Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

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Joe Black said:
BAE Systems ramps up quest for SEA 5000

I am surprised BAE still thinks that it has the chance to make the final preferred supplier for Sea5000. I thought given RN's delay on the Type 26, they would been considered the least likely to succeed.
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Many didn't expect the French to get a look in for SEA 1000. With the whole BREXIT thing BAE's ability to access and integrate australian suppliers (assuming they have this ability) into the UK and potential export contracts may get some weighting. Especially if the gov is serious about building a sustainable industry in Aus.
 
Bluey 006 said:
Many didn't expect the French to get a look in for SEA 1000. With the whole BREXIT thing BAE's ability to access and integrate australian suppliers (assuming they have this ability) into the UK and potential export contracts may get some weighting. Especially if the gov is serious about building a sustainable industry in Aus.
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I watched the second UK parliamentary hearing on the Type 26/Type45 progress. Although no one would come out and say so, I got the impression the delay is due to money issues. Brexit no doubt has made things tougher. They have to get moving on this as the first Type 23 is due for retirement in about 5-6 years.
 
Joe Black said:
BAE Systems ramps up quest for SEA 5000

I am surprised BAE still thinks that it has the chance to make the final preferred supplier for Sea5000. I thought given RN's delay on the Type 26, they would been considered the least likely to succeed.
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Ironically an evolved Type 26 may be the most suitable option for the RAN due to the fact its design hasn't been fixed yet, the issue is, yet again, we have stuffed around then set an unrealistic schedule, limiting our options. Perhaps the batch build Raven mentioned may be the way forward (though indications I've had from industry are that while sensible for a sustained build they have heard nothing).

The preferred options for the AWD were the G&C International Frigate and either a licence build or MOTS buy of Flight II Arleigh Burkes and we ended up with a minimum change F-100, even though Navantia offered to evolve the design to meet the full original requirements, including second helicopter, larger VLS and extra growth margin. With Hobart approaching sea trials and all looking good now its interesting to realise that the assumptions made that building an existing, virtually unmodified, existing design to print, using an existing supply chain has actually ended up as expensive, if not more so than building an evolved or enhanced design. One of the key reasons for this was the assumptions were used to justify not having a robust engineering and quality / build assurance capability. Reality intruded once the project was underway and these functions had to established on the run, then work through the backlog of problems that were never meant to happen on a "build to print" project. A new, developmental or evolved design would have had these functions from day one and as such many of the issues encountered on Hobart would have been mitigated, if not averted entirely.

To me the logical move would have been, having selected the F-100 against the RANs advice in the first place, to order an additional AWD of the same baseline or three of an evolved baseline with work having already kicked off. This would allow breathing space to select the most suitable design for a continuous build going forward, but I still look at Koreas KDX III enhanced Burkes and wonder what could have been considering how much we ended up spending on three frigates with limited growth margins.
 
alexsa said:
But it goes back to my original point the comments about airframe age are nonsense as a new build airframe aimed at a two man crew would have suffered the same issues
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yep, exactly. one of my ex engineers was on that project - 30+ years as a rotary engineer.

on the day it was killed they were close to declaring FOC as software issues had been resolved.

it was killed off when it didn't need to be

airframe health was never an issue - like all complex projects, the biggee was about interface mgt and integration
 
t68 said:
https://www.aspi.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/26503/Kamerman-The-German-experience-slides.pdf

First time I have seen a compete design pam on the Meko 400 which was a contender for Sea 5000, what was wrong with the idea our was it discounted as not being MOTS? If that was the case why is T26 still in the running?
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T26 still has a customer basically building operating what we want. Meko 400 doesn't. Its a nice ship armed with non lethals. We would be an orphan operator.

It will be interesting to see what the T26 turns out as. 8,000t+ is big. Conciderably wider than the F-125 or F-105. More power than a T45. Australia seems to be looking for a very capable ship, BMD, ASW, and most likely significant air defence. Radar will be located much higher than on Burke type ships. Operating costs far less than a burke.

There are obvious benefits of the RAN and RN operating ~8 or so ships each of the Type 26.
 
StingrayOZ said:
T26 still has a customer basically building operating what we want. Meko 400 doesn't. Its a nice ship armed with non lethals. We would be an orphan operator.

