The three AWDs will be replacing the four improved Adelaide FFGs. There won't be any FFGs in the RAN after the three AWDs are in service. Appears at this time the RAN will have only 11 destroyers/frigates, not 15...
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter icelord
- Start date
- Status
I found in this link, which seemed serious:
Information Dissemination: Send the Sea Fighter to Somalia
And i past where it says it:
"HMS Portland (F79) - a ~4900 ton Type 23 Royal Navy anti-submarine frigate that supports a single helicopter, has top speed greater than 28 knots, and has endurance for about 7800 nautical miles. The Royal Navy deploys boat teams from Type 23 frigates and the platform has a long history of sustaining long term operations in the littorals against drug runners and other smuggling activities.
The least expensive of the two US Navy platforms is actually the 25,000 ton LPD-17 which costs roughly $1.7 billion, compared to a new (but more capable than Mahan) Arleigh Burke class ship that costs $2.2+ billion dollars. Sea Fighter isn't perfect, it certainly can't carry the unmanned platform load of the larger LCS but it does have some capabilities for carrying equipment. Like they say with the LCS, the ship is built and we have it so why not use it. At most a slight redesign to build in NVR and the addition of something similar to the simple weapons suite of the LCS, Sea Fighter (FSF 1) would run somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 million dollars."
The Evolve Burkes what tonnage were for less tonnage than 9000-10000 tonnes which cost 2.2 bill. $. Whatever the outcome 8000, 7000 or 6000=F100=750 mill eur. but 9000 is 2.2 bill. $.
Sorry, the above statistics have a mistake, the Japan navy would have 12, not 6, Mk Vls engaged with Cec (Cooperative engament capabilty) through Aegis Management, but still 552 cells on Spy/
Aegis ships, vs 656 cells on Cec and 144 of them Spy/Aegis for Ran (11 ships and 11 Vls on 64´s Anz.). Now Japanese navy is just 100 cells behind but has more survibilty for having all six ships antimisil Spy/Aegis system, and less survibility of mission due to less hulls to be "toached". Imagine an all vs all, each wave of missiles generated, at the reach of targets would be divided by 6 (more difficult for Spy/Aegis) or by 11 (less difficult for Ran´s ships), or ...
So i wouldn´t say the Ran will be "2nd strongest" but fighting for position in League Table.
Now if Aegis Manag. or Mk Vls can programme missiles to coincide, and share target info via Cec with other ships, i cannot sure it, but i would say it is just a question of software.
Aegis ships, vs 656 cells on Cec and 144 of them Spy/Aegis for Ran (11 ships and 11 Vls on 64´s Anz.). Now Japanese navy is just 100 cells behind but has more survibilty for having all six ships antimisil Spy/Aegis system, and less survibility of mission due to less hulls to be "toached". Imagine an all vs all, each wave of missiles generated, at the reach of targets would be divided by 6 (more difficult for Spy/Aegis) or by 11 (less difficult for Ran´s ships), or ...
So i wouldn´t say the Ran will be "2nd strongest" but fighting for position in League Table.
Now if Aegis Manag. or Mk Vls can programme missiles to coincide, and share target info via Cec with other ships, i cannot sure it, but i would say it is just a question of software.
Last edited:
Wierdly I got my figure from that site as well, however this document:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11527/05-25-NavyShipbuilding.pdf
You get 1.6 or 1.8 billion in 2010 Dollars (My original figure was in 2008 dollars)
Still much less than what you are quoting.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Something to keep in mind with the lists of VLS cells available to various navies... There are different types (and lengths) of VLS cells, even within the same launcher family like the Mk 41. Additionally, different classes of vessels are fitted with different VLS cell capacities, and unless a particular class of ship was designed with VLS cell capacity expansion, it is no easy matter to add additional and/or larger VLS cells after design and construction.
In the case of the AWD, Nansen and F100 classes, they have comparatively few VLS cells compared with Aegis-equipped US, Japaneseand South Korean vessels, something to the tune of half to a third the VLS capacity. Particularly for the pending South Korean Death Star which IIRC has something over 100 VLS cells.
-Cheers
In the case of the AWD, Nansen and F100 classes, they have comparatively few VLS cells compared with Aegis-equipped US, Japaneseand South Korean vessels, something to the tune of half to a third the VLS capacity. Particularly for the pending South Korean Death Star which IIRC has something over 100 VLS cells.
