Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[gf0012-aust]

GF - Please read the Jan-Feb Australian Aviation article Flying Tiger - including and interview with CO 1Avn Regt. The last Audit Office report is similar to US GAO reports - largely doom and gloom based on what were past issues, but if you read what the operators are saying the Tiger is starting to give them what they want.

I can only go on things where I was in a room with commanders of those elements - and a number of times. not just once

they might be able to fly around a paddock and target things - but the core issues around maritime qualification still stand - a very different issue

I'm not the only one who thinks that they are lemons - and thats a contracyal and performance issue which impacts on the broader force.

local success is not the only determinant

 

[John Newman]

So I wonder which ship design got the flick now that there are only two competing designs left.

Hi Mate,

The way I read it, it's not the ship designs that have reportedly been cut from three to two, its the competing 'combat systems' that have been cut down to two, eg, a choice of Aegis or Saab combat systems.

As I've always understood it, the three competing 'ship' designs are to include CAEFAR as the 'base' radar system, and it's 'optional' on the combat systems that integrate with CAEFAR.

 

[SteveR]

I can only go on things where I was in a room with commanders of those elements - and a number of times. not just once

they might be able to fly around a paddock and target things - but the core issues around maritime qualification still stand - a very different issue

I'm not the only one who thinks that they are lemons - and thats a contracyal and performance issue which impacts on the broader force.

local success is not the only determinant

Yes and the F35A range is more than 50nm less than specified because of the need to retain fuel to cool avionics and its bomb bay acoustics is problematic for some weapons - but after recent Red Flag should we cancel it?

The AH-64E is certainly even further from maritime qualification. Even though it was used off ships against Libya, if it ditched there was no flotation and no easy means to get out of the cockpit, so if we are serious about a phatship attack helo the AH-64E is immediately excluded.

 

[Redlands18]

Hi Mate,

The way I read it, it's not the ship designs that have reportedly been cut from three to two, its the competing 'combat systems' that have been cut down to two, eg, a choice of Aegis or Saab combat systems.

As I've always understood it, the three competing 'ship' designs are to include CAEFAR as the 'base' radar system, and it's 'optional' on the combat systems that integrate with CAEFAR.

Am i correct in thinking that if Aegis was selected with Caefar, that would be the first time that any Radar system other then the SPY-1 family would be used and how risky would such a selection be?

 

[Muar River]

Is anyone aware of the reason(s) for accelerating the programme and bringing forward the announcement date of the successful design? Are any of the designs likely to be advantaged or disadvantaged by the change?

 

[gf0012-aust]

Yes and the F35A range is more than 50nm less than specified because of the need to retain fuel to cool avionics and its bomb bay acoustics is problematic for some weapons - but after recent Red Flag should we cancel it?

that's not relevant to this debate - we could also argue that losing 50nm is miniscule compared to the fact that we now end up with 72 additional battlespace nodes which more than compensates for a point in time range ring change

for the helos its a far bigger issue and not something for a public forum

The AH-64E is certainly even further from maritime qualification. Even though it was used off ships against Libya, if it ditched there was no flotation and no easy means to get out of the cockpit, so if we are serious about a phatship attack helo the AH-64E is immediately excluded.

its far easier to get the apache qualified than the tiger ever could be. failure to qualify apache on ships is due to host nations conops not needing it

the logistics tail benefits, the integration benefits, the actual version control benefits under FMS far outweigh anything that Tiger bought to the table

and there is the not so insignificant issue that it was never the platform of choice by the people who had the operational interest. it was a political selection writ large

need to add some context here - at the time of evaluation consideration for using them off pretend carriers was not even on the horizon. On the pure initial need the requirements were very very clear.

marine qualification is a latter req. IMO keep them on land or make them ready for cash and carry, but get the right helo if you intend using them to fight from the host. if they are not fighting from the host and are just being deployed on a basing scenario, then floating and dismounting at sea is not a consideration - its an WHS issue, not a combat demand.

by any measure, if the conops requires fighting from the host, then there are better options.

 

[John Newman]

Are any of the designs likely to be advantaged or disadvantaged by the change?

Mate, have a re-read of the article again (here are the relevant paragraphs):

The process of selecting the design for the Royal Australian Navy’s nine new Future Frigates will be accelerated by the federal government to save time and to ensure construction of the warships can begin in 2020.

Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne told The Australian the number of competing combat systems being considered for the frigates had been reduced to the two which were considered to be the most suitable.

That would streamline the process of selecting the best vessels, Mr Pyne said. “We won’t be wasting time assessing things we will never use.” That would give the contenders more time to focus on other aspects of their bids.

Again, how I read that is the three contenders now only have to consider two 'possible' combat systems for their designs, giving them 'more' time to focus other issues.

