Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[Volkodav]

Toby, Adelaide has the infrastructure and work force, Australia just spent over a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars building it. Are you suggesting all that strategic investment should be thrown away and then rebuilt in a decade, at even greater expense, to build the ANZAC replacements, for the sake of saving a little bit of upfront cost on the third AOE?

Unfortunately may politicians are as short sighted as you so that is probably what will happen.

By the way how do you think South Korea created their world beating ship building industry in the first place? I'll give you a clue, vision, investment, grit and determination over decades. Oh the fact that they were consistent throughout instead of resetting at every change of government also helped

 

[ASSAIL]

Lately there have been much discussion of building a warship or replenishment ships from scratch wholly within Australia. When in the past has Australia ever built such a warship with every part wholly built and designed within Australia? The answer is never, not even during WWI. Simply put, neither the government or its privately owned shipyards have made the investments to do so in the past or presently. One wonders whether any Australian shipyard is capable of building a Panamax sized vessel economically of any kind, the largest ship ever built in Australia was the knock off French Durance class HMAS Success. Her building time doubled and costs trebled. Australia doesn't presently have the infrastructure, much less the required trained workforce to do so. Nor the expertise.

Thank you for your wisdom on the Australian shipbuilding industry.
As for an Aust. design and build, you have forgotten that there were 60 Bathurst corvettes built here during WW2 which, apart from their guns, were locally designed.
AUSTRALIA'S MIGHTY SHIPBUILDING EFFORT - British Pathé (watch the video)
In fact over 300 ships were built in Australia during that conflict.

Post war and until the 1980's many large merchant ships were built at either Newcastle or Whyalla and were assisted by Aust. govt. subsidies.
It was only after those were lifted that large ship production ended here as the govt. decided that it was more beneficial to rationalise the industry to specialist and naval builds.

Please research before giving us the benefit of your wisdom.

 

[John Newman]

Post war and until the 1980's many large merchant ships were built at either Newcastle or Whyalla and were assisted by Aust. govt. subsidies.
It was only after those were lifted that large ship production ended here as the govt. decided that it was more beneficial to rationalise the industry to specialist and naval builds..

Here is a list of the 66 ships built at Whyalla between 1941 and 1978.

The BHP Ship Building Gallery


The largest of them was Clutha Capricorn, see below:

CLUTHA CAPRICORN - IMO 7214507 - ShipSpotting.com - Ship Photos and Ship Tracker


Some of her stats are below:

Built 1972, Whyalla. 48,947 GT.

255.4m x 32.4m x 15m (837.11ft x 106.4ft x 49.2ft)

Launched in May 1972

52,000 tons

 

[SASWanabe]

the largest ship i know of being built in Australia was the 67,000 tonne "Robert Miller"

i only remember it cause it almost made the 1974 Brisbane floods worse by becoming a dam.

 

[John Newman]

the largest ship i know of being built in Australia was the 67,000 tonne "Robert Miller"

i only remember it cause it almost made the 1974 Brisbane floods worse by becoming a dam.

I think the '67,000 tonne' you are referring to is when she is fully loaded with her oil cargo.

The overall dimensions of the two ships are very similar (some of the references have the beam vary a bit):

ROBERT MILLER - IMO 7330375 - ShipSpotting.com - Ship Photos and Ship Tracker

FLOTILLA AUSTRALIA

(scroll down towards the bottom of the page and there is info on Robert Miller)


Robert Miller (37,675 gross tons, 67059 dwt.) Oil Tanker:

239.3 x 32.3 metres

Clutha Capricorn, the info I have is:

255.4m x 32.4m x 15m (837.11ft x 106.4ft x 49.2ft)


At the end of the day, both of them were large ships built here in Oz.

 

[SASWanabe]

i was quoting the dwt because thats normally the unit of measure used for bulkers+oilers+Lng tankers.

the point i was trying to make was that up until the 80s there were a couple yards capable of turning out decent sized ships

 

[John Newman]

i was quoting the dwt because thats normally the unit of measure used for bulkers+oilers+Lng tankers.

the point i was trying to make was that up until the 80s there were a couple yards capable of turning out decent sized ships

Mate I wasn't nitpicking, just quoting the spec's that I'd found in relation to those two Australian built ships.

I went back and had another look at the link above on the Clutha Capricorn and it does appear that her dwt was greater than Robert Miller:

Vessel type: Bulk Carrier
Gross tonnage: 48,947 tons
Summer DWT: 85,129 tons


And I agree completely with you that it wasn't that long ago that we were capable of producing decent sized ships in this country.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Geez, Whyalla, that brings back unfort memories for me. I worked in Whyalla when she was building ships

I then spent 3 years working the triangle (Pirie, Whyalla, Augusta) as part of a Commonwealth tiger team.

just shoot me now.....

 

[t68]

ASC has proposed to build two replenishment ships in South Korea while building a third one in Adelaide. The third one to be built in Australia will take as long to build as the two in South Korea, if not longer. Time is money, the ship will probably cost three times as much too. The South Korean shipyards have the infrastructure in place, along with the required trained workforce.

