Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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Tireless does have some sexier gear onboard as well... endurance and kit are king....(or queen until William gets the gong)
It is a horrible situation for the families of pax and crew of MH370.
The resources needed for this search have been extensive, and the requirement of course came without warning. Makes it hard to imagine being able to respond adequately with 8 MR airframes, so the possible increase in P-8 order to 12 would seem to be emphasised by this tragic event. The BAMS equipment would be of limited use in supplementing the manned MR in this situation.
Similarly, a unique capability and value of us having a nuclear submarine capability is again emphasised, and is again seen, by me at least, as relevant to our Australian future. Hope that polies and defence bureaucrats can push it.
The resources needed for this search have been extensive, and the requirement of course came without warning. Makes it hard to imagine being able to respond adequately with 8 MR airframes, so the possible increase in P-8 order to 12 would seem to be emphasised by this tragic event. The BAMS equipment would be of limited use in supplementing the manned MR in this situation.
Similarly, a unique capability and value of us having a nuclear submarine capability is again emphasised, and is again seen, by me at least, as relevant to our Australian future. Hope that polies and defence bureaucrats can push it.
Without wishing to be too negative, our reported fleet management practices for Collins don't exactly seem to focus on short notice tasking...
It appears as an outsider that all activities involving Collins require very extensive planning and preparation before they can be executed.
Good and capable boats no doubt, but they appear to be a little on the 'fragile' side and not best suited to rapid redeployment on differing operations...
A bit of it likely relates back to crewing issues as while they have been improvements the RAN still does not have as many qualified submariners as they would like and need. If you don't have the crews it doesn't matter if you have the boat and vice versa. The other issue may be Deep Diving Depth, I am not sure how many if any have been recertified for DDD.
Don't use MH370 for any justification of proposing SSNs for the RAN. It is highly disrespectful to the families of the victims and in very poor taste. This post of yours is idiotic and offensive.
I think you can pretty much say the same about the surface fleet too.
Looking around FBE today nearly every ship is in some sort of maintenance period, or just out of refit or ready to go into the DD.
Could it be the fleet is too small and their is nothing left for contingencies? I know numbers aren't everything but when you look at what we used to have (that was considered insufficient at the time) and compare it to now there isn't much, if any, fat left.
Out of interest, what are the numbers? To my understanding, the fleet hasn't shrunk much at all
Nominally, there are 12 x escorts, 4 x OHP's and 8 x Anzacs but;
ANZAC, ARUNTA and TOOWOOMBA are out of commission in varying stages of the ASMD refit (Arunta nearly there) and PERTH is in refit.
DARWIN is on OP Resolute, MELBOURNE is just home and presumably on leave, NEWCASTLE is in refit, and I don't know about SYDNEY
That leaves STUART and BALLARAT who have just been in Darwin supporting OP Resolute and PARRAMATTA I don't know about her.
So from the above you can see that "thin on ground is an understatement given that ships need to be working up for deployment and committing to international exercises. Clearly not enough especially as escorts are soon to be needed for our ARE (Amphib Ready Group).
In my view, the FFG's (at least the Melbourne and Newcastle) should remain in commission until the first 4 future frigates commission.
Toowoomba is hardly out of commission, since it is currently out searching for flight MH370.
Anyway, as detailed as your answer is, it doesn't really answer my question. How is what we have now (numbers wise) significantly different from what he had in the past? Which was Volkodav's point.
Stuart is in DD in Melbourne, Ballarat over at FBW ready for upgrade (and in no condition to go anywhere), Parra is in IMAV and only Sydney is out out sea doing WUP.
Should be out of the dry dock tomorrow and sailing on Sunday.
I probably should not have referred to numbers as it is a lot more complex than that.
Part of the issue is over the last decade or more we have chosen to life extend, upgrade and modernise existing assets rather than replacing them. This has had the effect of removing a significant proportion of the normally available hulls from service for extended periods. It has also left the RAN with a lot of older platforms requiring more maintenance to keep them in service than newer platforms would require.
End result, as Assail described much better than I, the nominal fleet size verses what is available for deployment is quite different. Add in cheap an nasty options like the Armidale Class PBs failing to perform requiring other assets to take up the slack you can see the RAN is quite stretched.
In the mid 90s we had 3 DDGs, 6 FFGs and usually 3 or more DEs with the ANZACs coming on line, there was also a fleet of about a dozen corvettes planned to replace the Fremantle class PBs. So basically about a dozen primary surface combatants with a recognised need for more or at least something more robust on the lower end to support the higher end in lower threat environments. The story has been very similar for decades, we have about a dozen destroyers and frigates at any given point and there is a recognised need for several more, i.e. up to twenty total or at least something more capable than patrol boats at the lower end.
I suppose one way to look at it is to equate a major fleet unit to an Infantry Battalion or an Armoured or Cavalry Regiment, below certain numbers and beyond a certain operational tempo raise, train and sustain goes from difficult to impossible and then when the government starts disbanding battalions or regiments (thank god they haven't!) as a cost saving force planning just goes out the window. Army has to live with hollow units as a result of cost savings that RAN just loses their units all together.
