It will be a laugh if they do turn out to be real corvettes, especially if they are as capable (or even more so) than the Tenix corvettes that were intended to replace the Fremantle class, as it was the coalition that cancelled them as unnecessary and unaffordable, ordering the ACPBs instead.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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John Newman
The Bunker Group
Laugh or not (and regardless of what a Coalition Government of the past did or didn't), lets hope that this PM (regardless of what we all may or may not think of him and his Government, but who appears to have a strong focus on defence), actually gets the ships ordered asap for both the RAN and Industry too!
My real worry is that somewhere in the future that we get another 'Gilliard' left of the left type Government, then it won't be a laugh, that I'm sure of!!!
A genuine concern, because while Rudd and Fitzgibbon pushed the OCV concept, Gillard / Smith deferred it into the nether, who knows what Conroy will do.
It doesn't make any difference WHATEVER what colour the government is if it changes every three years. Given the current fashion for media driven adversarial public politics it's impossible for any new government to accept a plan made under the previous one.
Expect a new White Paper, DCP etc to be started after the election, and used either to blacken the name of the previous government or (if it agrees with them) to excuse breaking election promises. In any case, it'll take another two years by which time the election is nigh and no one in government will have the guts to risk scaring the horses.
No tenders will be raised, no ships will be bought and then, bang, new government. Which of course will consider the new White Paper to be faulty.
oldsig cynic
Hi Gf, Im not familiar with the term grey water. Brown water?
I can certainly see the OPV/OCV/Corvette having a very light offence/defence but needing to patrol blue water zones far away from port and shelter.
I think its definitely a class where you want to divorce the weapons capability from the sea keeping capability. Much like a survey ship, it doesn't require harpoons or land attack capability, even though it is expected to operate outside any protective bubble. Its protection comes from not operating in war zones and that it will never be threatened by another war ship.
Our current survey ships are 2,100t. It would imagine the ships that would directly replace these would be in the highest spec (size and sensors). Even though they are 2,100t that doesn't leave a lot of room for weapons (only 2x 50 cal guns). They have a range of 18,000 nm.
grey water is the bit between the green and blue - so its generally considered just outside the the boundaries of the EEZ but not necessarily part of a blue water task force
brown water is riverine
grey is not normally used as prev it was just brown, green blue. Its emerged as large OPV/Cutter capabilities have improved.
Much the same thing was reported in the West Australian newspaper last week.
Maybe the corvettes will be tendered out in batches of 2-3. The first batch built in Adelaide while the remaining batches are built wherever/whoever is successful. How long does it take to build 2-3 corvettes at say 2000t? Will 2 corvettes fit into the 2018-2020 time frame?
I dont know what Abbot is trying to accomplish by building everything in Adelaide while losing a lot more votes in other states.
On another note the West has reported:
Im surprised that their is still speculation of basing American ships at Stirling. I thought the rumors were put to bed years ago when the WA government flatly rejected the proposal but the rumors keep reappearing. Is there anything to these rumors or is it just media hype?
When the OPVs were first mooted during the Rudd government the intent was a single class of ships with the capacity to cover multiple roles with minimal change and/or modular mission assignment. Roughly they were 14 hulls to replace the ACPB and extend that role, two to replace the hydrographic ships and up to six for MCM. And that's exactly what was included in the SEA1180 ICD at the time, including a 2000t indicative size. The ICD is an interesting read even now.
oldsig
This would be insane. Starting from scratch in a new yard every few hulls would grossly inflate the cost and lose a lot more votes everywhere for a demonstrably stupid waste of money.
oldsig
Agreed.
The only way I can see that changing yards would make sense is if two or more yards share the work on a large class, each building the same blocks for each ship and either being able to consolidate and complete the platform as a whole. This way you get much the same advantage of a continuous build in a single yard as well as the flexibility to reassign work to fit in with other projects or even to reward the better performing yard through the award of more consolidation work.
The other idea that comes to mind if we do return to an OCV concept, replacing the two types of survey vessels as well as the MCMVs, is completion of the different configurations could be awarded to different yards. For example ten patrol spec vessels could be completed at one yard, five survey and five MCM at another, with all yards again producing the same blocks for each ship.
Does not really have anything to do with the WA Government, Federal land and a Federal decision on whether they allow it.
State Government can jump up and down, or support it on the day and influence public opinion but that's about it.
Cheers
fundamentally the individual States can do squat - Defence and assoc issues are Federal decisions
Absolutely but it would take a brave Federal Govt to allow "permanent" bases in Aust.
