I see amusingly the SEA 1000 debate is getting a little ridiculous. Senator Nick weighing in on SKY news, the poor bugger really is clueless, typical lawyer. In all of the debate going on the fact remains that in tight fiscal times how can one justify spending roughly double the price to have submarines built here.By no means am I saying that ASC is incapable of producing these boats but a clean sheet design which the 216 is essentially having never been built and no in depth design work being done is a risky proposition at best. The Soryu class is highly capable even more so if one ditches the AIP and goes with the Lithium Ion battery setup the Japanese will be using from the 6th boat onwards. Do I care where the Soryu boats are built no I don't. Do I want my tax dollars spent wisely very much so. The HDW boats have some well documented ball ups just ask the Hellenic Navy although I see the proponents of the HDW offering don't want to mention that. Much better for ASC to grab the future frigates which I would bet money on that they will be based on the F100 hull. Governments don't spend 70 odd million on preliminary design work which wont come to fruition. Whatever happens SC will have to wittle down n that 160 man hours per tonne and get somewhere close to world standard before they given even contemplate expecting further orders.
I am very concerned at the different costs being quoted, they are all over the place and I get the impression that the different interest groups are inventing figures that support their arguments. The only ones we are not hearing from are ASC as they are government owned and restricted from commenting.
It seems that the cost of a local build, let alone a local design and build, has doubled and I wonder what justification there could be for this, besides the obvious of trying to make what was a serious option look unaffordable. I feel there is a lot of smoke and mirrors going on here, with the costs of many of the off the shelf options now being as high or higher than the local option was said to be just over a year ago. It seems that there is an effort to justify higher than expected MOTS and modified MOTS options by claiming a local effort would be "twice" as expensive, without any real justification, too bad the local builder / designer has been gagged and discredited by a concerted media and political campaign so is not in a position to counter the more unrealistic / dishonest claims.
The unfortunate result of all this is may be far worse than Australia paying more than we should, or the RAN not getting the capability they need; we could actually go backwards through acquiring an unsuitable capability that is not up to the job and is so far off the mark it cannot be upgraded to fix things (I.e too small or a design that is too compromised). Even worse, the spiraling cost estimates, combined with a falling Australian dollar, after the local option has been ruled out and made impossible through the degradation of local capability, could result in the Collins not being replaced at all and the RAN submarine capability being disbanded as unaffordable and unsustainable.
