisition is calculated on whole of life capability costs around that platform
'
 
gf0012-aust said:
bit of caution needed when throwing numbers around.

the automatic assumption made by lots of people is that the numbers break down to platform costs - so $1bn+ for what is fundamentally a corvette then seems high.

the reality is that acquisition numbers are more than just platforms costs

apart from raise train sustain costs there are highly likely to be facilities upgrades and facilities sustainment costs

australian acquisition is calculated on whole of life capability costs around that platform
'
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True, One of those thing's that we have to wait and see until the costing's are fully released.

That being said, Using aircraft as a base from memory the life time cost of the aircraft (usage, maintenance etc) is roughly equal to the purchase price of it, Is the naval costing situation similar?

Acquisition only I have been thinking would be around $250 million each at the high end (Apologies if me sprouting out random figures annoy's people, Mind doesn't want to give it a rest :)). I had used the Anzac class as a base in this in which case pre ASMD the HMAS Perth came in at around $86,000 a ton (2014 dollars) while post ASMD HMAS Perth cost + average ASMD cost came in at around $111,000 a ton. I figure allowing $125,00 a ton is leaving more then enough wiggle room.

Thoughts? or should I just take a sleeping pill :sleepy2
 
t68 said:
Sometime ago the conversation talked about small combat boats for brown water operations, I just came across this new boat for the USN the MK VI Patrol Boats, capabile of operating in brown green and blue water. They are a bit pricey but seem good value for the capabilty and armed with 2x MK-38 Mod2 25mm guns, small arms mounts and six crew served 50-caliber machine guns, and also enhanced C4SI

These patrol boats will replace the ppatrol boat fleet of US Naval Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) and will support the Coastal Riverine Force (CRF) with accomadation for 10 crewman and plus 8 pax it's able patrol for a few days, thought they would be a good fit for SOCOMD NORFORCE and should be able to use the well dock of both the Bay &Canberra class ships.


Navy orders two Mark VI patrol boats with on-board networking and flat-screen displays
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Should be able to use the well dock ...... so you have evidence of this.

Apart from that, noting many previous discussions on patrol boat purchases, and the monetary situation, and the fact we currently have 8 Cape Class and 13 ACPB which are struggling ................... why would we go down this path and get a vessel that are really restricted to brown water operations with a relatively short range.
 
alexsa said:
Should be able to use the well dock ...... so you have evidence of this.

Apart from that, noting many previous discussions on patrol boat purchases, and the monetary situation, and the fact we currently have 8 Cape Class and 13 ACPB which are struggling ................... why would we go down this path and get a vessel that are really restricted to brown water operations with a relatively short range.
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It would seem that Naval Sea Systems Command expects the MK VI Patrol Boat to be capable of operating, at least in some fashion, from well decks.
Slide 30: Afloat Staging Base and/or Shore-Based Operations
MK VI Patrol Boat (MK VI PB) Multi Mission Reconfigurable Capabilities
Multi-Agency Craft Conference (MACC) 12 June 2014
 
alexsa said:
Should be able to use the well dock ...... so you have evidence of this.

Apart from that, noting many previous discussions on patrol boat purchases, and the monetary situation, and the fact we currently have 8 Cape Class and 13 ACPB which are struggling ................... why would we go down this path and get a vessel that are really restricted to brown water operations with a relatively short range.
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It's not meant to replace the capes or the ACPB it's meant to be able to protect/escort the LCM-1E as they manouver to the shore line conduct patrols in brown water or patrol port Infrastructure.

Via Naval techolgy website it state that it can use the well deck of LHD, LPD and LSD class amphibious warfare ships for transport I am assuming the they either have a cradle of some discription or a means to be able to move the boat onto the steel beach of these ships.

Just thought they would be more versatile than what we have now and be designed for muliple role that they might be an important part of our Amphiboius manouver capabilty as well as providing another capabilty set for SOCOMD
 
swerve said:
Well, it sounds good to me. But then I'm a soft liberal centrist. :D
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The new PMs progressive traits are actually on topics supported by between 70 and 80% of the population, so rather than an illustration of how liberal / progressive he is its an indictment of how backwards and out of touch the conservative right of Australian politics is. He is a genuine right of centre old school Australian Liberal, the fact that anyone can seriously describe him as left wing is a sad example of just how much influence the extreme right has gained in recent years.
 
Volkodav said:
The new PMs progressive traits are actually on topics supported by between 70 and 80% of the population, so rather than an illustration of how liberal / progressive he is its an indictment of how backwards and out of touch the conservative right of Australian politics is.
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The 70 and 80% figure.
Am I correct in thinking that is your impression, or are they evidence based figures?
 
rjtjrt said:
The 70 and 80% figure.
Am I correct in thinking that is your impression, or are they evidence based figures?
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It was from an article on Turnbull pointing out that labor voters would be disappointed as his progressive stances were still to the right of centre and considered desirable by the above-mentioned percentages of the population. This is hardly surprising as about half the current liberal party room is of the same mind and perhaps was even more so inclined during the Howard years when there were a number of prominent progressives in cabinet. Remember that Costello supported a republic and a carbon trading scheme was a Liberal government policy going into the 2007 election.

This is getting way off topic so we should get back on to the RAN.
 
Volkodav said:
The new PMs progressive traits are actually on topics supported by between 70 and 80% of the population, so rather than an illustration of how liberal / progressive he is its an indictment of how backwards and out of touch the conservative right of Australian politics is. He is a genuine right of centre old school Australian Liberal, the fact that anyone can seriously describe him as left wing is a sad example of just how much influence the extreme right has gained in recent years.
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In real terms he's classic Menzian... same as Hewson, Fraser, Nelson

and you how popular they are with the further right ...... ("far right" has extremist connotations and there's very few - if any of those IMO. No shortage of conservative fundamentalists (bernardi et al)

I'd almost argue that there are far more conservative fundamentalists in the media than there are in the party...

but I should point out that I've just ignored my own heads up from a few posts ago re going off topic
 
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