Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0

John Fedup

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
With all the pressing demands concerning SSNs, I think a push for LEU reactors is an impediment that is not needed. How do you design SSN(R) assuming this is the choice, without a completed reactor design. Rather risky IMHO. A good goal for block 2 SSN(R) perhaps.

breakingdefense.com

Fixing a fatal, nuclear flaw in AUKUS - Breaking Defense

With an AUKUS announcement imminent, nonproliferation expert Alan Kuperman says there’s still time to make sure Australian subs use less dangerous low-enriched uranium and make the world safer.
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swerve

Super Moderator
Rob c said:
Yep, My personal thoughts are that any hypersonic missile would reduce its velocity significantly as its altitude decreased in its terminal dive due to increased drag from the denser atmosphere and that debris would decelerate very quickly to subsonic speeds due to the very high supersonic drag for misshapen objects. Any missile that starts to break up at hypersonic speeds will self destruct very quickly due to the enormous forces involved. the other point to consider is that due to the misshapen nature of the debris, it will not continue on a predictable path and could and would go anywhere, not necessarily hitting the target. Even the warhead if not exploded would in all probability be tumbling with the associated aerodynamic forces decelerating it very quickly and it going on an unpredictable course.
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Yes, & all that lot makes it very difficult to predict what would happen to such a missile once damaged.
 
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StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
John Fedup said:
With all the pressing demands concerning SSNs, I think a push for LEU reactors is an impediment that is not needed. How do you design SSN(R) assuming this is the choice, without a completed reactor design. Rather risky IMHO. A good goal for block 2 SSN(R) perhaps.

breakingdefense.com

Fixing a fatal, nuclear flaw in AUKUS - Breaking Defense

With an AUKUS announcement imminent, nonproliferation expert Alan Kuperman says there’s still time to make sure Australian subs use less dangerous low-enriched uranium and make the world safer.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
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If Australia wanted an SSN with an LEU reactor, then they just needed the French sub, off the shelf.

I don't think this is even an issue tbh.
 
John Fedup

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
StobieWan said:
If Australia wanted an SSN with an LEU reactor, then they just needed the French sub, off the shelf.

I don't think this is even an issue tbh.
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Hopefully not as it is a likely C-F waiting to happen with the timeframe for the requirement. As for the French option, without a major infrastructure investment in Australia, refuelling would have to be in France, not a desirable option either IMHO.
 
Lolcake

Lolcake

Active Member
Volkodav said:
Australia, financed by farms and mines, run by lawyers and accountants for the benefit of financiers.

No desire for middle a class, or the professionals and para-professionals that form it, much better to have happy cashed up low skilled bogans who think it's cool to get paid more than the hoity toity educated people. A barrista in Sydney get paid more than a technical manager in

Uneducated, i.e. not even an apprenticeship, are allowed to call themselves tradesmen, people do two three day courses plus an assignment get a diploma in something or other and call themselves para professionals.

At the same time Engineers Australia and other bodies have rigged it so people who have done apprenticeships, associate or advanced diploma plus a professional post grad studies can't work at senior levels. Almost all the roles they filled up until about ten years ago are now professional engineer slots.

We have a shortage of competent qualified technical and engineering people and rent seeking organisations are gaming the system to place engineers into governance and assurance, instead of engineering, and keep techos on lower salaries than admin and finance people. It's a better career move for techos to transition to QA ILS CM PM or admin than it is to stay in engineering.

I wonder why we have shortages.
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I left my field of civil engineering for precisely this reason. I remember 5 years out of uni i was on 120k while supervisors were on over 180k with better bonus'. They also had been earning money since they dropped out in year 10 while I earned a handsome Hecs debt instead.

Funnily enough I began small developments and became a supervisor myself. System is broken.
 
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Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Lolcake said:
I left my field of civil engineering for precisely this reason. I remember 5 years out of uni i was on 120k while supervisors were on over 180k with better bonus'. They also had been earning money since they dropped out in year 10 while I earned a handsome Hecs debt instead.

Funnily enough I began small developments and became a supervisor myself. System is broken.
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My wife works in the finance sector and earns over twice what I do, not counting share options and bonuses which almost doubled it again. She's very good at what she does but when you look at the amount of study and professional development you need to do to get where I am it is little wonder many don't choose STEM eng or tech.

