Royal New Zealand Navy Discussions and Updates

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
There's been much hand wringing about the NH 90/MRH 90 over the last months but it seems that the Flight in HMAS Choules did very well during TS 2015.

I only hope that this trend continues over time with the entire fleet because neither ANZs need a rotary fiasco for such a critical capability.

MRH90 proving indispensable | Navy Daily
Many of the problems appear to have been overcome I believe there are still some outstanding issues but no show stoppers. The main issue was the delays in delivery, certification and IOC, due to Australia's mistaken belief they had bought a MOTS platform, things got so bad that the CoA stopped payment and in part payment of compensation the ADF was provided with an additional airframe.

Better late than never, just look how badly Sea Sprite went, then again look at Romeo and CH-47F for an idea of how a UH-60M buy would have gone.
 

Ocean1Curse

Member
I came across the Navies 2020 strategic plane via there Facebook page.

Amongst the Anzac upgrades, Endeavour replacement and LOSC. A third OPV will replace two IPV's. All to be delivered by 2020.

Over 1.7 billion dollars on infrastructure projects and upgrades between now and 2030. A significant portion of this will be invested in the Devonport naval Base to increase ship berthing space and improve facilities, accommodation and associated precincts, as the plan puts it.

Upgraded Sea Sprites. No mention of increased numbers.

Does mention more personal over the coming 5 to 10 years and improvements in living standards for defence personal.

PDF link: http://www.navy.mil.nz/downloads/pdf/public-docs/navy-2020.pdf
 

t68

Well-Known Member
yes NZDF would need a manning increase, which I think is feasible monetary wise but get the bods might be the problem.

would that be they way NZ looks at future force 2030, ships should defiantly last another 20 years and come at a reasonable price since they have only been in commission for 10 years
 

Ocean1Curse

Member
I'm not entirely sure the main course stuff, pool of able bodied workers and skills is the problem. Wages and life style should be a problem. A problem not that mentionable considering prices in all dimension are leaving wages behind. Levelling the recruiting playing field.

If RNZN can work on the pudding stuff, housing affordability, improved leave. On the face of it a Navy job would look really attractive in New Zealand's most costly rental market. Auckland.

Apparently our Navy wants two or three crews for each vessels so the problem should be finding stuff for them to do.
 

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
I'm not entirely sure the main course stuff, pool of able bodied workers and skills is the problem. Wages and life style should be a problem. A problem not that mentionable considering prices in all dimension are leaving wages behind. Levelling the recruiting playing field.

If RNZN can work on the pudding stuff, housing affordability, improved leave. On the face of it a Navy job would look really attractive in New Zealand's most costly rental market. Auckland.

Apparently our Navy wants two or three crews for each vessels so the problem should be finding stuff for them to do.
Personnel establishments are dictated by a variety of factors, however a very important and ultimately overriding one is the personnel budget that the RNZN has to operate within. That is what decides the number of naval personnel. I agree that housing, salary, conditions of service, family support and other support conditions need to be seriously investigated in order to assist retention. This actually applies across the three services.

Like the RNZAF, the RNZN is a technically dependent service and if it encounters a shortage of technical ratings, that can actually hamper the services ability to sail ships. Conversely if it also has a shortage of nontechnical ratings and / or officers, then it will also have difficulty being able to find suitably qualified crew for its ships. Personnel costs are probably the highest annual cost that the RNZN faces.
 

Ocean1Curse

Member
Personnel establishments are dictated by a variety of factors, however a very important and ultimately overriding one is the personnel budget that the RNZN has to operate within. That is what decides the number of naval personnel. I agree that housing, salary, conditions of service, family support and other support conditions need to be seriously investigated in order to assist retention. This actually applies across the three services.

Like the RNZAF, the RNZN is a technically dependent service and if it encounters a shortage of technical ratings, that can actually hamper the services ability to sail ships. Conversely if it also has a shortage of nontechnical ratings and / or officers, then it will also have difficulty being able to find suitably qualified crew for its ships. Personnel costs are probably the highest annual cost that the RNZN faces.
I do find RNZN strategic plan encouraging where it places emphases on personal learning one trade skill to a high standard rather than multiple skills in a short time.

But yes, the biggest hole in the bucket is a pay rise. But so do every other job sector have this problem.

It's just I don't think any one joining navy today will find a better wage and other sweatners package floating around Auckland, better than the wage gap that NZDF had to compete with just last year. If RNZN can make good on its strategic plan, I felt after reading it, it will be a competitive employment sector.
 

hartinati

New Member
I do find RNZN strategic plan encouraging where it places emphases on personal learning one trade skill to a high standard rather than multiple skills in a short time.

