Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[Volkodav]

The lies relate to the blocks BAEwrecked, derailing the original schedule, known problems with F-105 that Navantia did not advise us of and instead of fixing the problems they just left them hoping we wouldn't notice and Raytheon blaming ASC for delays, telling anyone who would listen how incompetent ASC is when they have effectively controlled the Alliance since Gillards defence cuts saw many ASC and Commonwealth personnel made redundant. Raytheon are a class act, they rant about everyone else being incompetent and have many power points and charts, literally plastering walls, but when you drill down to what they have actually done the answer is sweet FA, they do have a lot of people stepping outside of established process specifically to look busy and justify their positions without actually doing much.

Their are many stories about ASC but very few of them actually contain any comment from ASC rather the opinions of people on the outside.

On the PM side, Tenix were good but were starved of work and sold out to BAE who as demonstrated in LAND 121 can't even manage the procurement of a military truck FOV using proven US Army MOTS base vehicles and components. Look at BAE globally, even when they have bought out successful players, their management style soon comes to play and the problems start.

The biggest issue with shipbuilding is its stop start nature in Australia, it takes time to get up to speed but then the work dries up and the team disperses. On AWD they tried to avert this by head hunting experienced people for key roles and contracting BIW as an industry partner. When defence cuts saw most of the expensive key people made redundant and the BIW people sent home Raytheon gleefully put as many of their people as possible into the vacant roles. When it became apparent the Raytheon people knew bucklies about building ships ASC began head hunting ex Tenix people BAE hadn't wanted / kept.

The biggest single issue is a lack of continuity. There was enough work pending for Tenix to have continued their success with the ANZACs to build replacements for the DDGs and FFGs, before turning their attention to LHDs, AORs, LCHs, patrol boats and then eventually the ANZACs. Instead the procurement was delayed and then when restarted was given to ASC, absolutely brainless politically driven insanity. Now ASC is getting upto speed, Raytheon and BAE, seeing the opportunity to be made prime for future build have stabbed ASC in the back and then promised to fix things, if only the government opens their check book.

 

[ASSAIL]

Thanks for listening..............apologies if I get over-emotive about some aspects but if you cannot believe passionately in some things, don't believe at all and keep your mouth shut............

Globalisation hit the Primary industries decades ago when tariffs were removed. They suffered dreadfully, changed their business models and survived smarter and leaner. No manufacturer or their workers shed tears then.

Faced with globalisation, manufacturing should have responded, they didn't and continued seeking "sustenance" from government. They are not special.

The much maligned coal industry employs 50,000 directly and another 150,000 indirectly, they pay high wages and employ many highly skilled staff and pay state governments $18.3 billion and the federal govt. $10 why do we criticize them?. We should reap the benefit while we can and not try to treat manufacturing any differently to other sectors, they will learn and change just as the farmers did or they will cease to exist.

Back to naval shipbuilding; yes it would be nice to have a continuous programmes but given the lack of any long term bi partisan plan, such as the USN 30 yr plan, this won't happen. We are therefore left with the incredibly inefficient, stop start activity we are all familiar with where one side considers capability and cost as the prime issues and the other uses naval shipbuilding as a job creation scheme whatever the cost.

Its probably time to get this to another thread or back to the RAN?

 

[Volkodav]

Ironically coal is very heavily subsidised, far more so than automotive ever was, can't lay my hands on the article but I do remember reading that Clive Palmers' operations alone received more assistance than automotive manufacturing. Also with the global move to cutting emissions and hence away from thermal coal the industry can be expected to take a big hit over the next decade. I imagine in thirty years time the only coal we will be exporting will be coking coal for steel production. Gas is another matter and definitely worth ongoing investment.

The biggest issue with automotive was foreign ownership and governments tying assistance to head counts rather than sustainability. What we needed was a follow on to the Button plan, of the late80s early90s, that so dramatically improved productivity, quality and profitability in the 90s and early 2000s. Instead the foreign owners, for the most part, pocketed the profits and failed to reinvest while state governments saw them as make work projects and the workers themselves gouged undeserved wage rises to the point the unions told them they were being greedy. What was needed was vision, what we go was selfish short termism from all directions. Now ship building is going the same way, the difference is, at some point, once everything has ground to a halt the government, maybe Labor, maybe Coalition, possibly even Tony Abbott in his fifth term, will decide to give it another go at the cost of billions.