 

[gf0012-aust]

mil-aerospace op-ed on shipboard power demands.. CREF what Volk and I stated earlier about future warship demands re energy management.

note the vessel and penant number in the happy snap

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/[email protected]&eid=288660047&bid=1679880

 

[ADMk2]

GF - Please read the Jan-Feb Australian Aviation article Flying Tiger - including and interview with CO 1Avn Regt. The last Audit Office report is similar to US GAO reports - largely doom and gloom based on what were past issues, but if you read what the operators are saying the Tiger is starting to give them what they want.

AIR 87 was for an armed recce aircraft - like the cancelled Comanche - not a large anti tank helo like the AH-64E. The Tiger has longer range is much more agile than the Apache.

I did read it. Appeared a very corporate line to me and on a personal note as someone who is very worried about the likelihood of having his toys taken away...

Corporate line was to publicly, fully support SeaSprite too. Until it was axed and then the knives came out.

As for giving the 'operators' what they want, that is an interesting comment. I suppose if what you want is average daily availability of 3.5 helicopters out of a 2 operational squadron and a training squadron fleet, then you would be satisfied with the Tiger fleet. What the 'operators' don't seem to understand (or be allowed to mention...) is that the only reason they have been able to fly the Tiger as much as they have is because availability has been so terribly awful. That terrible availability in it's own ridiculous way has allowed Army to be actually afford to operate it a bit. Were availability actually good, half the fleet would have been grounded with the cost of the actual flight hours to get this thing in the air...

Tiger will always be the same regardless of which 'Mk' it is. It's been a boondoggle from day one and will always be due to a finite overall fleet, nil new orders, large cancellations or downsized current orders added on top of a historical and future lack of investment in the development of the plaform.

As for it's so-called 'capability' it's a recon asset is it? With no radar system, no ability to hand off imagery, let alone FMV, no compliance with VMF texting and no integration with any Army battlefield management system, it's 'recon credentials' appear rather lacking to me...

Then of course you could think about the seemingly great decision to put an 8k ranged Hellfire missile onto it. A decision that was widely lauded. What wasn't so widely lauded was the French sighting system that only allowed targetting of said missile at 2000m's... meaning any Tiger that is hoping to self-designate it's primary weapon (and it's only precision guided weapon for that matter) has to fly right into the engagement zone of every threat system starting from heavy machine guns upwards...

Now of course I admit there are other ways to guide a Hellfire, from the UAV's the Tiger can't control (or even communicate with) to the JTACS / FAC's Tiger can only talk to via insecure voice...

But hey, it's agility is supposedly 'nn' % greater than it's rival...

Funny. I don't see aerodynamic agility as high on the list of ADF priorities when it discusses the 5th Generation force it is attempting to construct, but maybe I just need to take a closer look at those materials...

 

[t68]

mil-aerospace op-ed on shipboard power demands.. CREF what Volk and I stated earlier about future warship demands re energy management.

note the vessel and penant number in the happy snap

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/[email protected]&eid=288660047&bid=1679880

This article from war is boring shows some of the issues when talking about using the San Antonio LPD as part of the BMD ship deployable fleet, I also think it can go towards using a single hull type with various variants and how that can be used in the distributed lethality that volk mentioned in another thread.

Closing the well deck would also afford the service the space onboard to host high-powered laser weapons and electromagnetic rail guns as those advanced systems become available over the next decade or two. It would also free up space to host many more missile tubes than would be possible on a destroyer or cruiser. Estimates vary as to how many more exactly, but some sources suggest that an LPD hull might be able double the missile capacity of an Aegis cruiser.

However, while the space and weight margins would be available, Huntington Ingalls and the Navy would have to figure out a way to generate enough power and cooling for such a large radar and the other directed energy weapons the sea service hopes to add to the ship.

“You can put a pretty significant power generation plant or plants on the platform and you could put pretty significant cooling capabilities on that platform,” Cuccias said. “And the platform, because of its internal volume and*… because of its stability, can handle it without radical changes to the ship.”

 

[SteveR]

I did read it. Appeared a very corporate line to me and on a personal note as someone who is very worried about the likelihood of having his toys taken away...

As for giving the 'operators' what they want, that is an interesting comment. I suppose if what you want is average daily availability of 3.5 helicopters out of a 2 operational squadron and a training squadron fleet, then you would be satisfied with the Tiger fleet. What the 'operators' don't seem to understand (or be allowed to mention...) is that the only reason they have been able to fly the Tiger as much as they have is because availability has been so terribly awful. That terrible availability in it's own ridiculous way has allowed Army to be actually afford to operate it a bit. Were availability actually good, half the fleet would have been grounded with the cost of the actual flight hours to get this thing in the air...

