Well done you did good mate, thanks for the pictures of Juan Carlos they are very interesting, but unfortunately we wont be seeing any Harriers on the Aussies boats,exept if one of the Harrier capable nations cross deck on exercise.
You don’t need hindsight or some totally unrelated list of USN shipbuilding. The RAN and the DoD requested a Tobruk (and Jervis Bay) replacement in the early 1990s called the THSS. It would have been a new build LPD type and in service by 2001-02 at the latest. The 2000 White Paper and the following 2001-11 DCP mandated that two new AORs of the same class were to be delivered in 2009 and 2015 to replace Westralia and Success.
And that all comes down to no forward thinking by those in GOVERMENT who only look at budgets three years in advance, I seem to recall that defence told AusGov at the time it would cost in the vicinity off 500 million AUD for the said ship to replace Jervis Bay. Come up with a cheaper plan they said come up with a cheaper plan alright but with HINDSIGHT the money spent on the LPA(how much did we spend ) in the end RAN could have either the ship they wanted or the alternatively have built 2 new Whidbey/Harpers Ferry hulls for between 300/400 million USD. As I said hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Thanks for those.
It is wistful thinking but it is not going to happen.
I think I just lost the will to live. If this argument flares back up again then, for the sake of my sanity, I'll visit this thread again in a week. Maybe two.
Not going to happen.
Why do you think the inner city Sydney politicos have launched recent attempts to get the Navy out of Garden Island. The LHDs are officially under consideration for a later move to a new port in Queensland but it won’t happen (if it does) until they are in service.
If the Westralia and Success replacement had gone ahead as planned then a Lewis & Clark was almost a shoe in. The Navy was certainly very interested in this design and the hot production run from NASCCO in early to mid 2000s. BTW the Lewis & Clark carries enough fuel as is for the AOR role though its tabulated data may not indicate this because of the difference between USN and RAN standards for sea range.
The Navy is programmed to receive two AORs one to replace Success and the other to replace Sirius. But the timetable isn’t until the 2020s though obviously something will have to happen sooner for Success.
I don’t think the THSS acquisition was so advanced as to have down selected a design. And BTW at that time (1992-93) the Rotterdam LPD was just a Dutch and Spanish program. The key decision would have been local or overseas build for the THSS. If it went local then it is possible that something more civil rather than LPD could have been built. If it went overseas which is more likely considering the cost issues and the low surplus capacity for big ships in Australian shipbuilding in the 1990s. If overseas the Rotterdam or Whidbey Island classes would have been the b options. The Albion wasn’t even fully designed so would be too late. Of course commercial to spec offerings would have been possible. From a program perspective the Whidbey Island would be most attractive as the RAN could order one from Avondale which would be 10th from a hot line. Each of these were costing around US$130m though an Australia one would be more expensive because of the need to fit a helicopter hangar, command facilities, hospital and training bridge.
Most fast jets Squadron consist of 12 aircraft per Squadron, but that is not a hard and fast rules it depending on your ships capability, so in theory 4 Squadrons is 48 aircraft you’re not going to get that on a Juan Carlos LHD except on a ferry lift (maybe). Even the UK with the Queen Elizabeth class carrier at 65000T they have determined that 36 fast jet aircraft is the limit, she might be capable of another Squadron but it may at a detriment to flight operations in the regards to aircraft movement and maintenance, POL and store’s.
Presumably you are adding an element of ship's bunkers (which tend not to be included in publicly available figures...) to the issuable cargo fuel to arrive at this? Does depend a little on how much you think an AOR needs, or what other tankers you have in the TG, as c. 4,000CZ doesn't go far IME of thirsty US ships. The modern/future RAN fleet may be more economical.
The Canberra Class ships are LHD's - Landing Helicopter Dock.
There is no difference between cargo fuel and bunker fuel on a ship like this. The total fuel volume of a Lewis & Clark is equal to that needed for it to meet the RAN’s range requirements and have left over a similar amount to the stated cargo fuel of other AORs like the Cantabria. Whatever the RAN may specify for the actual SEA 1654 requirement (more or less) will mean any offering will have to be tailored. However the whole point of this is whenever the Lews & Clark is brought up in discussion as a potential RAN AOR someone goes and looks at the USN’s data sheet and pipes up that it doesn’t have the same fuel offload as other AORs. This is however wrong.
I haven't seen such a discussion previously, you'll have to excuse me.
I'd imagine that UAV's wouldn't be out of the question though. The question is what sort of UAV's could we operate? Possibly the Boeing scan eagle?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-08/australias-drone-war-in-afghanistan/4058058
You don't need a LHD to operate Scan Eagles they were designed to be flown from trawler boats. BAE Systems have talked up flying Tactical UAVs from the LHD using the ski ramp to get them airborne.