 

[ASSAIL]

Ironically coal is very heavily subsidised, far more so than automotive ever was, can't lay my hands on the article but I do remember reading that Clive Palmers' operations alone received more assistance than automotive manufacturing. Also with the global move to cutting emissions and hence away from thermal coal the industry can be expected to take a big hit over the next decade. I imagine in thirty years time the only coal we will be exporting will be coking coal for steel production. Gas is another matter and definitely worth ongoing investment.

The biggest issue with automotive was foreign ownership and governments tying assistance to head counts rather than sustainability. What we needed was a follow on to the Button plan, of the late80s early90s, that so dramatically improved productivity, quality and profitability in the 90s and early 2000s. Instead the foreign owners, for the most part, pocketed the profits and failed to reinvest while state governments saw them as make work projects and the workers themselves gouged undeserved wage rises to the point the unions told them they were being greedy. What was needed was vision, what we go was selfish short termism from all directions. Now ship building is going the same way, the difference is, at some point, once everything has ground to a halt the government, maybe Labor, maybe Coalition, possibly even Tony Abbott in his fifth term, will decide to give it another go at the cost of billions.

That's not correct. In 2011-12 Government assistance to industry was $17.3b. This included $7.9b in gross tariffs, $5.1 b in budgetary outlays and $4.3 b in tax concessions.
The manufacturing industry received the highest level of $7.4b followed by primary production $1.6b and mining $0.5b.
Manufacturing had little to complain about. The automotive industry received $30b between 1997 and 2012!
10.1 Industry Assistance

 

[Volkodav]

That's not correct. In 2011-12 Government assistance to industry was $17.3b. This included $7.9b in gross tariffs, $5.1 b in budgetary outlays and $4.3 b in tax concessions.
The manufacturing industry received the highest level of $7.4b followed by primary production $1.6b and mining $0.5b.
Manufacturing had little to complain about. The automotive industry received $30b between 1997 and 2012!
10.1 Industry Assistance

I will have to try and find the article (s) as I remember the general jist but not the detail or references. Anyway it clearly stated that mining, in particular coal mining, have benefited from more assistance than manufacturing and it was definitely the case during much of the 80s and 90s that coal was being exported at a loss i.e. the tax payer covered the difference. The other factor that is not counted in the assistance figures is the inflated prices paid by (particularly Victorian) generators to make coal mining sustainable together with the continued use of coal instead of much cleaner, more efficient natural gas.

Long story short, there is a complex web of assistance built up over decades by vested interests and at different times different industries receive the lions share. Comparing the assistance automotive received following the unilateral tariff reductions, unbalanced FTAs just as competition increased exponentially due to Thailand, South Korea and ramped up production, to what the mining industry gets in the middle of the longest resources boom in our history isn't exactly apples for apples. In the early 90s you could remove the whole tariff from imported cars and you would still be paying more for a small hatch than you would for a locally built large or medium car. The Falcon, Commodore, Camry, Magna was better value and similar (sometimes better) quality than your Golf or Civic. There weren't any Thai cars back then, Japanese and European cars cost a mint and wheels were falling off Hyundais, literally. Nobody really wanted our coal or iron ore at what it cost to produce while we were exporting manufactured goods globally. After more than a decade of targeted investment mining became more economical and manufacturing less so, a lot of the fault lies with the owners of the auto builders but if governments had a plan and provided some consistent direction things would be very different, just look at the UK they have a very healthy foreign owned automotive industry exporting globally.

 

[Volkodav]

I should qualify that I am incredibly, perhaps pathologically, biased, having spent my entire career in manufacturing and engineering. I have worked for companies that were literally global leaders in their fields and also some that I don't know how they stayed in business, but I never hung around for long. I have worked defence, automotive, medical equipment, plumbing, logistics and mining equipment, in a variety of roles ranging from apprentice to production manager but predominantly in engineering, R&D and test. I am a qualified fitter, toolmaker, draftsman, designer and test engineer and was studying a masters in marine engineering before my unexpected retirement.

I could be written off as, and may in fact be, a dinosaur who is out of touch with the times but the thing is I just cannot understand why so many people seem to be so comfortable with Australias move away from manufacturing, away from the very industries that every other country endeavours to build and fights tooth and nail to keep. It troubles me that there are many, especially in parliament, resources and the financial sector who actually seem to revel in the decline of manufacturing, the same old union bashing lines come out, it almost seems that because most factories are unionised many despise manufacturing purely on party lines, an unthinking them and us. Sad but that's how it appears to me.