What makes it worse is there is an entire generation of technical officers, many with trades as well as their technical qualifications, who earn less than those who stayed in trade and didn't do extra study. Many have also gone on to post grad, earning masters degrees in speciality engineering, not MBAs but masters degrees in areas we have a shortage on engineers, and they can't get roles that recognise this.

It has noticeably gotten worse since the demise of the Automotive industry.

Too late for me but if we hope the sustain, let alone build the types of capability the country needs, wages for (proper technical) trade, technical and engineers need to improve, career paths need to improve, and there needs to be a move away from tying pay increases to becoming a manager.

If you've got a technical person with decades of experience, doing critical work very few people can do, including managing complex components of other people jobs, they don't know how to do themselves, while those other people, who have just one job (that they don't know how to do on their own) get paid 50% more, you have a serious problem.

One of the best obsolescence and RAM experts I know, who was also expert in strain gauging and condition monitoring, left and is now making much more money doing electrical testing and tagging. Lots of stories like that. I earnt more sitting on a chair, reading a book while supervising tradies on a defence site than I earn as a defence technical manager now.

The system is broken.
 
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Lolcake

Lolcake

Active Member
Volkodav said:
My wife works in the finance sector and earns over twice what I do, not counting share options and bonuses which almost doubled it again. She's very good at what she does but when you look at the amount of study and professional development you need to do to get where I am it is little wonder many don't choose STEM eng or tech.

What makes it worse is there is an entire generation of technical officers, many with trades as well as their technical qualifications, who earn less than those who staid in trade and didn't do extra study.a Many have also gone on to post grad, earning masters degrees in speciality engineering, not MBAs but masters degrees in areas we have a shortage on engineers, and they can't get roles that recognise this.
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I thank the gods I did not pursue my masters. Absolutely useless in my field and it would have encumbered me the same amount as an undergraduate degree. (40 k plus)

You are also absolutely spot on when it comes to ushering qualified engineers into administrative and quality assurance roles. Worked for Leighton's (now known as cpb). It got to the point where I was an administrative lackey for supervisors whilst concurrently being a Qa and safety document controller. All the post grad students would for the 2 or 3 years run around like truly mad people printing a1 site plans and other documents for supervisors for half their hours. While signing off endless qa check-lists to close off work lots. Absolutely ridiculous.

At some point after 5 years, despite a promotion that bumped me up to 120k i called it quits and the lower pay than those who never went to the trouble of obtaining a tertiary degree was the last point of discussion before I handed in my resignation letter. Work hours were something like 10-12 hours a day 6 days a week. Worked everywhere from Darwin, Coffs harbor and up to Mackay.

Over 80 percent of my same year graduates have quit the field entirely. They pursued anything, from devorative cake shop ownership to fitness class instructors and have made an absolute killing.

Shame.
 
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Scott Elaurant

Well-Known Member
John Fedup said:
With all the pressing demands concerning SSNs, I think a push for LEU reactors is an impediment that is not needed. How do you design SSN(R) assuming this is the choice, without a completed reactor design. Rather risky IMHO. A good goal for block 2 SSN(R) perhaps.

breakingdefense.com

Fixing a fatal, nuclear flaw in AUKUS - Breaking Defense

With an AUKUS announcement imminent, nonproliferation expert Alan Kuperman says there’s still time to make sure Australian subs use less dangerous low-enriched uranium and make the world safer.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
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I actually quite like the benefits of the LEU reactors in French SSNs and consider that the French Suffren was unfairly dismissed from RAN consideration. It also has a clever electric drive.

Nevertheless switching to LEU is a big change and virtually a new class of sub. The LEU reactor takes up more space for the same power. So it requires a complete rebalancing of the internal layout on an SSN. A much bigger change than, say, switching from a PWR2 to an S9G HEU reactor. It would take a decade.
 
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TScott

Member
Lolcake said:
I thank the gods I did not pursue my masters. Absolutely useless in my field and it would have costed the same as an undergraduate degree. (40
k plus). You are also absolutely spot on when it comes to ushering qualified engineers into administrative and quality assurance roles. Worked for Leighton's (now known as cpb). It got to the point where I was an administrative lackey for supervisors whilst concurrently being a Qa and safety document controller. All the post grad students would for the 2 or 3 years run around like truly mad people printing a1 site plans and other documents for supervisors for half their hours. While signing off endless qa check-lists to close off work lots. Absoutely ridiculous.