It is cut and dried, except for political pork barrel. When you can't meet the time in building along with costs, whatever was gained with the heavy investments will be lost as soon as the ships are finished. The government should be planning upon economic long term investments, not short temporary ones.

If I am not mistaken the reason why they will be able to push out 2/1 is the ships in Korea will be fitted out here in oz, if it happens all they are building is the hull the ship built here will be from ground up and ready to commission, bit of a difference to just building the hull.

 

[John Newman]

Techport Ship and Submarine construction facility

Came across this good video of the Techport shipbuilding facility in SA, (if you view it full screen you get a pretty good idea of the site and it's growth potential):

Australia

The video, which goes for about 3 mins, starts off showing the site and it's capabilities as at today.

Further on it shows how the site can be expanded with larger runways and multiple dry birth facilities, extension of the common user ship lift (showing an LHD being lifted and moved to a dry birth facility at the back of the site), the Future Submarine assembly site and other potential enhancements.

What this shows me, is we do have a facility that is capable of not only building AWD's today and performing the ongoing maintenance of the Collins Class Subs, but is capable of being expanded to produce most of the ships and subs that the navy will need well into the future.

Apart from the Future Submarines and the Future Frigates, expansion of the ship lift, runways and dry birth facilities would also allow for much larger ships to be built.

If the Government, for example, chose the ASC option of three replenishment ships, two to be built in SK and the third completely build at Techport, that investment in expanded facilities could also be used for future replacements of Choules and the LHD's.

 

[Volkodav]

That's the plan Adelaide has been slowly moving towards since the mid 80s with interruptions due to the failure of a state government owned bank and changes of government. The current management team an board have a wealth of experience from around the globe and have invested big time in staff development. This site is world standard and so long as the work keeps coming in things will only get better.

Some sinisism now, with the new defmin being a sand groper, I would not be at all surprised if Tech port was allowed to wither and die while new facilities were built at Henderson WA for BAE to build the ANZAC replacements.

 

[John Newman]

That's the plan Adelaide has been slowly moving towards since the mid 80s with interruptions due to the failure of a state government owned bank and changes of government. The current management team an board have a wealth of experience from around the globe and have invested big time in staff development. This site is world standard and so long as the work keeps coming in things will only get better.

Some sinisism now, with the new defmin being a sand groper, I would not be at all surprised if Tech port was allowed to wither and die while new facilities were built at Henderson WA for BAE to build the ANZAC replacements.

Don't worry I share your cynicism regarding our pollies too, but maybe our new Def Min is more likely to push an Austal product, be it a PB or an OCV type ship.

As I understood it, Techport is a common user facility, apart from the ASC specific parts of the facility, so there is no reason that BAE for example couldn't use the facility if in fact it did win the Future Frigate project or other projects, and if I'm correct BAE's head office is in South Australia too.

But getting back to Techport itself, if there can be commitment and consistency from Government (and future Governments too) this facility certainly appears to the one location where the vast majority of the RAN's future major ships (and submarines) can be assembled.

And of course, as currently is the case with the AWD's, other facilities in Newcastle, Williamstown and Henderson for example can still be involved in block production too.

 

[ancientcivy]

Ciws for Canberra class

Given that the ADF already use for the Bolide missile and the Typhoon mount, would upgrading some our typhoons to GSA standard fitted with Bolides rather than Barak 1 as they of similar dimensions provide an inexpensive and effective gun/missile ciws.
I would appreciate any professionals commenting on what sensor upgrades would be required to the ships, if integration of Bolides on the Typhoons present problems and finally if such a step would be a worthwhile upgrade?

 

[ngatimozart]

I came across this over the weekend.

'Evolved' Collins favoured option for next generation of submarines - Defence Minister David Johnston
Belinda Willis
The Advertiser
October 16, 2013 12:04PM
No Cookies | The Advertiser

AN evolved Collins Class submarine is the leading option for Australia's next generation of submarines, Defence Minister David Johnston has revealed, renewing hopes that the final decision on the project will deliver jobs and investment in South Australia.

Senator Johnston said in Adelaide yesterday that he believed an evolved Collins Class was a better choice than completely redesigning and building a new submarine.

Twelve next-generation submarines will be built under the SEA 1000 project, which has an estimated cost of up to $40 billion.

"Our experience is that to go down that path is quite problematic," said Senator Johnston, who was attending a Submarine Institute of Australia conference.

"The evolved Collins is the leading option … capitalising on our evolving corporate knowledge, so we will see what the department has done and what the plan is within the next month."

SA Defence Teaming Centre chief executive officer Chris Burns saying if this option was backed it would mean jobs and investment for the state.

"The centre for excellence of knowledge and capability about Collins is here in South Australia, so it further cements that the future submarines will be made here in SA," Mr Burns said.

"And an evolution of Collins means work will be able to commence sooner rather than later in terms of design."

The new Abbott government had said it would make a decision about the Future Submarine project within 18 months of taking office, along with creating a new defence white paper.

Senator Johnston said he intended pushing forward with "not a briefing but a seminar" over the future subs next month after returning from NATO meetings, to discuss what he described as the Federal Government's "number one priority at the moment".