Anyway I am biased and I am grieving. I just hope things turn around before we become a bankrupt third world country.

 

[rockitten]

I should qualify that I am incredibly, perhaps pathologically, biased, having spent my entire career in manufacturing and engineering. I have worked for companies that were literally global leaders in their fields and also some that I don't know how they stayed in business, but I never hung around for long. I have worked defence, automotive, medical equipment, plumbing, logistics and mining equipment, in a variety of roles ranging from apprentice to production manager but predominantly in engineering, R&D and test. I am a qualified fitter, toolmaker, draftsman, designer and test engineer and was studying a masters in marine engineering before my unexpected retirement.

I could be written off as, and may in fact be, a dinosaur who is out of touch with the times but the thing is I just cannot understand why so many people seem to be so comfortable with Australias move away from manufacturing, away from the very industries that every other country endeavours to build and fights tooth and nail to keep. It troubles me that there are many, especially in parliament, resources and the financial sector who actually seem to revel in the decline of manufacturing, the same old union bashing lines come out, it almost seems that because most factories are unionised many despise manufacturing purely on party lines, an unthinking them and us. Sad but that's how it appears to me.

Anyway I am biased and I am grieving. I just hope things turn around before we become a bankrupt third world country.

I has been working in a subcontractor of Holden and Ford, the public service then back to the industry. I would say, the management and the union(s) in Ford and Holden are both playing no small part of the collapse of auto industry in Australia. Right now, Australian primary industries and service industries/R&D are world class but the manufacturing is a piece of joke. Yes, the build quality of Holden and Ford have been improved over the years, but other parts of the world are improving much faster. As an engineer myself, of coz I would like to see a strong industry in Australia, but hat doesn't mean I would support those subsides/assistance like Holden and Ford have or how they treat that as a norm rather than as a chance for improvement/upgrade.

Back to the naval stuff. If ASC is trying to gain support for home made submarines, they are doing a terrible job. What they should do is work really hard to (or at least showing) improve the efficiency of production, and bargain with the japanese to get a better work share. Instead, ASC is siding with those vapor-ware European submarine which our navy, allies and Canberra don't want, treating the 12 local build submarine "promise" like the divine right of ASC, going on demonstration after being given a chance to improve and joining ALP's anti-japanese/Liberal theme. That won't do ASC any good in terms of getting support from Canberra, Navy, or the general public.

 

[Volkodav]

I has been working in a subcontractor of Holden and Ford, the public service then back to the industry. I would say, the management and the union(s) in Ford and Holden are both playing no small part of the collapse of auto industry in Australia. Right now, Australian primary industries and service industries/R&D are world class but the manufacturing is a piece of joke. Yes, the build quality of Holden and Ford have been improved over the years, but other parts of the world are improving much faster. As an engineer myself, of coz I would like to see a strong industry in Australia, but hat doesn't mean I would support those subsides/assistance like Holden and Ford have or how they treat that as a norm rather than as a chance for improvement/upgrade.

Back to the naval stuff. If ASC is trying to gain support for home made submarines, they are doing a terrible job. What they should do is work really hard to (or at least showing) improve the efficiency of production, and bargain with the japanese to get a better work share. Instead, ASC is siding with those vapor-ware European submarine which our navy, allies and Canberra don't want, treating the 12 local build submarine "promise" like the divine right of ASC, going on demonstration after being given a chance to improve and joining ALP's anti-japanese/Liberal theme. That won't do ASC any good in terms of getting support from Canberra, Navy, or the general public.

ASC is government owned and government funded, submarine maintenance is micro managed and signed off by the government well in advance of being undertaken. The government is also very risk adverse and lacking in technical competence to adequately prioritise or schedule work. The maintenance agreements went down to the level of specifying how many people would be employed to do the work, when a new data management system was introduced, permitting a reduction in head count to get the same work done more efficiently and faster, the government reacted angrily as they had not authorized this efficiency gain. Parts were not allowed to be ordered until surveys confirmed items needed to be replaced or refurbished, even though this had been the case on every MCD and FCD to date. There was no rotable parts pool and the hull was not allowed to be cut to permit equipment to be removed for concurrent maintenance, upgrade or replacement. Upgrades that would have improved reliability, durability and reduced operating costs were not undertaken due to the previously mentioned low risk appetite and also the upfront cost. There was work that experience showed to be required at every major docking that was not permitted to be scheduled until confirmed, even though it would have been cheaper and easier to schedule it and drop it if not required. Scope was often cut from dockings to reduce upfront costs, even though this always increased overall costs. When money was short people were made redundant, irrespective of how much work there was to do, or the effect this would have on efficiency.

