Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

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ASSAIL

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Another "interesting" view on why we even need submarines or if we do want them, the need to build them at home.

Naval gazing in an era of lethal missiles
Interesting is probably the wrong word, the correct word has something to do with plumbing.
The author is a defence cynic and has not written a single positive article on the ADF. His strategic credentials are no better than mine, the average punter.
Flush it away
 

Todjaeger

Potstirrer
Another "interesting" view on why we even need submarines or if we do want them, the need to build them at home.

Naval gazing in an era of lethal missiles
Interesting indeed. And clearly someone who has NFI what he is writing about. What good is an Australian missile system, without kit to deploy the missiles?

Or given the content of his article, what good are pristine, undamaged shore petro facilities if the tankers et. al. never manage to reach port, having been sunk, captured, or detained en route?

Similarly, how can an Australian system protect, if a foe is able to close the engagement range because long-ranged RAN ISR assets no longer exist?

It almost seems like he thinks long-range missiles are a new concept. They are not. He also seems to think that land-based missiles can provide the protection Australia needs, without supporting and complimentary capabilities and assets. Missiles do not provide a magical, unpenetrable "wall" as the writer seems to think.

If the article allowed comments, I would probably leave a few choice ones for him, both to educate his readership, and hopefully draw attention to his apparent lack of understanding on defence matters so that he stops writing about something he knows little about, or illustrate if he should be knowledable, that he is deliberately misrepresenting facts to obfuscate what is viable and what is not, to advance some personal or professional agenda.
 

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
I listened to the Defence Minister Kevin Andrews deliver this speech to the ASPI Surface Ship Conference in Canberra this am.

If all the words transformed into action it bodes well for the Australian shipbuilding industry and for the RAN. The so called "valley of death" can not be avoided but there does seem to be a commitment to lessen the effect by intimating that the government will announce the construction of a number of OPV's (that's my take on it) I hope they follow the plan of an 80 mtr/2,000 tonne ship which would give substance to filling the shipbuilding void.

In a reply to Andrews, ALP's David Feney also endorsed a "continuous build" philosophy but his emphasis seemed to be on other agency vessels, research, Antarctic, Customs etc. in lieu of war-fighting ships although he did support a future frigate. If Labor wins the next election I only hope this man becomes our Minister rather than the Conroy train wreck.

Minister for Defence – ASPI Australia’s Future Surface Fleet Conference « ForeignAffairs.co.nz
Feney is without a doubt better than Conroy but still far from ideal as he was one of the faceless men who knifed Rudd. This was not because he was a Gillard supporter, or that he thought it was necessary for the country, it was apparently purely due to Rudd biting his head off and putting him down in front of colleagues when he interrupted Rudd and made light of the situation as he was telling off other Labor parliamentarians over abusing parliamentary privileges. It has been reported he left the room muttering that he would fix the c**t and pretty much kicked off the coup that day.
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Interesting is probably the wrong word, the correct word has something to do with plumbing.
The author is a defence cynic and has not written a single positive article on the ADF. His strategic credentials are no better than mine, the average punter.
Flush it away
If it was published tomorrow I would have got the joke.....

what a pillock
 

t68

Well-Known Member
Australia's embattled naval shipbuilding industry will be thrown a lifeline by Defence Minister Kevin Andrews, who will present a plan for continuous construction of warships to avoid periodic job losses and shore up political support across three states.

Mr Andrews will on Tuesday reveal the Abbott government is considering "a continuous build strategy" for more than $100 billion in new warships, submarines and other naval vessels over the next 20 years.

But he will warn that the industry must lift woeful productivity on existing big ship projects, that there may not be room for as many shipbuilders in the future and that warships may have to be retired from service much earlier than is currently the case for the scheme to work.

The naval shipbuilding industry is currently going through a periodic trough due to a lack of new ship projects, which means thousands of jobs are likely to be shed over the next two years.

Layoffs have already started at BAE Systems Australia's Williamstown shipyard in Melbourne, which has up to 1400 employees, at Forgacs' shipyard in Newcastle, which has up to 900 employees, and at Adelaide-based government-owned ASC, which boasts 1100 jobs.

Any rolling construction plan is likely to be released with a new Defence white paper in an effort to shore up jobs and political support in South Australia, Victoria and NSW ahead of a federal election.

"One of the options we're looking at to sustain a shipbuilding industrial base and avoid [the] peaks and troughs we are experiencing –*and have experienced in the past –*is the feasibility of a continuous build strategy, with the regular pace of delivering new warships," Mr Andrews will tell an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference on the future of Australia's navy warship fleet in Canberra.

"By adopting such an approach the industry would no longer be characterised by a stop-start approach to naval shipbuilding.

"This would require Defence to carefully manage its acquisition processes and keep future frigates operational for relatively less time than has been the norm to date."

