I don't think there is political willpower for more than a dozen surface warships unless the region becomes significantly warmer, SCS shenanigans not withstanding. Which is why I believe maximising capabilities on those we do get is important. If things do get more exciting the continuous build ensures there are 80m hulls being produced that would make for decent corvettes.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter icelord
- Start date
- Status
you can certainly factor out a 3rd phatship.
RAAF also have no role in funding it as their money is committed to Jericho. Any additional phatship has to come out of RAN "skin" - and their build modelling was done yonks ago. As it is new vessels traditionally out of their budget have been costed and maintained through some creative accounting - but nominally not RAN assets.
JSF is also 6th down the list of priorities., so none of the stars line up
RAAF also have no role in funding it as their money is committed to Jericho. Any additional phatship has to come out of RAN "skin" - and their build modelling was done yonks ago. As it is new vessels traditionally out of their budget have been costed and maintained through some creative accounting - but nominally not RAN assets.
JSF is also 6th down the list of priorities., so none of the stars line up
Last edited:
Is it in reality a big issue? The LCM-1E itself is only rated to operate in Seastate 4. That it can't carry a 60+ ton Abrams in anything plus Seastate 3 I don't think is much of a surprise. Abrams are big and they are heavy. Because they have to be to do their job. To me it seems merely to be a logistical and planning issue, ie: we deploy these vehicles when we aren't in Seastates above 3...
Crawl, walk, run... Four landing spots for MRH-90 isn't a bad start... Wasn't so very long ago we didn't even HAVE four landing spots in total, on Amphibs in the RAN...
HMAS Choules has but a single landing spot and I don't see many complaints about it...
Joe Black
Active Member
"Many In Japanese Government Relieved Japan Did Not Win Submarine Bid"
Saw a post about some Japanese reaction to their loss in the submarine bid. Don't know how accurate the information is, but it is a good read....
------------
Both Prime Minister Abe (above) and MHI President, Shunichi Miyanaga (below) were/are deeply unhappy with Japan's loss in the submarine bid. But many in the Japanese Government are not grieving.
In early June 2016 an anonymous with connections in Japan’s military-industrial complex, commented that Japanese attitudes to losing the bid to sell submarines to Australia were complex and had several levels of meaning.
As is well known Prime Minister Abe was very pro sale but how he instructed government departments to push the sale is less well known. After Japan was defeated by China in the Indonesian high speed rail contract (in September 2015), the Prime Minister's Office ordered the Ministry of Defense (MoD) “Do not fail in the submarine bid.” But the peak Japanese National Security Council (NSC),which is answerable to the Prime Minister, became the Government Headquarters for the submarine bid, not the MoD. Possibly due to bureaucratic rivalry many considered the NSC’s orders nonsense. This included such orders as “Go to Australia to lobby for the subs every month”. The MoD considered this all very odd and consequently it was not inspired to do much selling.
The Japanese Navy (Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) was highly negative because of concerns about information security. This particularly concerned Japan exporting its high yield pressure hull steel (NS80, NS90 and NS110). See mentions in this Submarine MattersTable. Other sensitive technology was the snorkel system and related technology. This was apparent from:
1. Japanese journal SHIPS OF THE WORLD No 321, Sept 2015, page 108.
2. Sankei Shinbun April 27, 2016. The JMSDF were negative about submarine exports, but PM Abe and his office rushed to export. KHI and many below the top of MHI worried about leakage of secret information.
3. Nikkan-Gendai (news online) writing about the defeat of Japanese bid. (大本命ãŒä¸€è»¢ 「豪潜水艦ã€å…±åŒé–‹ç™ºã§æ—¥æœ¬ãŒè„±è½ã—ãŸçœŸç›¸ | 日刊ゲンダイDIGITAL could be translated as “the truth of the matter about the bid is that, Abe's push was premature. Building Soryus required special building techniques which could not be duplicated in Australia. Meaning Japan was lucky that it lost.”
The peak leadership of MHI was very serious about the bid and was shocked by the defeat. In late 2015 MHI had experienced major losses due to delivery delays for two cruise liners for Germany’s AIDAprima Cruises. This encouraged very powerful MHI President Miyanaga in his resolve that MHI should win the submarine bid as a key business reconstruction measure for MHI. Below Miyanaga the middle management and workers of MHI were negative about selling. Negativity among the workers included much harder work being expected of them but without a pay rise.
