Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[hauritz]

I am not sure that I see any advantage in a two tier OCV fleet. I do see some advantage in a mix of OPVs and patrol boats, if there are budget issues.Otherwise I think the RAN would be better off trying to reduce the number of hull types it has in service.

It would not surprise me if a long term project for a light carrier based on the Canberra class was put forward by the white paper. It would probably not happen until around 2030. There would also be some redundancy in that the existing LHDs could act as a backup for the new carrier.

I would also assume that if the concept of operating F-35s off the LHD was promoted then there would also have to be a commitment in the whitepaper to replacing the Super Hornets with the B model.

 

[Volkodav]

Gut feeling, if the F-35B is determined to be a required capability for the ADF, then a purpose built carrier (or two), such as a Cavour, or a modified Izumo, could be the smarter and more affordable way to go. This is assuming a reduction in amphibious capability is to be avoided a purpose built carrier would be better value for money than a pair of compromised LHDs and additional amphibious hulls.

 

[Oberon]

Gut feeling, if the F-35B is determined to be a required capability for the ADF, then a purpose built carrier (or two), such as a Cavour, or a modified Izumo, could be the smarter and more affordable way to go. This is assuming a reduction in amphibious capability is to be avoided a purpose built carrier would be better value for money than a pair of compromised LHDs and additional amphibious hulls.

I think there is still some thought in the UK of selling off either the QE II or PoW once completed. But at 65,000 tonnes they are too big for the RAN. Nevertheless, at second hand prices, they might be a similar cost to a smaller carrier.

 

[RobWilliams]

I think there is still some thought in the UK of selling off either the QE II or PoW once completed. But at 65,000 tonnes they are too big for the RAN. Nevertheless, at second hand prices, they might be a similar cost to a smaller carrier.

Wouldn't count on it. All indications are that the cost to operate compared to purchase cost is so one-sided it would be insane not to.

 

[Volkodav]

Wouldn't count on it. All indications are that the cost to operate compared to purchase cost is so one-sided it would be insane not to.

What we really needed was for the UK to order five QEs and then decide they could only afford three.:

 

[Aize]

Advice

Hi there, i am guessing there is a fair amount of current and past navy sailors in this thread so i hope you don't mind if i go off-topic for a bit to ask some advice. I am a 18 year old from Sydney, NSW and have recently started looking into the navy in order to finish my apprenticeship. I am currently working as a first year apprentice at a high end residential electrical company, mainly working in construction. In all honesty, i absolutely love working in electrical but hate doing it in the residential sector, for a number of various reasons that i won't get into. I have started looking towards the path of Electronics Technician within the navy and at the moment it looks extremely promising. Decent pay, getting to travel, make friends, interesting work. The pro's seem to be endless. On the otherside of the scale, i understand that it is not a walk in the park and is a physically and emotionally demanding, mainly with the fact of spending long periods of time away from family and friends. I have talked with my long-term girlfriend about this and she is 100% willing to support me and move with me if that is what is required but i am just worried that after years this all may build up and be too tolling on her. Does anyone here have any advice on joining the navy and following this career path? do you get used to the isolation? what pro's/con's are there? Tell me your experience and advice.
Thank you so so much, Aize

 

[Volkodav]

Hi there, i am guessing there is a fair amount of current and past navy sailors in this thread so i hope you don't mind if i go off-topic for a bit to ask some advice. I am a 18 year old from Sydney, NSW and have recently started looking into the navy in order to finish my apprenticeship. I am currently working as a first year apprentice at a high end residential electrical company, mainly working in construction. In all honesty, i absolutely love working in electrical but hate doing it in the residential sector, for a number of various reasons that i won't get into. I have started looking towards the path of Electronics Technician within the navy and at the moment it looks extremely promising. Decent pay, getting to travel, make friends, interesting work. The pro's seem to be endless. On the otherside of the scale, i understand that it is not a walk in the park and is a physically and emotionally demanding, mainly with the fact of spending long periods of time away from family and friends. I have talked with my long-term girlfriend about this and she is 100% willing to support me and move with me if that is what is required but i am just worried that after years this all may build up and be too tolling on her. Does anyone here have any advice on joining the navy and following this career path? do you get used to the isolation? what pro's/con's are there? Tell me your experience and advice.
Thank you so so much, Aize