'HARD DECISIONS' REQUIRED

Mr Andrews will say the current approach isn't working because it is expensive, provides no long-term certainty to workers, and doesn't enable industry to plan investment or provide the necessary skills base.

He will say that "the only way Australia can continue to have a naval shipbuilding industry is if the industry is properly structured to drive efficiencies and improve productivity. This will require hard decisions and a commitment to a productivity-based culture from all parties –*including unions."

Unlike in Japan, where a continuous build program for its submarines means boats are built at a steady rate and one is retired as another is built, Australian governments tend to have gaps of years between build programs.

Though Mr Andrews has announced a new program to build 21 patrol boats for Pacific nations which is being keenly contested by shipbuilders such as BAE Systems, this is not a big enough program to fill the so-called "valley of death" as the jobs trough is now known.

A review of naval shipbuilding found Australia may not be able to support two big shipbuilders and recommended a tie-up between BAE Systems and ASC's shipbuilding arm.*

Fabrication flaws on the $8.5 billion program to build three 6500-tonne air warfare destroyers in Adelaide have delayed the project by two years and seen costs blow out by $800 million.

The $3 billion project to build two 29,000-tonne large troop transport ships is also winding down.

The government came in for heavy criticism from the SA government and shipbuilding unions after it opted to go offshore for a $1 billion project to acquire two 19,500-tonne refuelling ships late last year.

But it is expected to spend $25 billion building up to eight new frigates to replace the by then ageing existing fleet by the mid-2020s.

It is pretty much what a majority of the defence pro's have been sawing for sometime here. Abraham Gubler sumed it up perfectly a few years ago about a single ship yard being able to have a continuous ship building program.

I am also of the belief that we can sustain more than one shipyard, ACS should continue to build submarines with a joint venture between Foracs and BAE building the surface fleet with turning the fleet over every twenty years

Expand Techport in the future will also give us the opportunity to build and replace the LHD, in my veiw if this gets up build the OPV based on the helicopter training ship than the ANZAC replacement we should be able to squeeze in something like Cavour in 15/18 years that way once the Canberra's time to payoff we can still have the Cavour LHA till the next gen LHD is built.
 

Todjaeger

Potstirrer
It is pretty much what a majority of the defence pro's have been sawing for sometime here. Abraham Gubler sumed it up perfectly a few years ago about a single ship yard being able to have a continuous ship building program.

I am also of the belief that we can sustain more than one shipyard, ACS should continue to build submarines with a joint venture between Foracs and BAE building the surface fleet with turning the fleet over every twenty years
The author left a couple of things out. One is that Gov't needs to place orders as well. Even if shipyards are not super efficient, no new orders being booked by Gov't means that eventually the yard will become idle, because the workers have nothing to work on, and the business makes them redundant.

One of the other things not mentioned, is that a good part of the schedule slip was again the work of Gov't, who ordered a slow down, which means that ASC was overstaffed, and valuable highly skilled personnel made redundant. Which in turn meant less good people left working to catch and fix issues earlier, etc.
 

buglerbilly

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
Mr T68 beat me to it...........and it adds nothing of worth to the discussion beyond the fact they know there is a problem, and that they have to come uo with a strategy.

This has been said for years here and elsewhere.

The fact is that BAE, Forgacs nor ASC can all be kept alive as a Naval shipbuuilding entity as a group together, so some very serious decisions need to be made as who is worth keeping or not?
 

John Newman

The Bunker Group
I listened to the Defence Minister Kevin Andrews deliver this speech to the ASPI Surface Ship Conference in Canberra this am.

If all the words transformed into action it bodes well for the Australian shipbuilding industry and for the RAN. The so called "valley of death" can not be avoided but there does seem to be a commitment to lessen the effect by intimating that the government will announce the construction of a number of OPV's (that's my take on it) I hope they follow the plan of an 80 mtr/2,000 tonne ship which would give substance to filling the shipbuilding void.

In a reply to Andrews, ALP's David Feney also endorsed a "continuous build" philosophy but his emphasis seemed to be on other agency vessels, research, Antarctic, Customs etc. in lieu of war-fighting ships although he did support a future frigate. If Labor wins the next election I only hope this man becomes our Minister rather than the Conroy train wreck.

Minister for Defence – ASPI Australia’s Future Surface Fleet Conference « ForeignAffairs.co.nz
I read the same transcript of the speech this morning on the Defence Department website.

A couple of interesting things jumped out at me:

The mention of a 'fleet of OPV's' to replace the ACPB's is interesting, sounds like they are planning to move away from the 'Gillard' plan from the last DWP (which was to 'defer' the OCV's to the 'never never' and go ahead with a replacement class of PB's for the ACPB's with a 'similar' class (probably a modification of the Cape Class for Customs) to going back to a much larger class of ship.