It will be interesting to see what the T26 turns out as. 8,000t+ is big. Conciderably wider than the F-125 or F-105. More power than a T45. Australia seems to be looking for a very capable ship, BMD, ASW, and most likely significant air defence. Radar will be located much higher than on Burke type ships. Operating costs far less than a burke.

There are obvious benefits of the RAN and RN operating ~8 or so ships each of the Type 26.
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Is there a commencement date for the building of the T26? Is it correct that a 3 year delay was recently announced in the UK?
 
StingrayOZ said:
Radar will be located much higher than on Burke type ships.
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^This is in reference to the tri-band ceafar-2 to go on the sea-5000 ships right? Do you have a url/link reference as to what the proposed layout might be for the tri-band panels? ie. L-band below, S-band above, X-band panels to still be just illumination or expanded to a full radar panel? etc...
 
t68 said:
https://www.aspi.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/26503/Kamerman-The-German-experience-slides.pdf

First time I have seen a compete design pam on the Meko 400 which was a contender for Sea 5000, what was wrong with the idea our was it discounted as not being MOTS? If that was the case why is T26 still in the running?
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r3mu511 said:
^This is in reference to the tri-band ceafar-2 to go on the sea-5000 ships right? Do you have a url/link reference as to what the proposed layout might be for the tri-band panels? ie. L-band below, S-band above, X-band panels to still be just illumination or expanded to a full radar panel? etc...
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Page 17 of the pdf from aspi referred to above has a layout for the MEKO.
 
^Yup saw that one for the meko w/ it's triple-face dual-mast layout, @stingray's post was about the T26 so I was wondering if a proposed layout has already been suggested for this. I can imagine it could just be a single-mast triple-face design, but would be nice to see if something was actually already proposed for the T26 sea-5000 contender...
 
r3mu511 said:
^Yup saw that one for the meko w/ it's triple-face dual-mast layout, @stingray's post was about the T26 so I was wondering if a proposed layout has already been suggested for this. I can imagine it could just be a single-mast triple-face design, but would be nice to see if something was actually already proposed for the T26 sea-5000 contender...
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At the moment all the Germans really have is a sales brochure. All the real design work still needs to be done. Australia may have been interested in the German navy's MKS 180 program but it is even less developed than the type 26.

In fact the type 26 is one of the contenders for the German project.
 
hauritz said:
Australia may have been interested in the German navy's MKS 180 program but it is even less developed than the type 26.
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Since my original question was in regards to @stingray's post on the T26, would you happen to have a ref/url for what the proposed layout for ceafar-2 on the T26 might be?
 
Ballistic said:
Not sure if you have seen this or not, but it provides some early designs of the proposed frigates with CEAFAR mast, courtesy of Naval Recognition.

Australia Shortlisted Navantia Fincantieri and BAE Systems for the SEA5000 ASW Frigate Program
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If you go to the May edition of APDR online there is a good article on Sea 5000 and an outstanding graphic of the Navantia F105 proposal. Navantia, according to the article, has put three options to the RAN for the F105 future frigate.
 
r3mu511 said:
Yup thanks, saw that one previously. Was hoping some recent info had come out on the T26 proposal.
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Info is regularly spilling out from the Type 26 program. How much of it is reliable in another question. But the Type 26 seems to be building into a very high capability ship. While the UK may end up building a mid spec ship off the hull, its certainly possible Australia might want to build a very capable 8,000t frigate come cruiser off the same hull.

UK Type 26 frigate: a cruiser by any other name? | The Strategist

Both the F-105 and the Type 26 (as does the type 45) place the radar mast as high as possible (particularly in comparison to the Burkes). For ships operating at long distances from other assets like carriers and land airbases, these high radars provide meaningful advantages. While the US might have near perfect coverage and the ship radar is there to find and illuminate targets, RN and RAN are not always going to be so fortunate. I recall previous discussions regarding any advantages the F-105 design had over a mini-burke, command space and radar height were key advantages. Both the South Korean and Japanese destroyers have enlarged versions to address the space issue.

The Type 26 is also likely to have more space for command. Obviously lots of flexible space.

I don't imagine we will get any more hard evidence of how the radar mast will feature until the design work is completed. Up until that point we really don't know what the Type 26 will look like. Its gone through several significant revisions already.
 
HMAS Choules transformers.
Is it in the public domain why RAN had problem with HMAS Choules transformers early in her RAN service?
 
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