If you want to stay in trade then Marine Technician is the way to go as they handle all the high power electrical, power generation and electrical distribution work on board. Electronics is good too but different from your trade, it is weapons, radars, coms etc. A lot of repair by replacement, fault finding, calibration and setting systems up after resets or change outs of equipment, i.e synchronising the Toplight EOD to the Typhoon gun mount on the Armidale Class PBs. You would also be doing the pre-firing checks on the ships weapons, as well as cleaning and maintaining them.

Anyway all the best with what ever you decide.

 

[StobieWan]

I think there is still some thought in the UK of selling off either the QE II or PoW once completed. But at 65,000 tonnes they are too big for the RAN. Nevertheless, at second hand prices, they might be a similar cost to a smaller carrier.

Not likely and there's no international customer anyway. Everyone who wants a carrier that big and capable, wants domestic build.

 

[t68]

Not likely and there's no international customer anyway. Everyone who wants a carrier that big and capable, wants domestic build.

Even if Ausgov wanted an aircraft carrier it was always going to have to be overseas built, don't have the infrastructure here in oz. the Captain Cook graving dock is large enough to do refits wonder if they could in theory build a ship there?

 

[Volkodav]

Look at it this way, if there was the political will we could build a yard to construct large ships and keep it working building carriers, LHDs, LPDs (or similar) and AORs one after the other indefinitely. At the same time other yards could build Destroyers, Frigates and OPVs in the same way and the remaining yards could survive building blocks for the two main yards as well as bidding for various special purpose vessels.

 

[t68]

Look at it this way, if there was the political will we could build a yard to construct large ships and keep it working building carriers, LHDs, LPDs (or similar) and AORs one after the other indefinitely. At the same time other yards could build Destroyers, Frigates and OPVs in the same way and the remaining yards could survive building blocks for the two main yards as well as bidding for various special purpose vessels.

I remember AG saying Australia could keep a ship yard in constant work permanatly with the amount of hulls we currently have, we only have to replace our hulls every twenty years for continuous work which would be a good thing as new tech can be worked into the ships better from new and we would actually save money on refits

 

[Joe Black]

Just had a whacky idea, has anyone thought of putting the new CEAFAR radar on the FFGs? With 32-40 SM2s, 32 ESSMs and the CEAFAR/CEAMount multiple channel of fire, the FFGs might have a new lease of life, good for another 10 years?

 

[Punta74]

"IF" the 35b cabability was included, and a carrier was added, what would be the "realisitic" and better options :

# 1x QE Class as a primary and have the Canberras as Auxilury during refit.

OR

# 2 x Cavour/Izumo type, and leave the Canberras out of the equation.

You'd be looking at similar cost i'd expect. approx 4bill for 2 x cavour and 4bill for 1 x QE.

Would crew and airwing numbers be similar Opt 1 v's Opt 2?

 

[mankyle]

"IF" the 35b cabability was included, and a carrier was added, what would be the "realisitic" and better options :

# 1x QE Class as a primary and have the Canberras as Auxilury during refit.

OR

# 2 x Cavour/Izumo type, and leave the Canberras out of the equation.

You'd be looking at similar cost i'd expect. approx 4bill for 2 x cavour and 4bill for 1 x QE.

Would crew and airwing numbers be similar Opt 1 v's Opt 2?

By definition it is better to have two hulls than just only one. Even if the capabilities provided by a QE II are much better than those provided by two smaller hulls,,, there are things called maintenance, refits, and specially, ubiquity.

If it is just one hull, you will have one carrier for one part of the year and 0 carriers for the rest of the year. (Which is what happens to the Marine National with their Charles de Gaulle carrier).

With two hulls that period of time where carrier availability is 0 gets reduced. AND with two available hulls yo can deploy two TFs to two different places. If you need more punch you can concentrate more power in just one place by sending both ships to the same place.