KHI, quietly most in MHI, JMSDF and MoD did not feel too depressed by the defeat of the Japanese bid after Prime Minister Turnbull’s April 26, 2016 announcement. Australia could have attempted to build Soryus in Adelaide, but, building the Soryu needs special technology and a skill base that has grown up around Japanese building methods. Despite this PM Abe wanted the submarine sale.
The special technology (and knowledge) includes not only NS110 (super high yield steel) and gas tungsten arc welding (to work NS110). But also the roundness of cylindrical hull critically effects submergence depth. An error of the roundness needs to be less than 5mm for a cylindrical hull of that is 9.1 meter in diameter. This means a maximum error of 0.055% which is very difficult to achieve.
Anonymous feels that MHI and KHI have higher submarine technical skills than DCNS (with its paper Shortfin design) in most areas. But, MHI and KHI do not have enough ability in presenting. The defence business arms of MHI and KHI are mainly full of engineers rather than sales men and women.
--------
Perhaps the CEP did yield some good results for Australia not going with the Soryu simply because it was the captain's pick.
Saw a post about some Japanese reaction to their loss in the submarine bid. Don't know how accurate the information is, but it is a good read....
------------
Both Prime Minister Abe (above) and MHI President, Shunichi Miyanaga (below) were/are deeply unhappy with Japan's loss in the submarine bid. But many in the Japanese Government are not grieving.
In early June 2016 an anonymous with connections in Japan’s military-industrial complex, commented that Japanese attitudes to losing the bid to sell submarines to Australia were complex and had several levels of meaning.
As is well known Prime Minister Abe was very pro sale but how he instructed government departments to push the sale is less well known. After Japan was defeated by China in the Indonesian high speed rail contract (in September 2015), the Prime Minister's Office ordered the Ministry of Defense (MoD) “Do not fail in the submarine bid.” But the peak Japanese National Security Council (NSC),which is answerable to the Prime Minister, became the Government Headquarters for the submarine bid, not the MoD. Possibly due to bureaucratic rivalry many considered the NSC’s orders nonsense. This included such orders as “Go to Australia to lobby for the subs every month”. The MoD considered this all very odd and consequently it was not inspired to do much selling.
The Japanese Navy (Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) was highly negative because of concerns about information security. This particularly concerned Japan exporting its high yield pressure hull steel (NS80, NS90 and NS110). See mentions in this Submarine MattersTable. Other sensitive technology was the snorkel system and related technology. This was apparent from:
1. Japanese journal SHIPS OF THE WORLD No 321, Sept 2015, page 108.
2. Sankei Shinbun April 27, 2016. The JMSDF were negative about submarine exports, but PM Abe and his office rushed to export. KHI and many below the top of MHI worried about leakage of secret information.
3. Nikkan-Gendai (news online) writing about the defeat of Japanese bid. (大本命ãŒä¸€è»¢ 「豪潜水艦ã€å…±åŒé–‹ç™ºã§æ—¥æœ¬ãŒè„±è½ã—ãŸçœŸç›¸ | 日刊ゲンダイDIGITAL could be translated as “the truth of the matter about the bid is that, Abe's push was premature. Building Soryus required special building techniques which could not be duplicated in Australia. Meaning Japan was lucky that it lost.”
The peak leadership of MHI was very serious about the bid and was shocked by the defeat. In late 2015 MHI had experienced major losses due to delivery delays for two cruise liners for Germany’s AIDAprima Cruises. This encouraged very powerful MHI President Miyanaga in his resolve that MHI should win the submarine bid as a key business reconstruction measure for MHI. Below Miyanaga the middle management and workers of MHI were negative about selling. Negativity among the workers included much harder work being expected of them but without a pay rise.
KHI, quietly most in MHI, JMSDF and MoD did not feel too depressed by the defeat of the Japanese bid after Prime Minister Turnbull’s April 26, 2016 announcement. Australia could have attempted to build Soryus in Adelaide, but, building the Soryu needs special technology and a skill base that has grown up around Japanese building methods. Despite this PM Abe wanted the submarine sale.