Sorry, mixed up Toowoomba and Ballarat. In general the answer is money, peace dividend and emphasis on subs and phat ships, escorts are not newsworthy however essential
Upgrading existing assets takes them out of service during the upgrade, building new assets the old ones remain in service while the new ones are being built. Had we built replacements for the first four FFGs instead of upgrading them and just upgraded the two newest (ten or more years younger than the others) we would not have suffered the reduction in capability we did. As the new ships were delivered we could have sold our older FFGs overseas (with US approval) or provided some of them to NZ.
With a hot production facility at Williamstown four stretched ANZACs using some systems from the decommissioned DDGs and some from the FFGUP could have been delivered in a very timely and affordable manner. A 32 or 48 cell Mk41 VLS with SM-2 and ESSM, a second helicopter, radars and directors from the DDGs, ESM and combat system elements from the FFGUP or possibly an improved version of the ANZACs SAAB 9VL system. HMAS Perth was delivered for about A$100M the FFGUP cost about A$1B for four hulls (was meant cost about half that for six) $250M each for a stretched ANZAC is not inconceivable.
With four brand new ships the upgrade on the newest FFGs could be cut back to maybe replacing the Mk13 with a 16 cell Mk41 for ESSM and not bothering with SM2. Williamstown then goes on to build the AWD on a more relaxed schedule.
With a hot production facility at Williamstown four stretched ANZACs using some systems from the decommissioned DDGs and some from the FFGUP could have been delivered in a very timely and affordable manner. A 32 or 48 cell Mk41 VLS with SM-2 and ESSM, a second helicopter, radars and directors from the DDGs, ESM and combat system elements from the FFGUP or possibly an improved version of the ANZACs SAAB 9VL system. HMAS Perth was delivered for about A$100M the FFGUP cost about A$1B for four hulls (was meant cost about half that for six) $250M each for a stretched ANZAC is not inconceivable.
With four brand new ships the upgrade on the newest FFGs could be cut back to maybe replacing the Mk13 with a 16 cell Mk41 for ESSM and not bothering with SM2. Williamstown then goes on to build the AWD on a more relaxed schedule.
So in other words, numbers haven't dropped at all, although serviceability may have taken a bit of a hit.
I dare say if you went back 20 years no one would be complaining about taking ships out of service for a few years to upgrade them with state of the art radar systems or upgraded weapons. It was hardly all rosy back then.
If you look around at how other Western nations have shrunk since the end of the cold war, the RAN has done pretty well. It is hardly all doom and gloom.
I suppose the biggest issue is the minor warfare boats are not pulling their weight because the government screwed up the specification. End result is just as the majors are under extra stress with over seas deployments cycling hulls through upgrades etc. and the reduction in hull numbers due to the screwed up FFGUP they are also having to support border protection as the RAN was provided with PBs instead of OPVs or corvettes.
There is a very real need considering the size of our EEZ, our acceptance and support of UN missions and our commitment to regional involvement to either increase the number of primary surface combatants or alternatively to upgrade the minor combatants to something larger, more seaworthy and durable to take the load off the majors. At the moment we have crews who are being wasted due to the lack of capability of their boats to do the job that needs to be done.
OPVs are more expensive than PBs but much, much cheaper than the frigates that are being used for roles an OPV can do but a patrol boat can't. OPVs are also more durable and will last longer, can be deployed further for longer periods of time than a PB, so overall are better value for money than PBs.
Feel free to slap me down but I would rate the difference between a patrol boat and an OPV being similar to the difference between an Bushranger Phase I 6x6 Land Rover and a Bushmaster IMV. A politician or public servant may think they are basically the same thing and can do the same job and prefers the cheaper option but when it comes time to do the heavy lifting in a difficult or dangerous environment there is only one real option and it isn't the Land Rover.
There is a very real need considering the size of our EEZ, our acceptance and support of UN missions and our commitment to regional involvement to either increase the number of primary surface combatants or alternatively to upgrade the minor combatants to something larger, more seaworthy and durable to take the load off the majors. At the moment we have crews who are being wasted due to the lack of capability of their boats to do the job that needs to be done.
OPVs are more expensive than PBs but much, much cheaper than the frigates that are being used for roles an OPV can do but a patrol boat can't. OPVs are also more durable and will last longer, can be deployed further for longer periods of time than a PB, so overall are better value for money than PBs.
Feel free to slap me down but I would rate the difference between a patrol boat and an OPV being similar to the difference between an Bushranger Phase I 6x6 Land Rover and a Bushmaster IMV. A politician or public servant may think they are basically the same thing and can do the same job and prefers the cheaper option but when it comes time to do the heavy lifting in a difficult or dangerous environment there is only one real option and it isn't the Land Rover.
Actually numbers have dropped from 14 in 2007 to 12 now and 11 by 2019 and when the number of ANZAC replacements is mentioned it is always "about" half a dozen or 6 which is a further reduction of 2 so we are looking at potentially a total of only 9 frigates and destroyers by 2030 vs the 16 the RAN was meant to have by this time.
I am not counting the cancelled dozen corvettes that were meant to replace the Fremantles or the deferred / cancelled 20 OCVs (combat capable multi-role OPVs / corvettes) that were meant to replace the ACPBs, MCMVs and survey vessels because all talk since the last white paper has been about life extending existing or like for like replacement.
The RAN has not done well at all.
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