Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

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old faithful

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Projects in the top end are nearly always way over, the 600M prison in Darwin was supposed to be commisioned in July.
Its now 1.6Billion, and November is 2 days away......waiting, waiting......Another example was the new Parliment House in Canberra.
Due to be opened on Australia day 1988 at a cost of $220.
Opened in May 1988(incomplete) at a cost of 1.1bn, im sure I could find heaps more, but you get the picture....

Unfortunatly, big projects in this country reguarly turn out results like this, and badly managed from woe to go, and Governments are becoming a lot more cautious. The finished product, when we get it, is a joke. Our new 1.6 bn prison is a Ford Explorer, and still, we have ordinary schools and a shoddy hospital.....sorry, rant over.
 

knightrider4

Active Member
Are you an experienced submarine builder by any chance? Highly familiar with ASC, HDW, Kochums and Kawasaki? I would suggest that there are some very experienced and capable people who would find the suggestion that they could build 12 boats in Adelaide for $20billion laughable, quite offensive.
Apologies if the more sensitive among us are offended. Am I an experienced submarine builder certainly not. Am I highly familiar with HDW, ASC, Kockums and Kawasaki certainly not. Do I doubt HDW's claim of 12 boats bulit by ASC for 20 billion on budget and on schedule, certainly do.
 

knightrider4

Active Member
Projects in the top end are nearly always way over, the 600M prison in Darwin was supposed to be commisioned in July.
Its now 1.6Billion, and November is 2 days away......waiting, waiting......

Unfortunatly, big projects in this country reguarly turn out results like this, and badly managed from woe to go, and Governments are becoming a lot more cautious. The finished product, when we get it, is a joke. Our new 1.6 bn prison is a Ford Explorer, and still, we have ordinary schools and a shoddy hospital.....sorry, rant over.
Rant away old mate.
 

knightrider4

Active Member
I have worked for a Japanese company manufacturing in Australia and guess what, they were not perfect and actually had to bring in Germans to fix a lot of their issues.
Never said they were perfect, just they have an excellent record for many years of exporting high technology products. They also produce an extremely advanced conventional submarine in a worlds best practice yard.
 

knightrider4

Active Member
Hi Knightrider, I am not a subscriber, could you post the entire article up. Thanks
Written by Greg Sheriden for The Australian

IT is an open question whether Australia is capable of making a good decision on the most important military acquisition it will make in many years: replacing the six Collins-class submarines.

The crisis is brought about by three policy decisions — three costly mistakes — that the Labor Party has made over the past three decades. The first was to design and build an orphan class of submarines — the Collins — in Australia. The cost was insane, the performance lamentable, the legacy debilitating.

The second was to do nothing about the subs for the six years Labor was in office under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. Rudd’s 2009 defence white paper extravagantly committed to build 12 new subs in Australia.

Impossibly, these were to have range and capabilities far beyond the Collins or any conventional sub, in effect nuclear subs with conventional engines. Having made this grandiose gesture, and stressed its extreme urgency, Labor did nothing of consequence about the subs for its entire term.

The third great Labor policy dereliction has been to frame its response to the Abbott government’s attempt to find a replacement for Collins entirely as a campaign for local jobs in South Australia.

This is critical to the contemporary debate. If Labor wins the next election there will not be a big boost in submarine building jobs in South Australia. Building subs is very expensive. There would be an enormous cost premium, and delay, in designing and building them in Australia. Successive reviews under Labor made it clear that Australia does not have even a fraction of the design, engineering and construction capability such a project would need.

I would bet the house that if Labor is elected next time. the subs policy will be to commit once more to an Australian build but to extend the life of the Collins fleet so that it begins retiring not in 2025 but a decade later. To do that would cost billions and billions of dollars in sustainment and deliver a very feeble, unreliable capability.

But it would allow Labor to claim it had kept its commitment on jobs and on 12 subs, and it would still be much cheaper than actually building or buying new subs.

The Abbott government is trying now with a good deal of urgency to address the Collins replacement. The Collins needs to start going out of service by 2025. You might think that’s a long time. But actually no because Australia’s submarine requirements are so complex.

Because of our geography, because of the sheer size of Australia and the placement of our suitable ports, we need subs with exceptionally long range. There are no long-range conventional subs because every other nation that needs long-range subs uses nuclear subs. We cannot do nuclear subs politically, scientifically and probably also for cost reasons.

The biggest conventional sub is the Japanese Soryu. At present it doesn’t have the range we need. But because it is already so big it would be much easier to give it the range we need than it would be to give any of the other contenders that range.