As for it's so-called 'capability' it's a recon asset is it? With no radar system, no ability to hand off imagery, let alone FMV, no compliance with VMF texting and no integration with any Army battlefield management system, it's 'recon credentials' appear rather lacking to me...

Then of course you could think about the seemingly great decision to put an 8k ranged Hellfire missile onto it. A decision that was widely lauded. What wasn't so widely lauded was the French sighting system that only allowed targetting of said missile at 2000m's... meaning a.

Remember that AIR 87 was about getting ARH to replace Kiowas and Bushrangers which only had voice radios and binoculars. I think you would agree Tiger is way ahead of that! Tiger Mk 3 will improve the optics to latest generation that should go out towards 8Km.

As far as data interoperability was concerned ADF had not even decided on VMF as it standard back at the time of AIR87 but I have seen a report emanating from Avalon that RAAF is now considering procuring more Northrop Grumman Bacon boxes which will include re-transmission of Eurogrid and conversion to VMF. If Tiger was to be abandoned why are ADF considering this??

The French have operated Tiger successfully in Afghanistan since 2009 and more recently Mali and Chad - indicating that it is the supply chain problem that is reducing availability here in Oz.

Finally I recall reading Think Defence Blog some years ago and reading how much manpower the Brits had to pour into keeping their Apaches airborne.

Oh the Seasprite - now working very well for the RNZN - we ditched for political reasons.

 

[Volkodav]

The French have operated Tiger successfully in Afghanistan since 2009 and more recently Mali and Chad - indicating that it is the supply chain problem that is reducing availability here in Oz.

According to the RAEME maintainers I know including the Sqn SSM who has since escaped, the only way the French have been able to deploy even small numbers of Tigers is to drain pretty much the entire the entire supply chain, all active and training units of all spare and consumables to support the two or so helicopters deployed. The thing has been an unmitigated disaster, worst part is it came that way from the contractor who sold us a developmental model masquerading as a MOTS solution.

 

[gf0012-aust]

According to the RAEME maintainers I know including the Sqn SSM who has since escaped, the only way the French have been able to deploy even small numbers of Tigers is to drain pretty much the entire the entire supply chain, all active and training units of all spare and consumables to support the two or so helicopters deployed. The thing has been an unmitigated disaster, worst part is it came that way from the contractor who sold us a developmental model masquerading as a MOTS solution.

and we are only touching the problems that are visible in the public domaim

there's a pile of other stuff that can't be discussed in open forums

at least with seasprites they actually had resolved most of it but politically it had reached the point of no return, despite what the engineers were telling the politicians

Tiger is an unmitigated cluster. The company claims on capability makes pinocchio look like mother theresa

 

[Volkodav]

and we are only touching the problems that are visible in the public domaim

there's a pile of other stuff that can't be discussed in open forums

at least with seasprites they actually had resolved most of it but politically it had reached the point of no return, despite what the engineers were telling the politicians

Tiger is an unmitigated cluster. The company claims on capability makes pinocchio look like mother theresa

The main issue with the Sea Sprite is the government of the day proceeded with down selecting a winner and procuring them after they cancelled the platform they were intended for. If I recall correctly the original requirement was for 27 missile armed light to medium helicopters to operate from the ANZACs and corvettes because although the ANZACs had been specifically designed to operate the RANs SH-60Bs they were to large for the corvettes. As it did not make sense to have parallel procurements for the corvette helicopter and an additional batch of Seahawks the requirements were rolled into one. While 16 of one type and 27 of another made sense, 16 and 11 didn't, especially when 8 additional Seahawks for a total of 24 would have done just fine.

 

[StingrayOZ]

If that is the case they should simply take up the option for the 4th AWD.

They could then take a little extra time evaluating the other contenders.[/quote]

The time for that is gone. Australia really wanted a two hanger solution anyway. But a CEAFAR Aegis F-105 with two hangers would be something that could very easily be produced with very low risk, and build off our existing hull building experience. With updated systems and equipment. The integration would probably be easier, with a more recent Aegis baseline.

Arguably it would be better than building another AWD. You get twice as much aviation capability (or more using UAV's), you get new systems and engines that are compliant. You get the same combat power, CEC, a better radar rounding out the package. These really would be AWD pluses. But that means they will eat more into their design life margin.

Ideally I would see the Type 26 in Australian use the upgraded F-105 as a benchmark, with a 10-15m hull plug bringing it to the approximate dimensions of the Atago Class. No doubt that would provide for more strike length VLS than 24. Also command space, additional fuel bunkerage, machinery space, etc.

Around 10,000t.

 

[AegisFC]

Am i correct in thinking that if Aegis was selected with Caefar, that would be the first time that any Radar system other then the SPY-1 family would be used and how risky would such a selection be?

