Heavens to betsy, that must be why they've been submitting designs direct to RAN and not the general public. Thats why senior sirs and ministerial staff have been swanning around spain and france.Canberra Times said:
hwellThat's being generous. My favourite assumption devoid of reality in that article was the one that Collins was en par with the Canadian Upholders except we paid more than $1.5 billion. If people are going to misrepresent and consider things under such grossly simplistic terms it’s no wonder the public debate on SEA 1000 has no remote resemblance to the discussion in the professional defence community.
Or that not only are Indonesia's three new "state-of-the art conventional submarines" (AKA Type 209) threaten Australia's lead in submarine capability, but so too do Vietnam's upcoming 4-6 Russian-built Kilos.
The Collins build contract came in $40m over budget. It then required about another $150m in rectification work. So a total over budget run of around $200m which is pretty minimal for its scope. There was another billion spent on the fast track program to replace the combat system and other obsolete equipment from the initial contract. But even this billion only brought the Collins in at 20% over budget.
Even without the benefits to local industry spending 70% in Australia makes for huge net savings to Government compared to buying overseas for maybe a total 20-30% (or even 50%) cheaper contract. You have to be real ignorant and/or stupid (or hunting a hefty sales commission) to characterise an overseas build as cheaper and the Collins build as a failure.
Thats one of the things that cracks me up.
Not if you want the ship to be useful at anything else.
It amazes me Canada picked those lemons in the first place and that they continue to blow money on them.
Maybe so, but the Canadian do not use their submarines for strike missions. They use their submarines more for ASW exercises with their frigates, and for scouting surveillance missions, and to fight the enemy's submarines near their coasts. They will let the US Navy attack enemy task forces with their carrier battle groups. Their small number of diesel submarines aren't the large number of US/UK attack nuclear propelled submarines deployed throughout the world. When it comes to a hard kill against large merchantmen, torpedoes have much more bang than a harpoon although at far less range. Harpoons hit ships and start a fire, whereas torpedoes break their backbones, i.e., the keels of ships.
The whole point of a sub launched Harpoon is to take out a threatening enemy ASW surface asset (ie anti submarine frigate). It isn’t there to sink carriers or commercial shipping. It’s part of a submarine's survival suite. Which is why losing it from the Victoria class is such a letdown.
LOL. When Australia was planning the New Submarine (which became the Collins class) the Canadians were planning on building 12 SSNs. Then the Cold War ended and so to it recapitalisation cash. They thought they could get way with buying four new submarines for the price of a single Collins boat. Why on earth would they join the Collins project under these circumstances?
The US has defense commitments in the Pacific to all of the Central and Western Pacific nations with the exception of the Southwest Pacific states more closely aligned with Australia, all the way to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia. Practically all of the Pacific, much less NATO, and pretty much all of Latin America.
Mate you really like to take statements totally out of context and rant on don't you ? BTW still waiting for an answer from you which started this current barrage of crap to begin with ? But when challenged you tend to ignore and continue with ranting posts.
US defence commitments area all well and good. Given this is a RAN thread, one should look at what Australia's defence commitments are, and what the ADF has to meet them with, as well as the resources that Australia can draw upon.
The canadians were never in the game for collins because they were after nukes.
I presume whether the German HDW Type216 may be suitable for Australia? While it may not, I shall await seeing the designs before I dismiss it. Others have already dismissed it without even a glance, much less studying it.