There are plausible German, Swedish and French options. But the Germans and Swedes do not make a sub anything like the size we need. Their claims at this stage about what they can build and for what price are really just blowing smoke. They would evolve their current subs for our requirements, but the evolution involved is so great it would almost mean designing a new sub. That would probably take quite a few years and the costs would be unpredictable. The French option would be a conventional version of their nuclear sub, but converting a nuclear sub into a conventional sub is also a mammoth engineering task.

So the risk with the European options is that they all involve basically new subs. The risk with the Japanese option is that the Japanese have never exported a sub before so there is a threshold question of whether they would be willing to do so for us. Also, because they haven’t exported subs before, they have no culture of *offering through-life support to exported subs.

If anyone can do this, though, it is the Japanese. The Americans are very keen on this option and would be intimately involved. But a commitment to through-life technical support for Australia would almost require a treaty-level commitment from Tokyo. So there are big technical and political questions about the Japanese option still to be resolved.

Tony Abbott and Japan’s Shinzo Abe want this to happen. It is the sort of imaginative and bold move that could only come about through prime ministerial leadership. If it works it will provide a superb capability for Australia and cement a deep strategic partnership with Japan. All good, even historic. But it might not work. And because there is no time to lose, the government has to be evaluating and progressing the European options at the same time as it is exploring the Japanese possibilities.

That is what the government is doing. I expect some announcements from the government soon, though nothing like a formal decision. A “first pass” cabinet decision is likely early next year, in tandem with the defence white paper, which may still see a couple of contenders in the hunt.

Whatever sub Australia buys, all the deep maintenance and sustainment will be done in Australia. A foreign supplier could indeed build the subs, or at least some of them, in Australia. There would be a massive cost premium even to this, so we would get less capability per dollar of our spend. But any option we choose will involve a great deal of work for South Australia. It is utterly dishonest to present the complex continuum of possibilities as a binary local-made or foreign-bought choice.

The subs are our most important weapons system. They are an asymmetric weapon that imposes enormous costs on an enemy and can do enormous damage. They give us the ability to defend ourselves and they seriously supplement the American maritime position in Asia. We need to get them right. Can we?
 

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Apologies if the more sensitive among us are offended. Am I an experienced submarine builder certainly not. Am I highly familiar with HDW, ASC, Kockums and Kawasaki certainly not. Do I doubt HDW's claim of 12 boats bulit by ASC for 20 billion on budget and on schedule, certainly do.
Ok thought so but just checking. Its good to know that you are basing your opinions the competence and capability of very experienced and highly capable industry participants on pretty much nothing other than public domain opinions by equally inexperienced individuals.

At the end of the day, if the government ignores professional advice on the selection of systems and subcontractors, as they have done in the past, there will be issues. If they are able to control themselves, select a competent prime and leave them alone to do the job they were hired to do, without cutting funding, or stretching the schedule, things will likely run smoothly.
 

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Greg has written an interesting piece, edit out a couple of irrelevant paragraphs that are more political partisanship and uninformed crap than anything else and you are left with some semi reasonable questions. Unfortunately, although those questions will have been answered by competent professionals the decisions will still be made by bean counters with no technical background in the field.

The point most seem to miss is that there is only one class of long range conventional submarines that are suitable for the missions given to the RAN by successive Australian governments and that is the Collins Class. Designed by the Swedes and built in Australia, every other option is either an unproven paper design or designed for a different mission set, a different operating environment, a different operational concept and will require very major and risky redesign..
 

knightrider4

Active Member
Ok thought so but just checking. Its good to know that you are basing your opinions the competence and capability of very experienced and highly capable industry participants on pretty much nothing other than public domain opinions by equally inexperienced individuals.

At the end of the day, if the government ignores professional advice on the selection of systems and subcontractors, as they have done in the past, there will be issues. If they are able to control themselves, select a competent prime and leave them alone to do the job they were hired to do, without cutting funding, or stretching the schedule, things will likely run smoothly.
Pleas enlighten us all on what information you are privvy to??? I understand you worked for ASC some years ago in what capacity may I ask? Didn't the RAND Corporation undertake a study which concluded that we no longer possess the ability to design and build boats in Australia in the time frame required. Maybe they were just basing their conclusions on open source literature available in the public domain. Your point of cutting funding and stretching the scedule I assume refers to the AWD build? Indeed the ALP policy of interference for a quick political point is lamentable.
 

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Pleas enlighten us all on what information you are privvy to??? I understand you worked for ASC some years ago in what capacity may I ask? Didn't the RAND Corporation undertake a study which concluded that we no longer possess the ability to design and build boats in Australia in the time frame required. Maybe they were just basing their conclusions on open source literature available in the public domain. Your point of cutting funding and stretching the scedule I assume refers to the AWD build? Indeed the ALP policy of interference for a quick political point is lamentable.
Based on the Rand survey I filled out I have serious concerns as to whether they could tell the difference between a US high school diploma and an Australian para-professional / professional diploma, associate diploma, or advanced diploma of the type held by the majority of highly experienced designers, draftsmen, technical officers, technicians, coordinators, tradesmen, planners, supervisors, and managers at ASC, just the sort of people Rand claimed ASC doesn't have enough of.

