Not sleeping berths but 50 is the mooted number in the detention area and the cage.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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justsomeaussie
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I think the Capes have dedicated rooms with bunks and toilets so a decent difference from the Armidales.
An OTS submarine option would be like replacing the Bushmaster with an OTS armoured Humvee. Looks good in photo ops but totally incapable of doing the required job for the simple reason it was not designed nor was it ever intended to do the job, it was meant for something else.
The thing that scares me is the current mob are hopeless and need to go but their replacements are looking more and more like the GWB dream team that screwed the US over. Johnston will be our Rumsfeld.
did you read the idiotic comment on him not seeing an operational concept doc?
of course he hasn't seen one - he's not cleared or entitled to see one yet.
do they think that any platforms are designed or defined without reference to CONOPS prior to acquisition...???
Heaven help us if he turns out to be as bad as what we've had to date....
I am sick to death of both parties using subs as a political football - both are responsible for 15 years of molding of the publics perception that they are hopeless and have contributed to a massive problem of the public becoming submariners and maritime architects and being absolutely clueless about their real capability
The only thing that will show how good the subs are is a war which is the last thing we need with how the ADF is being gutted. I am annoyed about the subs but even more so about the patrol boats and deferment of the OCVs.
I wonder if it would be viable to order 4 or 5 OPVs from OS with local outfit to supplement the ACPBs and then once we know exactly what we want go for a full local build of 15-16 OCVs.
I hate adversarial politics.
You know as soon as a whitepaper is released by either side of politics that it is going to be condemned by the other party for no other reason than it is seen as the oppositions job to oppose anything the government of the day puts forward.
It is so important that some degree of bipartisanship is shown by the major political parties with massive long term projects such as building a new fleet of submarines.This is a project that may span several changes of government and you can't go shifting the goal posts around every time a new party comes into office.
You know as soon as a whitepaper is released by either side of politics that it is going to be condemned by the other party for no other reason than it is seen as the oppositions job to oppose anything the government of the day puts forward.
It is so important that some degree of bipartisanship is shown by the major political parties with massive long term projects such as building a new fleet of submarines.This is a project that may span several changes of government and you can't go shifting the goal posts around every time a new party comes into office.
Subs are the stand out examples of how idiotic political posturing has basically forever damaged the publics view on submarines and their capability in this country
when I worked OS people in industry and various services were just gob smacked at the level of puerile engagement - and the claims made which ran counter to what they knew of them
and if anyone doubts that this is so then just look at the commentary at the end of news articles on any given day when they're a news item. I hadn't realised that this country was so wonderfully resourced with maritime engineers, industry experts and armchair force planners.
/sarcasm off
Depends on your term for decent .... Hence the term detention area
Really points it out visually. Bad planning?
To be honest though, the 4th AWD was on the cards when we went with the F-100 design. But I don't think the 4th AWD is enough. Its a big hole that would need plugging. Shifting the OPV forward I'm not sure is the right decision either. Shifting projects forward surely has to be the hardest thing in the world, and we are talking years forward. Which leaves extending existing projects...
5th AWD? (& 6th), LHD?
justsomeaussie
Member
I still prefer to think about what the actual effects we intend for our forces to achieve. In my world view I would prefer to see us move away from capital ships and have a larger sub force with 20-30 Corvette plus vessels.
Plenty of simulations have shown in a hot war, surface combatants have a very short shelf life.
So what are we trying to achieve? Force projection, Area denial, maritime patrol and surveillance. So if we deploy the AWDs and supporting vessels to the Malacca Staits, how easily could they be taken out?
Put it this way if the AWDs actually fire multiple weapons in anger, I don't think anything we've got floating will be around long.
But we have a culture of capital ships and that's hard to change.
the road runner
Active Member
GF i was going to post this on Friday.
I saw Tony Abbott say "I have been informed that the Collins class are some of the best conventional subs in the world when they are operational"
I nearly spat my coffee on my PC,it was actually rather refreshing to see a Lib speak like that!
Kudos to Abbott then.
Lets hope that Johnston is a bit more measured in his future commentary then. His last one on new sub assessments was very ordinary
On a more mundane note, Had a couple of cruises today and drove past Cantabria and Parramatta in Darwin Harbour.
I must say that Cantabria looked quite at home in this environment and the sooner one appears in "Storm Grey" the better.
Also heard and saw Larrakia on harbour trials so I hope she will be back in full operation asap.