But yes, the biggest hole in the bucket is a pay rise. But so do every other job sector have this problem.

It's just I don't think any one joining navy today will find a better wage and other sweatners package floating around Auckland, better than the wage gap that NZDF had to compete with just last year. If RNZN can make good on its strategic plan, I felt after reading it, it will be a competitive employment sector.
Yes I agree it is good that the RNZN has a stategic plan that addresses some personnel issues but as with the other services it is trying to retain those highly trained personnel that is the problem as they tend to be older with families that have to live in Auckland which at a certain point because a choice between money or lifestyle.
Most SRs are now reside out of Auckland and are posted unaccompanied. It will be interesting to see how they are going to deal with it in the future with less Navy housing available and Auckland house prices unaffordable
 

Ocean1Curse

Member
Yes I agree it is good that the RNZN has a stategic plan that addresses some personnel issues but as with the other services it is trying to retain those highly trained personnel that is the problem as they tend to be older with families that have to live in Auckland which at a certain point because a choice between money or lifestyle.
Most SRs are now reside out of Auckland and are posted unaccompanied. It will be interesting to see how they are going to deal with it in the future with less Navy housing available and Auckland house prices unaffordable
Hi. i believe the usually response is to a first time post is I look forward to your participation in DT.

Where in a post Freudian era were the ego is not as centric as pervious eras. Woman in uniform, drinking patterns. We'll have the universal ed. post Freudian in terms of lust and ego gratification. If you remove these from the equation you have a new set of perimeters driving new recruits. We have these blooming values spreading around NZDF where there values are displayed on the net. It's not socialism because that failed.

I see it in the raw character of new recruits as there graduation ceremonies and military life in general hit YouTube and Facebook. Recruits communicate with past and present personal to share experiences, jokes via social media. This is different from the way Brass have tried to make changes in the past. It's reducing the need for work and free time and blurring the edges between between wages. Our infrastructure could not possibly support these new values so there will be consequences.

The coming wave of automation will put more pressure on a larger work force not just to subsist but provide a decent life style for all personal. It's obvious defence planers are reducing the need for work.

Work in a sense that we understand of overcoming gravity and that favoured a certain style of recruit. After the row boat age those that could conquer gravity in the sail age by hauling aloft sails or could leverage manpower and huge assembly line techniques in the industrial revolution. Or those that could master gravity in terms of compressing information on a microprocessor at terra bytes per chip et. There is a point of diminishing returns were you have automation and less crew to run them.

Information, media, treasury is corroding the ability for defence to plan properly. Is it a need to create target rich environments. Maybe. Information is hitting defence planers at an unbelievable pace. Planers default mechanisms is to form monopolies, amalgamate, efficiencies. Building models based on the capture and privatisation of information, such constructions are fragile at odds with sharing information freely. This is where JATF HQ removes the ego centric thinking to a certain kind of group ethical ecstatic that brings recruits together. I don't believe the 3 services will be separate for ever. The point at which they amalgamate is unknown to me but they won't survive the next turn, in energy source. Diesel to miniature fusion reactors, that kind of thing.

Consider when you remove the need for wages you remove the need for status. Status still has value in currency so it's not socialism. But once you have no need for wages you do things for status. I'm attempting to describe a single service defence force loosely based on the series Star Trek. (Yes I am a Trekkie)

The Star Trek revolution may be closer than we think. Star Trek The Next Generation happens in a time when everything has essentially worked out. When you examine Star Treks economic system where money no longer exist and anything can be made essentially for free. Objects are no longer status symbols. Success would be measured in achievements, not in money. You would need to build up your reputation, you would need to be a fantastic person, you would need to be Captain. People will work hard to achieve those goals even though they don't need a pay check to live. This is my vision of what a single service would look like. What drives this future?

What's the single economic point that drives this future. The cost of energy going to zero which is what we are rapidly approaching. Because the cost of photoelectric cells are approaching zero. Which means the cost of harvesting energy from the sun is approaching zero. Which leads me to believe what I am describing is accurate. A world in which energy drives motion and society at which the cost is zero. We're still chest deep in the old systems. Remember I said it's about overcoming gravity. It's happening.

Get rid of the ego you won't have three services trying to assign multiple threats into one of three military services. With free energy the idea of motion and interactions will be free and the idea of sexual conquest will disappear. It doesn't change the fact Graham Hart touches himself even though he's got a billion dollars. Maybe he'll give a billion dollars away in philanthropy to be a good human being. That's the kind of stuff we are moving away from to a frictionless economy of free energy.

If JATF is allowed to continue over the next 200 years the gains for New Zealand may be immeasurable, whether the gains are distributed between 1 or 3 services is an open question. Star Trek offers a way of imagining life and work if they were.