The arrangement in for the USMC rotation in Darwin is acceptable and a way to circumvent the very negative sentiment re permanent US basing here.
I don't think it will be so much permanent basing rather then increased usage, If I recall they were already using it to an extent to fly new ship crew's in and out with out having to sail all the way back to the US.
The $360m investment isn't really enough to build a permanent naval base of use for them. Any permanent base is likely going to also include nuclear powered vessels and from memory at the bare minimum that was meant to be a $1 billion USD cost.
nuclear berthing is not an issue - and there will NOT be any permanent bases in the life of this Govt and you can safely bet on the next as the caucus is weighted against having a US presence - let alone anything that resembles permanency
the govt is happy for the US to rotate out as many times as they want - they will not take the next step - there are a number of reasons for that.
anything smacking of permanency will cause ructions in the press - and it would only get a leg up in time of conflict - and even then it would capped by a sunset clause
The linked paper by Sam Goldsmith is one of the more intelligent discussions re SEA 1000, Collins replacement subs. This may have been published before on DT but I haven't found it. The paper should be compulsory reading for anyone wishing to comment further if they are not already familiar with the project.
The author covers most topics including the ISTAR and IP problems. He leads us through each of the proponents and their strengths and weaknesses (including an introductory discussion on nuclear/Virginias and reasons why they ultimately would not be approved to be exported by Congress).
One of the most interesting points, for me as I had not thought this one through, is the danger of allowing TKS and DCNS access to all the sensitive info accumulated by Collins such as heat loads, power requirements, and performance parameters. Considering that a replacement has to exceed those requirements, designers naturally require access. If these companies have that information, the final design of the Barracuda or the 216 could ultimately be exported (IP issues notwithstanding) to other countries thus eroding our technical superiority in the region.
In concluding, he makes no final judgement he simply leads you to believing that none of the three designs meet our criteria but maybe a jointly developed Soryu II might be the answer.
SEA 1000: Design options for RAN’s future submarine | Australian Naval Institute
The author covers most topics including the ISTAR and IP problems. He leads us through each of the proponents and their strengths and weaknesses (including an introductory discussion on nuclear/Virginias and reasons why they ultimately would not be approved to be exported by Congress).
One of the most interesting points, for me as I had not thought this one through, is the danger of allowing TKS and DCNS access to all the sensitive info accumulated by Collins such as heat loads, power requirements, and performance parameters. Considering that a replacement has to exceed those requirements, designers naturally require access. If these companies have that information, the final design of the Barracuda or the 216 could ultimately be exported (IP issues notwithstanding) to other countries thus eroding our technical superiority in the region.
In concluding, he makes no final judgement he simply leads you to believing that none of the three designs meet our criteria but maybe a jointly developed Soryu II might be the answer.
SEA 1000: Design options for RAN’s future submarine | Australian Naval Institute
there's a raft of reasons why the Soryu's are the better choice IMO, but the debate has already turned into a circus by the way that the whole sub procurement process has been articulated
It shits me, all they need to do is write some solid requirements and stick to them, if strengthening strategic ties with Japan is important make it a requirement, if AN/BYG-1 is needed, make it a requirement. Be honest and up front about what you want and why and if that rules out most of the competition so what, you are still getting what you want.
To me the biggest issue is there is a perception the government are being sneaky and as such it has become all about that rather than the actual requirement. The primary objective should be the most suitable capability for the RAN, including the ability to affordably support it through life of type, if this is best done overseas then it needs to be justified and I'm not talking about a bs productivity commission review but a fully costed review of procurement, through to replacement and disposal done by competent experts with an appropriate technical background and no ties to a particular ideology.
i think most of the defprofs and snr members stated concerns on and offline months if not years ago about our concerns of future subs reqs getting damaged and mishandled by govt and the broader media - and unfort we've all been proved right.
the current quality of debate around subs, shipbuilding in general, army trucks, and to some extent JSF is woeful. Subs however have been completely tarnished already and every man and his dog has commentary which often is so far removed from the reality of the probable that your eyes just bleed out.
ipso facto, broader public comprehension of how and why for whats required never ever gets close to the mark and we get exposed to the ridiculous commentary trotted out in regular print cycles for the broadsheets.
RAAF has managed to dodge most of the bullets, but RAN and Army less so.
This may be because the RAAF has not had to deal with much in the way of the "made in Australia and preserve Australian jobs" mantra that gets trotted out for so many Army and navy programmes.
It may also be because the RAAF has proven itself to be far more astute at selling its requirements to government than the other two services.
MB
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