The special technology (and knowledge) includes not only NS110 (super high yield steel) and gas tungsten arc welding (to work NS110). But also the roundness of cylindrical hull critically effects submergence depth. An error of the roundness needs to be less than 5mm for a cylindrical hull of that is 9.1 meter in diameter. This means a maximum error of 0.055% which is very difficult to achieve.
Anonymous feels that MHI and KHI have higher submarine technical skills than DCNS (with its paper Shortfin design) in most areas. But, MHI and KHI do not have enough ability in presenting. The defence business arms of MHI and KHI are mainly full of engineers rather than sales men and women.
--------
Perhaps the CEP did yield some good results for Australia not going with the Soryu simply because it was the captain's pick.
I have worked in T&E, engineering and quality with and for a number of companies and different nationalities and found MMC (Mitsubishi Motor Corporation) to be the most arrogant and dysfunctional as a whole (though the US replacement for Hannenberger at GMH proved pretty bad).
We would test products and on occasion the point of failure / non conformance would be a component sourced from MMC in Japan. We would advise them of the problem and request a fix (offering suggestions of how we wanted to go about this) and they would instruct us to repeat the test as they did not match their tests that proved the component was satisfactory. We would do it over and over again demonstrating the issue and eventually they would make a minor, more expensive and less effective change, rather than what was requested but never admit we were right.
Many of these components were carry over items, designed as long ago as the 1970s (or older) and had never been fit for the current application but inertia prevented fixing things. Interestingly Mitsubishi Japan have recently been caught out cheating on certification testing, yet again. Test data their overseas test groups were never allowed to see with only the alleged results being provided. Australians were always looked down on, second guessed and doubted, but we never fudged or fabricated a test.
We would test products and on occasion the point of failure / non conformance would be a component sourced from MMC in Japan. We would advise them of the problem and request a fix (offering suggestions of how we wanted to go about this) and they would instruct us to repeat the test as they did not match their tests that proved the component was satisfactory. We would do it over and over again demonstrating the issue and eventually they would make a minor, more expensive and less effective change, rather than what was requested but never admit we were right.
Many of these components were carry over items, designed as long ago as the 1970s (or older) and had never been fit for the current application but inertia prevented fixing things. Interestingly Mitsubishi Japan have recently been caught out cheating on certification testing, yet again. Test data their overseas test groups were never allowed to see with only the alleged results being provided. Australians were always looked down on, second guessed and doubted, but we never fudged or fabricated a test.
Thanks for the reply
Yes ,crawl walk,run.
Hopefully at running speed we will see all six spots utilised and impressive numbers of various helicopters types embarked.
Sea state 3 is better than no sea state re Abrams and lcm -1E. So yes will just have to accept the parameters of carrying such a heavy load.
Always curious as to why only one landing spot on Choules.There is a lot of realestate on the back of the ship with many liked size ships having two spots it appears to me as underutilised space.
Any way just a thought
S
True but you would expect less issues with a platform specifically selected, and supposedly designed to operated from maritime platforms. There appears to have been less difficulty certifying the Army's Blackhawk and Chinooks from sea than the MRH-90.
If I recall some years ago at time of contract there was some talk within Navy about getting a third LHD. I think it was the defence minister at the time who was quoted as say "They are out of control" .................I guess it will always be a what if, had we gone with a third ship.
It will be interesting down the track when the first of the Canberra's were going in for a long term service and we a left with one operational, how are we going to make do should a serious amphibious contingency be occur. With no LCH replacement and with just a three ship amphibious fleet for the 2020's we can relish the step up in individual ship attributes compared to the Tobruk / Kanimbla era' but fleet numbers are also important. Another large amphibious / supply ship is muted for the late 2020's but is it acomplement or a replacement for Choules ? I can't ascertain.
I can't see a third LHD on the horizon as we are still so impressed with Canberra's capabilities compared to days gone bye. DWP no mention. But it's not the past we need to look at but the future. If not a third LHD we need to ask some hard questions as to how and when there are multiple contingencies when the amphibious fleets long term maintenace cycles begin, just what are our options.What are we going to do.
SO
Would Navantia we adverse to building another hull.
Would BAE at Williamstown not be onboard for completing another ship.
Time to think big
LHD , HMAS Melbourne?