-Cheers
That's just the start of it... No one in the Australian Defence system sat down and tallied up the number of potential VLS cells before downselecting to a build design. The requirement drove the need. In the case of the AWD the requirement was air warfare defence and the F100's 48 cells for 64 ESSM + 32 SM-2/6 was more than enough for that need. Of course at the end of the requirement was "growth potential" for such things as land attack (given government approval 2 years later in the White Paper) and BMD (yet to get govt. approval). So while the F100 is more than adequate for the air warfare need it doesn't have the growth potential but the Howard Government didn't look that far. Which is in part why the SEA 5000 vessel will have to sail with 32-48 VLS cells so it can carry 64 ESSM and 16-32 cells for SM-6, land attack and possibly BMD, enhanced ASW and ASuW. Ironically it is far more likely that if a Labor Government made the SEA 4000 decision (pre GFC) it would have chosen the Gibbs & Cox design. Because Labor has always been willing to spend more for more Australian content than the more economically conservative Liberal party.
A
Aussie Digger
Guest
And without getting into a political discussion, we may have ended up with only 2x AWD's if the G&C design was chosen...
Given the premium we are paying for our minimal level of domestic involvement in these vessels I really wonder what benefit we are getting out of domestic shipbuilding at all? $8 Billion for 3 ships and our local involvement is little more than building to someone else's plan?
Gawd almighty...
Thats certainly not the same as whats been provided to Govt re the events of Block 107. Either the contractor has misrepresented what happened to Govt, or the story is taking on urban myth proportions already.
agree, they did cop a merciless flogging, but you can't expect too much better from the open media. These are the same people who call C130's "bombers" , Adelaide class skimmers as "battleships", and ASLAVS and M113's are called "tanks"
the problem with the media is that from here until eternity some muppet will quote them as proof of life in further debates about platforms. one of the unfortunate side effects of the internet is that the power and initiative to do proper research is limited to what people want to find on the net. forensic analysis of problems has taken a hit - and we are but poorer for it.
AIC rules, and tactical capability does not.
I have savagely coloured the issue, but its not far from the truth IMO
I doubt that very much. If G&C was selected for AWD build phase then there is no way the incoming Rudd government would have downsized from three to two. Just as they didn’t with the F100 AWD for just the same reasons. The difference in cost between the two is not significant, especially as the F100 is now pushing through the risk margins it was given. The prime difference was schedule with the G&C AWD taking another year to complete because of more up front work. Which it would also appear the F100 AWD will now need.
We are doing a lot more than minimal domestic involvement. The ships are being built here. Most of the money is being spent here. The cost of a design is only around 1-2% of overall project cost. All that other money (minus imported capital items like AEGIS weapon systems) is being spent in Australia rather than in Spain or Maine (could make a poem out of it). Also we will have a capability to refit and upgrade the ships domestically. More money would have to be spent to develop this capability from scratch without a domestic build program.
There are very good reasons for domestic build programs even when they get bad press. The most important lesson from all this is license build is not a risk mitigation strategy. It didn’t work for Success, Melbourne/Newcastle, Collins, Anzac, Otago, Hobart and it probably won’t work for Canberra so we bloody well should never do it again.
Last edited:
OpinionNoted
Banned Member
So are you saying that indigenous platform designs are the way it needs to go?
Within reason, for something highly complex like a surface combatant, submarine or LHD you don’t want to do a white sheet design in Australia. The Gibbs & Cox design for the AWD is the right method. You take a technology base modify it to Australian needs and then do the detailed design in Australia to meet the Australian shipbuilding industry with expertise input from overseas. So you design it to have square pegs to fit our square holes. You don’t take something with round pegs and try and bash it into square holes.
This would appear to be the plan for SEA 1000, design a submarine to fit the existing industry base rather that start from scratch all over again with an entirely new submarine building methodology.
Apart from the AWD the big problem with current Australian shipbuilding is the LHD. Because this project was run as an OTS only exercise from the beginning with very little scope for wider consideration. It should have been run as OTS vs Evolved and allowed the Americans to design a to RAN spec LHD (Mini Wasp). Then the Government would have had the flexibility to choose a shipbuilder, a systems integrator and a design separate from each other.