Subs are a political football, Labor cares more about jobs and industrial models than the capability delivered choosing designs and systems based on jobs generated and industry capability acquired, rather than what was best for the capability, while the Liberals want to bash Labor by knocking the good along with the bad and be seen as good managers who fix Labors stuff ups by blowing the issues out of all proportion and spending up big on shiny fixes while overlooking unsexy but critical stuff. End result the general public think the project was a failure when it was a success and the sustainment is stuffed up by too much money being spent on some stuff and not enough on others. I.e the cheap to fit ultra fast breakers and electronic governors that would have dramatically improved the performance, durability and reliability of the drive trains were delayed over and over again while hundreds of millions more than needed to be spent was invested in a new combat system.

I worked in engineering and test but was also involved in continuous improvement, which is where I got the overview of how things work there.

ASC is not perfect but most of the problems have been created by its owners, the Australian government, both Labor and Coalition. Every time an ASC CEO stands up to the government on commercial or operational grounds they are pushed out, by the government appointed board and a temporary replacement comes in. They oversee a couple of reviews, make a stack of experienced white collar staff redundant to cut costs before a permanent replacement comes in an replaces most of the redundant positions because everything has ground to a halt. It's a vicious, pointless, wasteful cycle, if a privately owned company was run like this it would go broke, a public company would see a shareholder revolt, sacking the board.

The skills and experience is there, they are the only yard to have built maintained and upgraded large ocean going subs of this type, in spite of the challenges. All they need is quality and consistency in leadership. Don't get me wrong, they have some incredibly experienced and capable board members but there are also political hacks and then the elephant in the room, ASC is owned by the department of Finance, a bunch of bean counters!
 

t68

Well-Known Member
Ok thought so but just checking. Its good to know that you are basing your opinions the competence and capability of very experienced and highly capable industry participants on pretty much nothing other than public domain opinions by equally inexperienced individuals.

Sorry Volk but would that not be the case for 95% of the members here and the general public who have to go to the polls everyone in a while. Joe citizen can only go by what's written in the public domain and goverment and industry press releases generally blow so much sunshine up where we can't to make themselves look good that it's virtually impossible for the layman to get an accurate picture on what's really going on.
 

alexsa

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
The latest "scoop" on ASC and the Adelaide workforce.

New frigates

Funny, it doesn't mention the latest announcements in the last 36 hours from Spain on their frigate developments.

Perhaps a "leak" to someone who can't be bothered doing their own research.
Sorry, had to pick myself up off the floor and stop laughing ............. love the "these ships can go two years without docking" .................. I should bloody hope so!
 

aussienscale

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Sorry, had to pick myself up off the floor and stop laughing ............. love the "these ships can go two years without docking" .................. I should bloody hope so!
Also seems like Adelaide is now to be the centre of ship building for the universe !! Guessing this means Williamstown will be demolished and turned into bay front real estate then ?
 

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Sorry Volk but would that not be the case for 95% of the members here and the general public who have to go to the polls everyone in a while. Joe citizen can only go by what's written in the public domain and goverment and industry press releases generally blow so much sunshine up where we can't to make themselves look good that it's virtually impossible for the layman to get an accurate picture on what's really going on.
Which is exactly why politicians of all colours spin and repeat stuff that is not true. The submarine debate often splits, among the uninformed, down political lines because it is a political football. When working at on the AWD I was often lectured by a right leaning, Bolt reading, Jones listening, colleague about how bad the subs were, he was strangely silent on our project but joined the corus hammering the submarine business on purely political grounds.

There is uninformed BS everywhere which is why we try to be even handed and present facts in here. There are often disagreements on opinion but were the facts are concerned we try and play it down the line. We are grown up enough to realize that the ABC has a predominately left perspective and the Murdoch media slants to the right. What you need to do is look at who is saying what and decide, first of all do they actually know what they are talking about, but then also what is their bias. I have often been caught by media misinformation but try to filter it based on the stuff I know for fact and how it has been reported.

The constant attacks on Australian science, engineering and manufacturing along political lines really annoys me as it is damaging to the country as a whole. It denigrates some things we are very good at and denies us the opportunity to even try, let alone prove ourselves.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
Which is exactly why politicians of all colours spin and repeat stuff that is not true. The submarine debate often splits, among the uninformed, down political lines because it is a political football. When working at on the AWD I was often lectured by a right leaning, Bolt reading, Jones listening, colleague about how bad the subs were, he was strangely silent on our project but joined the corus hammering the submarine business on purely political grounds.