Cheers
I must say that Cantabria looked quite at home in this environment and the sooner one appears in "Storm Grey" the better.
Also heard and saw Larrakia on harbour trials so I hope she will be back in full operation asap.
Cheers
Hot war and 12 months you would be lucky to see any original metal still floating if it was being sent in to battle every day.There will generally be a quick exchange of collateral. Personally I think we are better off teaming up with an american flotilla of 3 carriers, 30 destroyers, 20 SSN's than cruising around by ourselves or with the chinese (if it ever got to that, which it won't).
The AWD do however do serve a purpose as light duty air defence, keep one or two multi role aircraft away, mop up a surface threat, be part of the ASW system, meet obligations to the Americans, land attack etc. We should be able to have enough AWD's to start a multinational effort. You need to be able to train, sustain a multi ship AWD commitment to do that.
The LHD is more about regional stability of our tiny neighbours. Not for invading mainland China. They aren't going into high threat zones, hence no self defence. We are currently struggling to maintain influence (losing?) in our region in diplomacy. We need that regardless of hot wars or not. Now we can try upping the financial aid to nations around us (billions which most likely won't see any tangible improvement) or ensure we can have floating hospital, enough man power to back a government from revolution and settle out of control tribal issues. Enough so that countries don't keep reaching out to china. Or worse. Which is unsettling the friends.
We will still get 20 OCV's IMO. But say getting 5 AWD and reducing the ANZAC replacement by one (to 7 ships or work something out over the 7 ship timeframe) will go some way to solve our build issues. We actually have two problems. Nothing going on in the 2014 period and too much going on in the 2020+ period. Maybe NZ will want to come to the party and pick up a ship from the end of the run. Its just the cost difference between a AWD and an Anzac replacement. Is that cheaper than pushing another project years forward?
IMO I still think we need 3 LHD, at least 4 AWD, 5 would be better. Dropping to 7 frigate replacements seems like a pretty small compromise.
justsomeaussie
Member
I look at it also from a technology perspective. As technology has advanced and miniaturised the ability to defend vessels better has dramatically risen along with the advances in missiles.
So we don't need giant ships to carry the heavy weapon systems anymore. In fact putting all your weapons in one basket is why the carrier in a carrier group is so heavily defended.
So if we aren't going to have a dedicated aircraft carrier to defend, I'd much rather see smaller heavily gunned ships in larger numbers than a few frigates.
20-30 OCV-Corvettes with quad packed ESSM, CEAFAR with land attack like harpoon would be an amazing amount of capbility packing into a relatively small ship.
I appreciate that AEGIS is a big enabler for a battlegroup but if it could be integrated into CEAFAR we would have a far stronger meshed network than 3 AWDs and Wedgetail (which still doesn't work).
That day will never happen though because our captains grow up wanting to command capital ships, not corvettes.
So we don't need giant ships to carry the heavy weapon systems anymore. In fact putting all your weapons in one basket is why the carrier in a carrier group is so heavily defended.
So if we aren't going to have a dedicated aircraft carrier to defend, I'd much rather see smaller heavily gunned ships in larger numbers than a few frigates.
20-30 OCV-Corvettes with quad packed ESSM, CEAFAR with land attack like harpoon would be an amazing amount of capbility packing into a relatively small ship.
I appreciate that AEGIS is a big enabler for a battlegroup but if it could be integrated into CEAFAR we would have a far stronger meshed network than 3 AWDs and Wedgetail (which still doesn't work).
That day will never happen though because our captains grow up wanting to command capital ships, not corvettes.
I wonder if we reduced our sub numbers from 12 to 10 (or even 8) if we could pick up the extra AWD, 2 x SPS Cantabria's, 3 Global Hawks for the RAAF and the SPH's the army wanted. I would look much more balanced and all three services would be happy.
Am I on to something here?
Am I on to something here?
justsomeaussie
Member
No. 12 subs is so we have at least 6 operational at any time. That has been decided to be the minimum we need.
No?
It has been decided that the Army needs four brigades to achieve the government's requirements. Does that mean that tens of billions of dollars should be spent raising an extra brigade with no further discussion?
justsomeaussie
Member
Well I think pretty much the Navy, Government and the think tanks all agreed that 12 was needed. I'm not sure what more discussion is needed. Nuclear was ruled out by government, so that just leaves the type and place to build the diesels.
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