Regards S
SpazSinbad
Active Member
Mrs B once owned a Renault (never again, she says), & now insists that we must have a Japanese car, because she's convinced of the superiority of Japanese automotive engineering, but I recall her saying that she'd not buy a Mitsubishi, because they had a very bad reputation.
Mrs B is Japanese.
MMC has just been taken over by Nissan, I wonder if that'll make any difference.
Because it is rated to land Chinooks I always thought and that takes up a lot of that real estate?
Well we expected a lot of things, subsequently not delivered with the MRH-90...
Back in the day I strongly advocated an Apache / UH-60M / Chinook / MH-60R fleet for ADF combat helicopter operations, but the lies we were told were obviously just far too convincing from Europe. At least we saw through them in time before signed for NFH...
However that said, we can't just go and retire every platform that hasn't worked out for us.
Because of this I truly hope MRH-90 can be made to work as intended. Another Seasprite / Tiger fiasco would be a truly bad outcome for us, regardless of the blame game.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking in terms of countries and cultures being pretty homogeneous, failing to realise that that there is good bad and indifferent everywhere.Mrs B once owned a Renault (never again, she says), & now insists that we must have a Japanese car, because she's convinced of the superiority of Japanese automotive engineering, but I recall her saying that she'd not buy a Mitsubishi, because they had a very bad reputation.
Mrs B is Japanese.
MMC has just been taken over by Nissan, I wonder if that'll make any difference.
The best car I have owned was a Honda Prelude I bought new in 96 and kept until 03 when my wife insisted I replace it, the worst was a Citroen but a pair of Subarus were very disappointing and I have been very impressed with a couple of Skodas and VWs. The problem is often cultural, at the corporate level, rather than the national one.
Absolutely right.
You should hear Mrs B on the Kyoto bank she once worked for. A corporate culture she loathed. Very much insiders (from Kyoto) & the rest - & she's not from Kyoto. Old Kyoto firms have a reputation for that. She's not too enamoured of Sharp (her father's last employer), either. But her brother-in-law's firm seems good to work for, & she found working for Sony was OK.
Personally, I found that unconvincing as well.......
For the noise level part, will Japanese and German bid are too optimized to low speed noise level, while the French SSN has more high speed noise level reduction in their design?
Nocookies | The Australian
"Tokyo talks fail to soothe Japanese over submarine contract loss
Japanese officials have con*fronted Australia over the rejection of Japan’s submarine bid, accusing Canberra of using the wrong methods and assumptions to *declare France the winner.
In a closed-door meeting in Tokyo, Japanese Defence officials challenged the head of the Future Submarine Program, Rear Admiral Greg Sammut, after he told them Japan’s proposed Australian submarine was rejected for “technical” reasons. The Japanese in the room were told that the stealth qualities of their proposed submarine for Australia, an evolved version of the Japanese Navy’s current Soryu submarine, did not meet Aus*tralian requirements.
They were told that under modelling conducted by the Australian team, the submarine’s noise level and other stealth indicators were very good but not good enough to win the three-way competition for the $150 billion contract.
Insiders familiar with the series of meetings, held on May 12-13, say Japanese officials in the Ministry of Defence reacted by openly questioning the modelling and the assumptions used by the Australians in determining the noise and stealth qualities of Japan’s proposed submarine.
“The Australians had made their own set of assumptions about the data which they were given (by Japan) but they reached different conclusions from it to what Japan did,” one source said. “We kept asking (the Australian) why didn’t you ask that question or pose it in a different way?”
The Japanese were angered that they had not been asked to validate and further explain their own calculations on the highly sensitive noise envelope of the proposed submarine before their bid was rejected.
Japanese sources believed this was unfair because Japan had not been able to fully disclose the stealth capabilities of its Soryu boats at such an early stage of the competition process because — unlike French and German proposals — Soryu submarines are *already in service and such information needed to be partly *protected for operational reasons.
The Australian delegation was sent to Tokyo to explain why Japan lost the three-way competition to build 12 new submarines. The Australian revealed last month a second delegation was sent to Germany at the same time and told the Germans their bid failed because their proposed Australian submarine had an “unacceptable” level of “radiated noise”.