I can not properly articulate via DT my desire for JATF to succeed. I look upon Navy and NZDF as I look upon the All Blacks.
 

swerve

Super Moderator
There has been a suggestion that the UK may pay off two assault ships to free up manning numbers for the future HMS Queen Elizabeth, if that was to be the case I wonder if it may be prudent for RNZN to pick up both of them?

Reports: Sick Leave Puts Royal Navy In Troubled Waters | Forces TV


all you need then is a small LPH
It's wrong about sick leave. It's confused 'medically downgraded' (usually temporarily) with being off sick. The majority of those who are medically downgraded are still working, either able to carry on in their post with caveats, or temporarily reassigned. As an example, one cause of being medically downgraded is pregnancy. IIRC that's an immediate downgrade, but no reassignment to start with unless the role requires heavy lifting.

On 1.2.2014, 1730 RN personnel were classed as MLD (Medically Limited Deployable) & 2750 as MND (Medically Non Deployable). MLD is officially described as "medically fit for duty with minor employment limitations". MND is divided into "medically fit for duty with major employment limitations", which requires them to be able to work at least 32.5 hours per week, & "medically unfit for duty" - i.e. on sick leave. So, sick leave accounts for part of part of the headline figure, not all of it. 4740 is a gross exaggeration.
 

Zero Alpha

New Member
It's wrong about sick leave. It's confused 'medically downgraded' (usually temporarily) with being off sick. The majority of those who are medically downgraded are still working, either able to carry on in their post with caveats, or temporarily reassigned. As an example, one cause of being medically downgraded is pregnancy.
Pending dental work, or overdue dental X-rays/exams is another likely source (or at least it is in several countries).
 

t68

Well-Known Member
i posted this within the RAN thread and I think a majority of the post should be included within the RNZN thread,

I have not seen any guarantee's that RNZN would build there replacements here, but I am starting to wonder with all this talk of corvettes and depending on the size and complexity of them and the fitted but not with option, would the RNZN favour a build of 3-4 corvettes if the price of the next gen frigate was too high.

And do wonder the implications of such a move, would it be something similar to when aunty disbanded the ACF
Would this be a realistic proposition if the government of the day implied that the Anzac replacement would be to expensive or the future vessel acquired by the RAN not suit the application by New Zealand.

their has been talk of a OPV vessel up to the size of a corvette which range anywhere from 500t and up to in some case 3000t. if the RAN was to acquire a decent sized corvette and had the capacity for such things as VLS ASW etc would/should NZ consider these over say a 2x Type 26 or 3x corvette?

Such possibility are the,Milgem from Turkey or the K130 Braunschweig class from Germany and the Sth Korean Incheon-class
 

Ocean1Curse

Member
i posted this within the RAN thread and I think a majority of the post should be included within the RNZN thread,



Would this be a realistic proposition if the government of the day implied that the Anzac replacement would be to expensive or the future vessel acquired by the RAN not suit the application by New Zealand.

their has been talk of a OPV vessel up to the size of a corvette which range anywhere from 500t and up to in some case 3000t. if the RAN was to acquire a decent sized corvette and had the capacity for such things as VLS ASW etc would/should NZ consider these over say a 2x Type 26 or 3x corvette?

Such possibility are the,Milgem from Turkey or the K130 Braunschweig class from Germany and the Sth Korean Incheon-class
Politicians should count themselves lucky they got off the farms. There level of education is greater than the labour they have to do.

NZDF has a disguised change. Yes NZDF budget is rising but we are losing everything that was NZDF. I don't want to say which one is better, which capability, type of vessel is better. I'm merely saying there is huge change.

I think what is driving this change is defence personal themselves saying I can do that job. When a defence person performers a task a portion of the budget gets recycled back into that persons department. So it's lowering the wage rates of other professions that they are effectively displacing.

There's this word organised where defence planers see change coming but there not organised enough to deal with them. Treasury use to be the answer to defence problems but they were not organised enough to deal with them.

I think we should be a little generous to what I think the Chief of Navy is trying to do. Even if I think the direction he is taking navy should be challenged. Where increasing automation destroys defence jobs. That creates a lot of jobs that don't get counted as work. That gets dumped on families. Housing affordability, to improve living standards, then infrastructure. Work per say doesn't disappear.

What I do think is happening is technology, information is eroding defence abilities to plan properly. That implies more Frankenstein vessels, implies larger vessel types, implies the need to seek the lowest manufacture and production costs, where ever they may lye around the world.