The previous government commissioned the Coles enquiry into submarine maintenance looking for a big stick to bash ASC with but instead got a report that highlighted the biggest issue as being penny pinching and micro management by people who were not technically competent was causing delays and cost increases, i.e. deferring maintenance, consistently, despite extensive corporate knowledge, under estimating workscope (as it let them pretend it was cheaper than it was in reality), basically, continual under investment and poor planning, was the root cause of the availability issues and increasing costs of maintenance.

The initial recommendations were adopted immediately and by the time the final report was due the project had been turned around with major improvements in schedule, quality and availability. Basically the report forced the government of the day to step back and let ASC do the job the way they wanted to resulting in the majority of glaringly obvious operational issues, being forced onto ASC by the government, being relaxed and the required work being conducted in a much more efficient and timely manner. One of the biggest visual cues of this was HMAS Collins having the hull above the diesel generators removed permitting major systems and equipment to be removed and worked on concurrently. Little if any of this reaches the mainstream media though with the same old dud subs and ASCbashing continuing unabated. The fact there was an incompetent defence minister, who has now been sacked, didn't help at all.

 

[Volkodav]

By the way I agree on the comments on management in the automotive industry, I worked for TWR on a number of projects at Holdens, they were going places under Hannenburger but went backwards, rapidly, once the more usual American managers returned. While at Mitsubishi, I was horrified to see so much of the R&D budget spent on assessing how many components could be replaced with cheap nasty equivalents that would still make it through warranty, rather than on new or improved products. For instance the TL Magna is actually cheaper, nastier, structurally weaker than the model replaced. It still passed testing but not as easily and wasn't as durable as it predecessor. There was no plan, no incentive to stay ahead of the curve, just a lot of pressure from the bean counters running the show to keep building the same product, but cheaper.

 

[swerve]

Mrs S (who is Japanese) wouldn't buy a Mitsubishi. She says that they got a bad reputation in Japan for reliability some years ago, & there were stories of it being because corners were cut. That may have changed since, but she doesn't believe in spots changing.

 

[Volkodav]

Mrs S wouldn't buy a Mitsubishi. She says that they got a bad reputation in Japan for reliability some years ago, & there were stories of it being because corners were cut. That may have changed since, but she doesn't believe in spots changing.

Mitsubishi Motor Corporation used to have two versions of their certification test reports, the one they provided the certifying body to prove the product was safe and fit to sell and the actual test reports with the real results, locked in safes, retained for R&D purposes. They were caught out and ended up being bought out by Daimler before reverting to Mitsubishi Corporation control several years later.

My memories of working for them are that it was almost impossible to get them to change any Japan sourced components, no matter how conclusive the proof it needed to be done. The impression I got was it was racism, they were perfect, we were not, therefore it was impossible for us to have identified issues they had not. That said, I used to get paid good money to wreck cars for a living, so in the greater scheme of things it didn't bother me that much.

 

[Joe Black]

Japan Proposes Joint Work on Australia Sub Fleet

Report: Japan Proposes Joint Work on Australia Sub Fleet

It appears the game is now changing with Tokyo now trying to get pollies buy in with some local involvement rather than a full MOTS solution.

I would still like to see half the fleet built locally with progressive technology transfer. I also see that we shouldn't have all 12 boats built the same technology and spec, perhaps the first 6 being an Australianised Soryu and the next 6 being a flight II or evolved version with latest technology and thinking in sub surface warefare (eg. UUV, special forces vehicles, etc)

 

[Todjaeger]

Report: Japan Proposes Joint Work on Australia Sub Fleet

It appears the game is now changing with Tokyo now trying to get pollies buy in with some local involvement rather than a full MOTS solution.