Probably won't be the same plan that Rudd put up, 20 OCV's to replace 24 ships of 4 difference classes, but it sounds like a reasonable start all the same (obviously still have to wait for the Abbott 2015 DWP to see the details).

The other point was the mention of procuring "up to 40 naval surface ships and submarines over the next two decades". Again until the new DWP surfaces around mid year then we can only 'guess' what they might be.

But if we look at what has been 'proposed' over the last couple of DWP's, then those 40 ships would reasonably include the 12 replacement submarines, the 8 Future Frigates (that total's 20), maybe an 'almost' one for one replacement of the ACBP's with the above mentioned OPV's.

That of course leaves replacements (or upgrades) of the Mine warfare ships, the hydrographic ships and of course the 6 LCH.

Talking of the LCH, I came across this the other day:

Landing Ship Transport 100

It's a link to the Damen website for their various landing ship options.

This particular one is the '100', a 100m ship (you can download the 'product sheet' PDF for more details), which looks rather interesting, there are also other options on the Damen website for a larger 120 and a smaller 80.

Looks like an interesting concept for the replacement of the LCH and probably a good 'Valley of Death' filler for say Williamstown to work on too!!
 

Punta74

Member
Questions : Before all this potentially would start, what infrastructure upgrades would have to take place ? Do these have to be done ASAP for a continuous program to be implemented ? What is the current capacity at each location, and what site is best for future expansion should it be a single yard?
 

ASSAIL

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Andrew Davies is spot on (IMHO) in his presentation at the ASPI Surface fleet conference today. His strategic analysis and the resulting surface fleet composition is not very different to the way we are travelling but the government of the day needs to pursue the high/low capability mix (SEA 5000 and SEA 1180) to its conclusion.

A high-low future surface fleet?
 

rjtjrt

Member
Does anyone currently forecast that the RAN will still receive 12 submarines to replace 6 Collins?
It may well turn out to be a Rudd thought bubble, even though 12 can be justified on useful capability, a lot has changed economically since then.
If we do 12, the other useful stuff will presumably have to be foregone.
 

StingrayOZ

Super Moderator
Staff member
Andrew Davies is spot on (IMHO) in his presentation at the ASPI Surface fleet conference today. His strategic analysis and the resulting surface fleet composition is not very different to the way we are travelling but the government of the day needs to pursue the high/low capability mix (SEA 5000 and SEA 1180) to its conclusion.

A high-low future surface fleet?
Seems like a sensible argument we have to pursue the Sea 5000 and Sea 1180. It makes bucket loads of sense. IMO the point when things changed was Timor. We had to do the heavy lifting and we barely, just barely made it. Right off our own coast with no cohesive or real state controlled resistance.I don't think it has to be directly about China. China complicates things but we have had issues and disagreements with our neighbours before and will in the future. PNG, Indonesia, Malaysia are all complicated countries with complicated pasts and complicated futures.

I don't see why Australia can't have 12 subs, 12 very capable surface ships (AWD+Frigate replacement) and 16-20 OPV/OCV/Corvette ships. It is doable. Its required for our region.

It will be interesting exactly how this will be spelt out in the White paper.
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Does anyone currently forecast that the RAN will still receive 12 submarines to replace 6 Collins?
It may well turn out to be a Rudd thought bubble, even though 12 can be justified on useful capability, a lot has changed economically since then.
If we do 12, the other useful stuff will presumably have to be foregone.
its 12 for life of type - which is a sensible thing and would accommodate the valley of death scenarios
 

Joe Black

Active Member
Andrew Davies is spot on (IMHO) in his presentation at the ASPI Surface fleet conference today. His strategic analysis and the resulting surface fleet composition is not very different to the way we are travelling but the government of the day needs to pursue the high/low capability mix (SEA 5000 and SEA 1180) to its conclusion.

A high-low future surface fleet?
Totally agree. Would be good to see patrol corvettes / Offshore Patrol Vessels cum LCS type vessels being procured to replace the Armidale class patrol boats. The Daman OPV 2400 or their Sigma range would be good candidates imho. They are proven design and can easily be built by Australian shipyards. Would be excellent to plug the gap between AWD and Sea 5000.
 

Joe Black

Active Member
its 12 for life of type - which is a sensible thing and would accommodate the valley of death scenarios
I would like to see a continuous build based on 6 Collins, 6 new subs (lets call it the "son of Collins" for now) to make the 12 and then start replacing the Collins on a 1 for 1 basis based on an evolved variant of the son of Collins.
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
I would like to see a continuous build based on 6 Collins, 6 new subs (lets call it the "son of Collins" for now) to make the 12 and then start replacing the Collins on a 1 for 1 basis based on an evolved variant of the son of Collins.
no 3 subs are alike anyway - they are iteratively improved over the LOT build
12 allows for upgrades and decommissioning - so probably 8 in service at any one time
 
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