There is uninformed BS everywhere which is why we try to be even handed and present facts in here. There are often disagreements on opinion but were the facts are concerned we try and play it down the line. We are grown up enough to realize that the ABC has a predominately left perspective and the Murdoch media slants to the right. What you need to do is look at who is saying what and decide, first of all do they actually know what they are talking about, but then also what is their bias. I have often been caught by media misinformation but try to filter it based on the stuff I know for fact and how it has been reported.

The constant attacks on Australian science, engineering and manufacturing along political lines really annoys me as it is damaging to the country as a whole. It denigrates some things we are very good at and denies us the opportunity to even try, let alone prove ourselves.
Unfortunately the line "money talks, BS walks", doesn't seem to apply to politicians like it does in the private sector.

The site here has the annoucement about the Baracuda's conventional derivative. Can this sub get close enough to RAN requirements?
 

t68

Well-Known Member
Which is exactly why politicians of all colours spin and repeat stuff that is not true. The submarine debate often splits, among the uninformed, down political lines because it is a political football. When working at on the AWD I was often lectured by a right leaning, Bolt reading, Jones listening, colleague about how bad the subs were, he was strangely silent on our project but joined the corus hammering the submarine business on purely political grounds.

There is uninformed BS everywhere which is why we try to be even handed and present facts in here. There are often disagreements on opinion but were the facts are concerned we try and play it down the line. We are grown up enough to realize that the ABC has a predominately left perspective and the Murdoch media slants to the right. What you need to do is look at who is saying what and decide, first of all do they actually know what they are talking about, but then also what is their bias. I have often been caught by media misinformation but try to filter it based on the stuff I know for fact and how it has been reported.

The constant attacks on Australian science, engineering and manufacturing along political lines really annoys me as it is damaging to the country as a whole. It denigrates some things we are very good at and denies us the opportunity to even try, let alone prove ourselves.

Very thought provoking post their Volk, trouble withe both sides of the political divide they are more interested in hammering each other to score cheap political points. We used to have a can do outlook but it seems with the onset of the global outlook we have stopped to see what we can actually do

Agree in respects that we have a lot of very smart people here and don't do enough to let them shine and showcase our abilities
 

old faithful

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Volk, I own and a run a small manufacturing buisness.
I am the owner (wife may dispute this) manager, and production line.
I manufacture old style, timber, barramundi fishing lures.
I make about 25% profit on each lure, orders for my lures range from 15 to 250 units.
I make really nice barra lures, im good at it, and I enjoy it.
now, if I have some family members in Indonesia make them, I get 50% profit, and the quality of the lures is, ah hem , better than mine. I actually cant buy the materials here for the same price as a complete unit made there. Manufacturing in Australia is already a dinosaur. Im not saying its right, or good, In fact its the opposite!
Unions are partly to blame for this, they have made it so difficult and expensive to manufacture anything in this country, that they have forced us to go off shore for nearly everything. The Chinese are also to blame, making products so cheap, local buisness cant compete. Look at cars. If this country did not allow the Koreans and Chinese to import and sell their cheap brands, then GMH and Ford might have had a future.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
Volk, I own and a run a small manufacturing buisness.
I am the owner (wife may dispute this) manager, and production line.
I manufacture old style, timber, barramundi fishing lures.
I make about 25% profit on each lure, orders for my lures range from 15 to 250 units.
I make really nice barra lures, im good at it, and I enjoy it.
now, if I have some family members in Indonesia make them, I get 50% profit, and the quality of the lures is, ah hem , better than mine. I actually cant buy the materials here for the same price as a complete unit made there. Manufacturing in Australia is already a dinosaur. Im not saying its right, or good, In fact its the opposite!
Unions are partly to blame for this, they have made it so difficult and expensive to manufacture anything in this country, that they have forced us to go off shore for nearly everything. The Chinese are also to blame, making products so cheap, local buisness cant compete. Look at cars. If this country did not allow the Koreans and Chinese to import and sell their cheap brands, then GMH and Ford might have had a future.
Many of your points are applicable to Canada as well. Our auto industry greatly benefited from the old Auto Pact agreement with the U.S. prior to the NAFTA. With Mexico offering minimum wages and benefits, it is just a matter of time before the D3, Honda, and Toyota abandon Canada. The same is true for many other manufacturers. I am not sure about about Australia's foreign ownership of local companies but Canada has a huge percentage of foreign controlled companies and they will do what is in their best interests or what their respective governments tell them to do.

Free trade is not fair trade and the concept of service economies replacing manufacturing economies is BS. If you need war material, it needs to be manufactured, not imported from a potential enemy. Yes, we have great R&D and creative vision for all sorts of stuff....doesn't mean jack$hit if only your potential adversaries can manufacture the stuff.
 
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