From debriefs given to Germany and Japan, it is clear France won the submarine contract *because its proposed boat, the Shortfin Barracuda, was the hardest to detect — a crucial factor in both peacetime intelligence gathering and in conflict.
Japan has taken the defeat poorly and it has strained relations with Australia.
In the debriefings, the Australians told the Japanese there were also concerns about Japan’s *approach to risk in relation to the submarine project. They said Japan’s inexperience in designing and constructed a submarine for another country placed it at a disadvantage to France and Germany, both experienced sub*marine exporters.
However, the debriefings concentrated on technical reasons for Japan’s loss and gave no indication that broader strategic *issues, such as closer military ties between Japan and Australia, were a factor in the final decision.
“The strategic issue was not discussed, all they wanted to talk about was the technical issues,” one source said.
Another source said the Australian debriefs were poorly *received and had not helped to heal the damage to the relationship caused by Japan’s loss, a *defeat which has caused significant embarrassment in Japan.
“Our people were scratching their heads when they walked out of that (debriefing) room,” one source said.
Asked about the debriefing, a spokesman for Japan’s embassy in Canberra said: “Since the details of the explanation by Australia *relate to their national security, we need to refrain from disclosing them.”
France’s DCNS was declared the winner of the submarine bid and is in preliminary contract *discussions with Defence about a project that will see the French-designed Shortfin Barracuda *replace the Collins-class fleet from the early 2030s.
The German government has commissioned a study into the reasons its bid failed. German representatives have approached neutral observers of the Competitive Evaluation Process in Australia for confidential feedback about what Germany did wrong.
The submarines, Australia’s largest defence project, is worth an estimated $50bn in the construction phase and a further $100bn over the vessels ’ lifetime. "
For the noise level part, will Japanese and German bid are too optimized to low speed noise level, while the French SSN has more high speed noise level reduction in their design?
Nocookies | The Australian
"Tokyo talks fail to soothe Japanese over submarine contract loss
Japanese officials have con*fronted Australia over the rejection of Japan’s submarine bid, accusing Canberra of using the wrong methods and assumptions to *declare France the winner.
In a closed-door meeting in Tokyo, Japanese Defence officials challenged the head of the Future Submarine Program, Rear Admiral Greg Sammut, after he told them Japan’s proposed Australian submarine was rejected for “technical” reasons. The Japanese in the room were told that the stealth qualities of their proposed submarine for Australia, an evolved version of the Japanese Navy’s current Soryu submarine, did not meet Aus*tralian requirements.
They were told that under modelling conducted by the Australian team, the submarine’s noise level and other stealth indicators were very good but not good enough to win the three-way competition for the $150 billion contract.
Insiders familiar with the series of meetings, held on May 12-13, say Japanese officials in the Ministry of Defence reacted by openly questioning the modelling and the assumptions used by the Australians in determining the noise and stealth qualities of Japan’s proposed submarine.
“The Australians had made their own set of assumptions about the data which they were given (by Japan) but they reached different conclusions from it to what Japan did,” one source said. “We kept asking (the Australian) why didn’t you ask that question or pose it in a different way?”
The Japanese were angered that they had not been asked to validate and further explain their own calculations on the highly sensitive noise envelope of the proposed submarine before their bid was rejected.
Japanese sources believed this was unfair because Japan had not been able to fully disclose the stealth capabilities of its Soryu boats at such an early stage of the competition process because — unlike French and German proposals — Soryu submarines are *already in service and such information needed to be partly *protected for operational reasons.
The Australian delegation was sent to Tokyo to explain why Japan lost the three-way competition to build 12 new submarines. The Australian revealed last month a second delegation was sent to Germany at the same time and told the Germans their bid failed because their proposed Australian submarine had an “unacceptable” level of “radiated noise”.
From debriefs given to Germany and Japan, it is clear France won the submarine contract *because its proposed boat, the Shortfin Barracuda, was the hardest to detect — a crucial factor in both peacetime intelligence gathering and in conflict.
Japan has taken the defeat poorly and it has strained relations with Australia.
In the debriefings, the Australians told the Japanese there were also concerns about Japan’s *approach to risk in relation to the submarine project. They said Japan’s inexperience in designing and constructed a submarine for another country placed it at a disadvantage to France and Germany, both experienced sub*marine exporters.