Defence is always living on budget crises.
 

hartinati

New Member
i posted this within the RAN thread and I think a majority of the post should be included within the RNZN thread,



Would this be a realistic proposition if the government of the day implied that the Anzac replacement would be to expensive or the future vessel acquired by the RAN not suit the application by New Zealand.

their has been talk of a OPV vessel up to the size of a corvette which range anywhere from 500t and up to in some case 3000t. if the RAN was to acquire a decent sized corvette and had the capacity for such things as VLS ASW etc would/should NZ consider these over say a 2x Type 26 or 3x corvette?

Such possibility are the,Milgem from Turkey or the K130 Braunschweig class from Germany and the Sth Korean Incheon-class
IMO I think it would be a good option to maintain a common class of ship with the RAN considering the relative good outcomes of the combined ANZAC project and the commonalities on how we can operate as an ANZAC TG.
In saying that there has been some deviation with the ANZAC upgrades between nations and this has come down to fulfilling the requirements of each navy based on their paticular operational needs.
If the ADF were to build a frigate/corvette that fit most of NZDFs requirements the strategic and political positives would also be a bonus that would likely see the government of the day partner with Australia but of course as we well know that depends on the political position of the government at the time.
I think 2 x Type 26 frigates would be good but I would like to see the RNZN have 3 and utilise the rule of 3 as in 3 frigates,3 OPVs, 3 Support, 3 inshore.
My hope would be that we go back to a 3 frigate navy at least :D
 

Zero Alpha

New Member
IMO I think it would be a good option to maintain a common class of ship with the RAN considering the relative good outcomes of the combined ANZAC project and the commonalities on how we can operate as an ANZAC TG.
Commonality only usually lasts as long as the first upgrade. Having common doctrine is more important than common hardware. We've got very different needs, operate in different areas, and don't have all the baggage that goes with a protectionist industrial policies. Aside from that, we're on a divergent geopolitical path. Even a brief look at the ethnicity population projections shows that while Australia will remain very 'white,' New Zealand is getting less so. That means much closer economic, social and emotional links to parts of the world Australia doesn't identify as strongly with.

From StatsNZ:

The projections indicate a 90 percent chance that New Zealand's:

  • 'European or Other' population (3.31 million in 2013) will increase to 3.43–3.62 million in 2025 and to 3.43–3.82 million in 2038.
  • Māori population (0.69 million in 2013) will increase to 0.83–0.91 million in 2025 and to 1.00–1.18 million in 2038.
  • Asian population (0.54 million in 2013) will increase to 0.81–0.92 million in 2025 and to 1.06–1.26 million in 2038.
  • Pacific population (0.34 million in 2013) will increase to 0.44–0.48 million in 2025 and to 0.54–0.65 million in 2038.
 

ASSAIL

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
I do not wish to de-rail a naval thread but I must take issue with you supposition about Australia being "more white".
Even by today's ( 2014 ) figures, Australia's net overseas annual migration is somewhere between 200k - 250k with the many of those from non European sources. I have enclosed some relevant data but you will see huge numbers from China, India, Vietnam, Philippines and off course the large traffic flow, in and out, from NZ (with all that diversity).
Further, our very generous refugee intake (the largest per capita in the world) from places such as Syria, Sudan, Iraq and Iran increases this diversity.

Australia's ethnic mix 25 years from now will be less "white" not more and I suggest, more diverse than our Anzac brothers.

3412.0 - Migration, Australia, 2013-14
 

StingrayOZ

Super Moderator
Staff member
Aside from that, we're on a divergent geopolitical path. Even a brief look at the ethnicity population projections shows that while Australia will remain very 'white,' New Zealand is getting less so. That means much closer economic, social and emotional links to parts of the world Australia doesn't identify as strongly with.
I also disagree with this. I think no matter what the enthic makeup of NZ it will always have a very strong links to Australia. Particular for the Navy.

Singapore has a major ethnically Chinese population, however, I wouldn't say they are closer to China than to the US.

I would say for the Navy it means NZ will have a bigger interest in the pacific islands. I think they may be more concerned with the north as well.
 

Zero Alpha

New Member
Australia's ethnic mix 25 years from now will be less "white" not more and I suggest, more diverse than our Anzac brothers.

3412.0 - Migration, Australia, 2013-14
By those figures, Australia's population of asian origin will be around 6.3% That compares to around 18% for NZ. The Pacific Island population for NZ will be around 9%, but doesn't rate on the Australian table. I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with that at all, but just that ethnic communities tend to affiliate strongly with where their origins are. In Australia's case that will be different to New Zealand. Just like that decisions taken on equipment selection are influenced by industrial policy, foreign policy decisions are strongly influenced by the affinity with a country or region.
 
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