 

[PeterM]

It is a long shot for sure, but could a purchase of Prince of Wales happen?

from a recent article

[/quote]
That ship - HMS Prince of Wales - is costing £3 billion. But despite the cost, the government has yet to decided whether, on completion, it will sail her, sell her or mothball her.

That decision will be taken in the next defence review in 2015.

Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carrier: Will the UK get a pair? - ITV News
[/quote]

I guess if things are that fiscally tight for the UK, dropping to one carrier would also reduce the number of f-35b's they would need to procure.

Presumably if the RAN were to purchase the ship they would also procure the intended aircraft.

I don't see it happening. I guess if we were serious we could try and build our own.

Question for the experts, would it be possible to scale down version of the CVF to perhaps 1/ to 2/3 of the size?

I guess the other option would be a full STOVL version of the Izumo which presumably would require fitting a ski jump and heat-shielded flight decks. What kind of aircraft load could be fitted?
Considering the move towards closer military ties with Japan, perhaps this option is the most realistic scenario?

The entire concept of a possible RAN carrier has me stunned.

 

[rjtjrt]

It seems hat in the past when work has been provided to the shipyards some have looked the gift horse in the mouth and the unions (and presumably the management also have failed to stand up to them) have played merry hell.
Originally the contract for Durance AOR was for 2 shis, but the performance of the shipbuilder/yard was such that second never got ordered (Sydney Yard).
If I recall correctly there were initial problems with ANZACS, but sorted out ? With some extra people from German designer seconded here, and turned it around, but I stand to be corrected on this.
(Then issues with Collins Class, but not so much with the yard but with the ambitious project. The weld issue on Collins - not sure who that was due to but I seem to recall not the yard.)
Now issues with AWD ++.
I suspect the government is reluctant to provisde a guaranteed long term work schedule as they know the unions will see that as a job for life no matter how they perform, and a way to hold the yard/government to ransom with outrageous demands and work practices.
Australian yards have to prove they can perform in order to get the long term guaranteed work ( yes I know, chicken and egg - without long term work they can't keep trained workforce or develop efficiencies).
Basically government don't trust shipyard management or workforce/union.

 

[PeterM]

If we did buil an stovl carrier based on an Izumo, it would be likely be built in Japan like leveraging their experience with the type.

 

[Volkodav]

It seems hat in the past when work has been provided to the shipyards some have looked the gift horse in the mouth and the unions (and presumably the management also have failed to stand up to them) have played merry hell.
Originally the contract for Durance AOR was for 2 shis, but the performance of the shipbuilder/yard was such that second never got ordered (Sydney Yard).
If I recall correctly there were initial problems with ANZACS, but sorted out ? With some extra people from German designer seconded here, and turned it around, but I stand to be corrected on this.
(Then issues with Collins Class, but not so much with the yard but with the ambitious project. The weld issue on Collins - not sure who that was due to but I seem to recall not the yard.)
Now issues with AWD ++.
I suspect the government is reluctant to provisde a guaranteed long term work schedule as they know the unions will see that as a job for life no matter how they perform, and a way to hold the yard/government to ransom with outrageous demands and work practices.
Australian yards have to prove they can perform in order to get the long term guaranteed work ( yes I know, chicken and egg - without long term work they can't keep trained workforce or develop efficiencies).
Basically government don't trust shipyard management or workforce/union.

I would just like to point out that in every case of poor performance on a ship building project it followed a period of no orders or work, I.e. a valley of death and the majority of projects that performed well followed other projects that the yard was able to get up to speed on.

 

[Punta74]

If we did buil an stovl carrier based on an Izumo, it would be likely be built in Japan like leveraging their experience with the type.

No sure how accurate it is but there is a Japanese Catobar design i saw a while ago.

Link below sorry, if someone can add the link.

Jsw.newpacificinstitute.org/?p=10182

 

[hauritz]

If the RN really wanted to sell one of its carriers I am really not sure who would buy it.

India have their own carrier program up and running ... well perhaps stumbling more than running. Brazil perhaps ...or maybe France could consider it. In both cases it would be a long shot.

In Australia's case we probably won't have fighters for it until 2030. In fact the navy might struggle to spare more than a handful of helicopters for it.