However, the debriefings concentrated on technical reasons for Japan’s loss and gave no indication that broader strategic *issues, such as closer military ties between Japan and Australia, were a factor in the final decision.
“The strategic issue was not discussed, all they wanted to talk about was the technical issues,” one source said.
Another source said the Australian debriefs were poorly *received and had not helped to heal the damage to the relationship caused by Japan’s loss, a *defeat which has caused significant embarrassment in Japan.
“Our people were scratching their heads when they walked out of that (debriefing) room,” one source said.
Asked about the debriefing, a spokesman for Japan’s embassy in Canberra said: “Since the details of the explanation by Australia *relate to their national security, we need to refrain from disclosing them.”
France’s DCNS was declared the winner of the submarine bid and is in preliminary contract *discussions with Defence about a project that will see the French-designed Shortfin Barracuda *replace the Collins-class fleet from the early 2030s.
The German government has commissioned a study into the reasons its bid failed. German representatives have approached neutral observers of the Competitive Evaluation Process in Australia for confidential feedback about what Germany did wrong.
The submarines, Australia’s largest defence project, is worth an estimated $50bn in the construction phase and a further $100bn over the vessels ’ lifetime. "
I have no inside knowledge of this one; but I'm also not into conspiracy theories and have been involved in other large competitions. I wonder if it just possible that the French had the best submarine, and maybe the best industrial package? Possibly neither the Japanes nor the Germans "did" anything wrong, they were just offering a product that wasn't as good as its competition? There is a very long tradition of people who fail to win large shipbuilding projects complaining about the process; but each time that process is tested the results seem to stand.
I do know that the RAN and DSME have very firm beliefs in what makes a good submarine and have priorities that are pretty much set in stone, the option that was most adaptable to fit those beliefs and priorities would be the prefered option.
What you need to look at is what caused the most pain to the FEG and the SPO to gauge what the deal breakers would be. If there was something they hated on the Collins and wanted gone or fixed, a contender who ignored this would be in trouble. Same if there was something they loved and wanted to keep that had been left off or overlooked.
The real killer is the RANs submariners are an elite and know that they are. They don't talk about what they can do and have done but it is well known in some circles that there are few navies that can achieve the same capabilities. They also know that their current boats were the best conventional subs in the world and that they are still competitive, the issue with them having been on the management of their sustainment (mostly on the government side). Now just imagine how having a procession of Japanese and (to a lesser degree) German experts coming through, looking down their noses and telling them how to suck eggs. "That's not how you do it", "Nobody does it like that", "you don't need that", "you don't have the skills", "you don't have the capability". Could you image, after the issues with maintenance in Australia, the RAN felt about having to go to Japan in future.
The Japanese "naval commander" you got stuck into Australia's submarine capability would have gone down well, as would the Germans coming in and claiming they could fix everything and do it better without working up a sweat. A lot of the rhetoric from options J and G in the media was condescending and dismissive of the existing Australian capability, not smart when you realise just how closely the RAN, DSME and ASC worked together on it. I was in a quite junior role in engineering at ASC but would get calls from a Chief TIFF (senior engineering CPO) on a boat with a specific query about a system, RAN were working on every project, every change, could you imagine how the JMSDF and MHI approach made them feel? How confident would the RAN feel that they could work with these people when they were so dismissive of the Australian capability.
I don't know, but suspect that option J at least may have been turfed because the only way the project would work would be through cooperation and mutual respect and the distinct impression was that there was no respect coming from the Japanese side and very little from the German.
It actually has two, just not "painted for and certified with" like CWIS.
Thanks Pike
Would seem logical given other like ships of the enforcer design have two landing spots.
Regards S
Thanks SpazSinbad
I think you have come good for my lazy research.
I can understand how a fleet of three LHD's would seem an indulgence compared to both what we had in the past and that other naval forces of our size.The way I see it our geography is somewhat unique with both a large land mass with extensive coastline surounded by great open water distances.
Big ships suit our needs, and the Canberra class was the smart choice for the way forward.
Out of curiosity was HMAS Canberra on it's own or escorted when deployed on HADR operations in Fiji assist?
Would be interested to know if this class is permitted to undertake solo independant opertaions in permissive environments.
Regards S
- Status