There is cost and costs in the same manner as the JSF debate. Commercial ship builders will bid on the basis of hull, equipment and agreed spares..... not training, intergration and ongoing support.
Remember this MRV from Austal...
At NZ$400 million I would rather have a new replenishment tanker and another Canterbury than a JSS for the same price or more...
Which would mean more crew, higher operating costs, increased depreciation and capital charges for the NZDF to lose out on, more expensive over the life time generally. And who on earth would want another Canterbury?
MrConservative;213907 The way I see it is that we should be getting a ship that mirrors the Canterbury’s sealift capability as well as broaden the scope of the Endeavours supply capacity essentially by 30%. Also if the ship contained as many as possible OTS systems used within the Canterbury – engines said:
I have not agreed on 2 Sealift Ships and 2 Tankers - I am not sure what you mean there Toby.
Yes agree, I am not saying the new tanker should not have lane/stores space and the ability to move troops, just not on the scale of Canterbury, so I agree with the platoon(moreso +) group size and leave the bigger moves (company+) to Canterbury.
The 24/7/365 argument can also go both ways, we will not be moving troops and equipment around the world all the time so why spend all this money to have chugging around under-utilised for the majority of the time. Even if we ever did deploy a battalion group ala Timor 1 again and drop them in one hit, although handy, then what do these ships do for the rest of the op? The 99 Timor Batts went for 3+ years and yes our own sealift would have been advantageous however commercial ships got the heavy equipment there and then nothing that big was needed until closedown.
As I clearly noted the new Endeavour will be a Replenishment Vessel first – that would be its primary role. It is ridiculous to assume it will be just “chugging around” waiting to do a sealift job. It will be able to offer additional capabilities to assist both the NZDF and ADF when required, which is essentially the optimisation of the platform capability. The actual cost to extend its mission capability from something very limited in Sealift capability to something adequate that mirrors the CY in Sealift and helicopter ops is in no way prohibitive. It will complete the operational timeframe which the CY cannot cover. The 24/7/365 argument does not work both ways as you suggest. The CY is not available all the time. No ship is or can be. There is no argument that for the majority of initial lift the Canterbury will be the first responder, but for meeting the needs of fleet tasking, op timing, mission flexibility and consistency – it is imperative that the NZDF have both the capacity and depth to meet its objectives.
The army just doesn't engage into operations willy nilly on the spur of the moment. Operations are planned and organized before kicking off. As proven last year the Canterbury can be buttoned up when being dry docked within a few days before she deployed to Tonga and Samoa... I can't ever imagine the Canterbury being deployed more than a few days sailing time from New Zealand during peacetime... As noted she can also undertake more than one voyage to fulfill her sea lift mission as well...
I am not saying Canterbury will be available 365, no RNZN ship is but bulk sealift is also not required 365, however surely Cant is ready for the better part of the year so to fund purely for that possible gap is not required when there are other cost effective options to cover. How many ops, exs and taskings does Canterbury do a year that require the movement of more than 250 pers, 50 vehicles, 30 containers worth of kit and 4 helos let alone paying for another vessel essentially. Going with your argument we will require at least 2 of every ship just in case, so we will also need another tanker and a spare LW ship (even though we just combined 2 into 1 platform to cut costs).