You are not correct.
The entire system is Aegis, the combat system portion is called Command and Decision (CND), a variant of CND is used on the LM LCS variant. As built the Tico's had a secondary air search radar that worked just fine with CND and the modernized cruisers have SPQ-9B, also not part of the SPY family.
Also CND has been used for various test programs (the ARTIST US/UK collaboration is the first thing that comes to mind) since almost the beginning.

 

[hauritz]

Ideally I would see the Type 26 in Australian use the upgraded F-105 as a benchmark, with a 10-15m hull plug bringing it to the approximate dimensions of the Atago Class. No doubt that would provide for more strike length VLS than 24. Also command space, additional fuel bunkerage, machinery space, etc.

Around 10,000t.

The more I hear about this project the more it is becoming obvious to me that the requirement is for a vessel that greatly exceeds the capability of the Hobart class. Initially I thought they were after an ASW vessel with fairly basic aa. Now it is apparent that they are talking about 9 additional vessels that not only have improved ASW but also have an Aegis combat system ... or its equivalent.

It is hard to imagine that they could offer that sort of capability on the Hobart hull without eating into its growth margins. The same for the FREMM.

The type 26 would seem to be the only vessel that has a chance of meeting the requirements of this new vessel and still have any sort of growth margin left.

Given that the production of this ship will be spread out over 20 years I imagine that they will be evolving the design and in all probability will want to increase the physical size of the hull. The first batch might be pretty much off OTS but by the time they get to the second or third fight they are probably going to want to put a plug in it.

 

[alexsa]

If that is the case they should simply take up the option for the 4th AWD.

They could then take a little extra time evaluating the other contenders.

As things stand at the moment the best option ... which in my opinion is probably the type 26 ... is also the riskiest option. If they were able to push back the decision date by another couple of years it would give the British a little more time to get their act together.

One thing that does occur to me though ... this isn't good for CEAFAR.

You can imagine Navantia rubbing their hands together thinking that all they need to do is offer a dual hanger version of the AWD.

It must also hurt the Italian bid as air warfare does seem to be an increasingly important consideration for this project.

I don't think so. Using the Aegis back end does not mean that SPY1 is the only option for the radar. The tri-band option with the CEA radar suite has some particular advantages. Essentially you will need up with a multi-roll combatant with enhanced ASW features.

Building a one off does not help that

 

[RegR]

(ironically the FFGs are cheaper to operate and sustain than the ANZACs).

Really? The FFGs were more cost effective to operate than the FFHs? Who knew, I always assumed they would have cost more considering their age, propulsion, crew size etc. NZ should maybe have considered a couple of these ex US to augment the ANZACs back in the day if that was the case considering the commonality benefits (back then anyway) or at least one to keep the frigate numbers more realistic at least.

 

[ADMk2]

Remember that AIR 87 was about getting ARH to replace Kiowas and Bushrangers which only had voice radios and binoculars. I think you would agree Tiger is way ahead of that! Tiger Mk 3 will improve the optics to latest generation that should go out towards 8Km.

We've spent $3b (poorly) on this hangar queen after it was sold to us on top of a bunch of lies! So it bloody well SHOULD be better than what it replaced. The problem is as a recon asset, in terms of sharing the data it obtains it really isn't better than what came before it...

As far as data interoperability was concerned ADF had not even decided on VMF as it standard back at the time of AIR87 but I have seen a report emanating from Avalon that RAAF is now considering procuring more Northrop Grumman Bacon boxes which will include re-transmission of Eurogrid and conversion to VMF. If Tiger was to be abandoned why are ADF considering this??

Why did ADF conduct a BACN trial? Because they DO want the damn thing to work, but now it's going to need a Gulfstream G550 in theatre to support it. Just so it can provide it's incredibly valuable 'recon' product and limited fire support options. Limited which according to it's own manufacturer, somehow makes it better than it's rivals apparently... Lol

Cost effective alright...

The French have operated Tiger successfully in Afghanistan since 2009 and more recently Mali and Chad - indicating that it is the supply chain problem that is reducing availability here in Oz.

At the cost of entirely stripping out it's domestic capability in order to support a whopping 3x deployed aircraft... The supply chain is most certainly an issue. One Germany and Spain have complained about too...

Finally I recall reading Think Defence Blog some years ago and reading how much manpower the Brits had to pour into keeping their Apaches airborne.

They do operate 3x as many platforms as we do. But never mind I'm sure that is applicable here...

Oh the Seasprite - now working very well for the RNZN - we ditched for political reasons.

We ditched for logical reasons. The thing should have been cancelled as soon as the OPV's were. Same as we should have junked the Tiger (and Taipan for that matter) as soon as the manufacturer's lies became as obvious as they have been...