A
Aussie Digger
Guest
We are as you say, building a licenced existing design, with almost entirely foreign systems and one that no longer offers the schedule benefits it earlier promised but DOES have in-built growth limits for the future... And we are being charged enormously for this so-called "benefit".
I don't buy the "strategic" argument for a domestic major surface combatant shipbuilding capacity for our navy. If we had constantly running ship-building yards sure, but we don't. It's a boom and bust cycle and it ALWAYS has been.
Government wants the best of both worlds, but in my opinion we are constantly investing heavily in the WORST of both worlds. They'll invest hundreds of millions building up these shipyards and then let them fall into neglect again by not capitalising on them with a new fleet of ships to build once AWD is complete. Just as they did when Collins was built. Then they did it with the ANZAC's and so on. Sure we'll maintain the ability to refit and upgrade the vessels, but then we do that even with ships and platforms we don't build here...
I'm not so sure of that either I'm sorry. Indigenous high tech designs don't have such a good record either in Australia and designing for such small quantities can hardly be considered cost effective. AWD is a perfect example.
We are acquiring 3 ships of less capability than a current Arleigh Burke class destroyer, but paying more for them and using the "running and manning" cost as the reason we don't go that way.
Well we can afford to man 4x FFG's apparently for 884 odd berths versus about 900 berths for 3x Arleigh Burkes...
Running costs may be different but subtract the premium from the domestic build of the AWD's and the running costs of replacing the 4x FFG's and see how the costs work out...
Just curious what you think a "Mini Wasp" would be ?
(sorry for the one liner)
The boom bust cycle is not inherent just a product of 40 years of failed attempts to plan shipbuilding in a strategic manner and also not so bad. The core, specialist personnel are retained for the sustainment work and the bulk workforce can come and go.
Well this is a problem and one that SEA 1000 and SEA 5000 are supposed to fix. DDL was meant to provide a continuous shipbuilding line, the AAW MEKO and so on…
Ships are inherently low quantity returns on design investment. Even shipbuilding in bulk – 60 odd units – doesn’t provide much scale return. The idea as I presented above is to design for Australia, not necessarily by Australia. Of the last six major shipbuilding projects in Australia (not counting the current ones) four have had significant problems and each of those was license build. Of the other two one was license build (MCH) and the other domestic (ACPB). So the success rate is pretty clearly Australian.
Questions can be one liners...
Actually thinking about it slightly more a US tech JP 2048 contender would likely be a LHD version of the LPD 17 design. Add a 20m hull plug to the LPD 17 and you have a ship the same size as the Juan Carlos I.
Fair enough, I would have seen a modified LPD 17 for our sealift ship, the main problem I would see with them is the lack of lane space, and the capacity for the surge of the six simultaneous launch of choppers. I think the LPD 17, or as you have suggested an Aussie version with our philolophies for manning, damage control etc although good ships I think if we had two modified versions of them something would still be missing.
A modified Wasp class could (should ?) have been a great possibility for us (with gas turbines etc as in later versions of the class) or to go with slightly newer design go a modified America class but with the well deck ?
LPD 17 is way overkill for sealift role. The volume of the hull is quite considerable it is only <20m shorter than the JCI LHD with same beam and draft. Things like garage space are adjustable to need if you are redesigning it. By LPD 17 LHD I would mean reconfigured with a full length flight deck and starboard island. Effectively such a ship would be very similar to the JCI LHD except designed to milspec down to the keel not just the waterline. Wasp or Makin Island (GT wasp) is way to big for the Australian ADAS requirement.
Not just overkill, but at a budget-busting price. The USN is asking for US$2,040.6 million to buy the 11th ship. Even allowing for the large savings (more than the redesign cost) which could be made by deleting a lot of equipment not needed in a sealift ship, that is not affordable.
You could get 10 new-built Bay class for that, with change.
You could get 10 new-built Bay class for that, with change.
The way budget previews are done in Austrlia, like the recent Sikorsky request, contains the price for the asset and the total life cost of the asset, whatever that includes, and GF said that generally is like 3 or 4 times the initial cost of the asset. As i said before, 750 mill. euro for F105 asset, times 3 is 2200 mill euro times 3 units is 6600 mill euro which is similar to 8000 mill aust dollars. Maybe.
- Status