At some point after 5 years, despite a promotion that bumped me up to 120k i called it quits and the lower pay than those who never went to the trouble of obtaining a tertiary degree was the last point of discussion before I handed in my resignation letter.

Over 80 percent of my same year graduates have quit the field entirely. They pursued anything, from devorative cake shop ownership to fitness class instructors and have made an absolute killing.

Shame.
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In military parlance, the above is the equivalent of the officer fresh out of the academy complaining about the 20 year veteran NCO.

There's a good reason most site managers, even non-tertiary qualified ones, are more valued and much better remunerated than engineering grads that decided to join commercial construction companies through the construction/project management stream.

You just can't replicate experience, especially when managing other trades/problems and most of them have the boots on the ground experience over years and years.
 
Lolcake

Lolcake

Active Member
TScott said:
In military parlance, the above is the equivalent of the officer fresh out of the academy complaining about the 20 year veteran NCO.

There's a good reason most site managers, even non-tertiary qualified ones, are more valued and much better remunerated than engineering grads that decided to join commercial construction companies through the construction/project management stream.

You just can't replicate experience, especially when managing other trades/problems and most of them have the boots on the ground experience over years and years.
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No argument here. I was comparing a supervisor who had equivalent years in the industry as myself. He was on sigificantly more remuneration and bonus payments than engineers, even the very gifted ones who had been promoted to senior peoject engineers within a 5 year time frame. Ive heard from some ex-collegues that gap has grown even further now. This was 10 odd years ago.
 
John Fedup

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
Scott Elaurant said:
I actually quite like the benefits of the LEU reactors in French SSNs and consider that the French Suffren was unfairly dismissed from RAN consideration. It also has a clever electric drive.

Nevertheless switching to LEU is a big change and virtually a new class of sub. The LEU reactor takes up more space for the same power. So it requires a complete rebalancing of the internal layout on an SSN. A much bigger change than, say, switching from a PWR2 to an S9G HEU reactor. It would take a decade.
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A decade at least and the refuelling infrastructure is another delay.
 
H

hauritz

Well-Known Member
A story in the Australian suggests that the UK will be using the US combat system in their next generation of SSNs.
Subs standard: Britain signals AUKUS design ties
At the national press club the British High Commissioner says Australia’s soon-to-be revealed AUKUS submarine design will be interoperable with those of both the UK and US, suggesting the British may have agreed to adopt an American combat system, or the chosen design might be common to all three countries.

This would of course remove one of the major issues Australia might have had to face in adding a US combat system to a UK design.
 
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TScott

Member
Lolcake said:
No argument here. I was comparing a supervisor who had equivalent years in the industry as myself. He was on sigificantly more remuneration and bonus payments than engineers, even the very gifted ones who had been promoted to senior peoject engineers within a 5 year time frame. Ive heard from some ex-collegues that gap has grown even further now. This was 10 odd years ago.
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I guess it depends on the role as there's some differing terminology from company to company.

Lendlease as an example call their project co-ordinators (base level construction managers), project "engineers", but they aren't functioning as engineers at all.

If you are in construction management, rather than pure engineering, I wouldn't expect an engineering degree to get you any extra brownie points than a construction management degree or an architecture degree.

You all start at the bottom and it's about who deserves to get to the top once in the door from my experience.

I've seen excellent workers from all three streams, infact most of the best female project managers/construction managers tend to be ex-architecture grads.

I know plenty of tertiary qualified engineers in construction management on big money. ($300k+)

I myself am an ex-engineer, but work on the subbie side of major projects (commercial - contracts, profitability etc) and am on $250k+ + car/fuel etc.
 
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TScott

Member
Summary of the article:

- AUKUS pact, will have multiple stages with at least one US submarine visiting Australian ports in the coming years and end in the late 2030s with a new class of submarines being built with British designs and American technology.

- the United States would forward deploy some submarines in Western Australia by around 2027.

- In the early 2030s, Australia would buy three Virginia class submarines and have the option to buy two more.
 
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Aardvark144

Active Member
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