Previously, the former Labor government had narrowed the Future Submarine decision to two main options for the new submarines - the evolved Collins boat or an entirely new Australian-designed and built option.

Both parties have committed to the submarines being assembled in South Australia.

Senator Johnston also said yesterday that he was confident there would be no gap in capability between the ageing Collins submarines being replaced.

"These subs are so important that time is of the essence," he said.

"The plan is coming together and you will hopefully shortly see exactly what we are doing with Collins, you will see the path that we are going to choose will be a middle path for SEA 1000 (future submarines)."

He said it was "the most important capability we've got at the moment".

But he also said that of equal priority was focusing on the sustainment and remediation of the existing six Collins class subs because "the life extension program is vital to the haste with which we must pursue the new boat".

"The submarine life extension program will allow an orderly transition to the new submarine without a capability gap but that's not to say we are slowing down SEA 1000 in any shape of form it just means there's a little more time," he said.

I know he's playing politics but I think this is possibly a pointer into the new govts thinking about the Collins sub replacement. However its early days and he hasn't yet figured out if Austal can make a sub out of aluminium or not.

 

[John Newman]

I came across this over the weekend.

I know he's playing politics but I think this is possibly a pointer into the new govts thinking about the Collins sub replacement. However its early days and he hasn't yet figured out if Austal can make a sub out of aluminium or not.

Interesting you saw that article, I saw this one on the Defence website the other day:

Defence Ministers » Minister for Defence – Opening Address at the Submarine Institute of Australia 2nd Technology Conference – Adelaide Convention Centre

The relevant paragraph that appears to match the comments in the newspaper article is:

...... you will see the path that we going to choose will be a middle path for SEA 1000 but that will provide us with a very capable, cutting edge submarine to match our capacity to resource it and to man it.

That reads to me like they are publically stating they are more in favour of an Evolved Collins design rather than the new design option.

I do find it a bit unusual at this early stage, (they have been the Government for a whole 50 days or so!) that a new Government would be almost 'announcing' their preferred option, maybe I'm reading that wrong, but it seem to be a pretty strong message being delivered.

Couple of other funny / interesting paragraphs too:

So many of you will be pleased to know I have heard so many secret things in the last few weeks that I can’t remember any of them. At the very top of the list for us is the Collins Class submarine. Its expense as we’ve discussed on many occasions in the past is dominating not just Navy’s sustainment budget but Defence’s sustainment budget.

But it is an extremely important platform for us, we are a maritime nation, we have a very capable and cutting edge submarine when it is reliably working. I want to pause to say to the Chief of Navy my hearty congratulations – we are getting back into the space day by day, week by week, and we are having a lot of success, three boats in the water as I stand here today.

Many people think that the complexity of the program we are confronting – the mediation of the Collins, the submarine life extension program and SEA 1000 means that a gap is unavoidable. But I am not convinced, and it would take a lot for someone to show me that there is not the will; the capacity or the resourcing to avoid what was set out by ASPI in its “Mind the Gap” document.

Certainly changed his tune about Collins in recent times, but I suppose that is the big difference with what you say when you go from Opposition to Government!!


Aluminium sub by Austal? Why not... just don't take it too deep, like about 10 feet or so would probably do it!!

 

[old faithful]

Speaking of aluminium,looks like the cape class will be RAN,s ocv in the future.

My prediction of a 7th C17 is off the table,RAR will remain at 7 bns. Libs will take up to 10 yrs to get defence spending up to 2% of gdp.

 

[ngatimozart]

Speaking of aluminium,looks like the cape class will be RAN,s ocv in the future.

My prediction of a 7th C17 is off the table,RAR will remain at 7 bns. Libs will take up to 10 yrs to get defence spending up to 2% of gdp.

Well if they want to buy a 7th C17 they'd better hurry up and ring Boeing because the production line is about to shut down for good.

 

[Volkodav]

Speaking of aluminium,looks like the cape class will be RAN,s ocv in the future.

My prediction of a 7th C17 is off the table,RAR will remain at 7 bns. Libs will take up to 10 yrs to get defence spending up to 2% of gdp.

The capes are a serious improvement over the Armidales however they are still aluminium hulled which is, I believe an issue for a naval patrol vessel, as opposed to a constabulary patrol vessel.

 

[t68]

Well if they want to buy a 7th C17 they'd better hurry up and ring Boeing because the production line is about to shut down for good.

I lead to believe that Boeing is going to build additional aircraft over what's been ordred in the belief that's someone will pick them up, from memory I think the number was 13 aircraft.

 

[gf0012-aust]

I came across this over the weekend.

I know he's playing politics but I think this is possibly a pointer into the new govts thinking about the Collins sub replacement. However its early days and he hasn't yet figured out if Austal can make a sub out of aluminium or not.

Its a really good sign because it does mean that they are finally listening to Navy

prev comments made when they were in opposition made a few fearful because it was a legacy of them picking up chat from industry about buying canned subs from europe - which as good as they are don't meet the opreqs needed by RAN

it indicated that the ex DefMin was looking at aust sub requirements merely at the long range patrol level and not understanding that bigger subs are needed for other reasons