I would still like to see half the fleet built locally with progressive technology transfer. I also see that we shouldn't have all 12 boats built the same technology and spec, perhaps the first 6 being an Australianised Soryu and the next 6 being a flight II or evolved version with latest technology and thinking in sub surface warefare (eg. UUV, special forces vehicles, etc)

Builds of four would be better IMO, done with progressive improvements in each successive iteration.

What I wonder about is how much similarity there actually is between RAN sub conops and operational reqs, and those of Japan. AIP has not been a worthwhile techset for the RAN as an example, with the space/weight being better allocated for other capabilities. What might be a better option would be for the RAN to form a partnership with Japan to adapt/develope specific overall techsets and a broadly similar design (i.e. common hullform, etc) with enough inherent flexibility so that different final designs can be done for the differing Australian and Japanese requirements.

-Cheers

 

[Milne Bay]

Builds of four would be better IMO, done with progressive improvements in each successive iteration.

What I wonder about is how much similarity there actually is between RAN sub conops and operational reqs, and those of Japan. AIP has not been a worthwhile techset for the RAN as an example, with the space/weight being better allocated for other capabilities. What might be a better option would be for the RAN to form a partnership with Japan to adapt/develope specific overall techsets and a broadly similar design (i.e. common hullform, etc) with enough inherent flexibility so that different final designs can be done for the differing Australian and Japanese requirements.

-Cheers

Yes, I agree on the batches or Flights idea - perhaps threes if a total build of twelve is envisaged.
AFAIK the Japanese have ditched the AIP for future variants of the Soryu anyway, so there should be room to play with.
MB

 

[buglerbilly]

The Japanese are ditching the AIP because they are moving to a full compliment of new batteries:

Japan has decided to power its new batch of Soryu-class submarines with Lithium-ion batteries instead of air-independent propulsion (AIP) technology

More batteries, lower maintenance, supposedly far better range, all within the existing hull form............

 

[aussienscale]

AFAIK the Japanese have ditched the AIP for future variants of the Soryu anyway, so there should be room to play with.
MB

Correct, they are doing away with AIP, and moving to Lithium-Ion Batteries instead

Japan To Make Major Switch on Sub Propulsion | Defense News | defensenews.com

 

[gf0012-aust]

thats why we repeatedly "dismissed" all the chatter about AIP - the tech opportunities over the last 7 years showed what options were on the horizon

journos were chucking around "AIP" like they used to chuck around "stealth" and "5th generation"

fundamentally clueless

 

[Volkodav]

thats why we repeatedly "dismissed" all he chatter about AIP - the tech opportunities over the last 7 years showed what options were on the horizon

journos were chucking around "AIP" like they used to chuck around "stealth" and "5th generation"

fundamentally clueless

Which also shows that the Australian submarine people, who supposedly don't know what they are doing, have been saying what the Japanese, after heading down a dead end, are now doing. While the Japanese were planning AIP, DSME, ASC and PMB, were all saying AIP is a dead end and an improved, bigger battery is the way to go.

The battery has been one of the success stories on the Collins but the only time you hear anything about it is when the media think there's a problem or a politician thinks there are some points to be scored. ASC aren't the only losers PMB has developed products suitable for a new generation of subs but a Japanese deal will see them, the world leader in the field miss out.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Which also shows that the Australian submarine people, who supposedly don't know what they are doing, have been saying what the Japanese, after heading down a dead end, are now doing. While the Japanese were planning AIP, DSME, ASC and PMB, were all saying AIP is a dead end and an improved, bigger battery is the way to go.

yep, they had enough data from sims and exercise vignettes to know that AIP was not the holy grail

the media sub debate is heading down the same quality path as the JSF debate

all colour and movement, public theatre and almost zero proper combat analysis but lots of content copy and paste from other loud and similarly ill informed colleagues to make up for proper research.

 

[Volkodav]

yep, they had enough data from sims and exercise vignettes to know that AIP was not the holy grail

the media sub debate is heading down the same quality path as the JSF debate

all colour and movement, public theatre and almost zero proper combat analysis but lots of content copy and paste from other loud and similarly ill informed colleagues to make up for proper research.

Many don't realise that the Japanese, or whoever we decide to buy subs from, will gain a lot from the arrangement as well. There is a lot of know how in Australia relating to the design, maintenance and operation of long range ocean going conventional subs. Particularly if Japan is aiming to begin submarine operations outside of their home waters they will have a lot to learn from the RAN, DSME and ASC.