In the words of the late great Pres H Truman
“It’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit”
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0
- Thread starter OPSSG
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“It’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit”
The UK had almost three times as many road traffic deaths back then as now, with about a third as many motor vehicles, each driving fewer miles per year on average than now.
Survivorship bias.
That’s not how exchange rates and relative competitive advantage work. The relative strength of the Aussie dollar is largely due to the productivity and favourable terms of trade from the mining sector. Add into the mix that low and mid tier manufacturing is competing for staff against mining, forcing wages up, and it was always going to be difficult to do anything but high end manufacturing in Australia without significant government support.
More, and more comprehensive, FTAs are a very good thing though. As is clamping down in inappropriate profit shifting. But profit shifting doesn’t drive up the exchange rate - in fact the opposite.
I think we have a good chance of establishing a competitive advanced manufacturing hub centred around the space, shipbuilding and possibly nuclear sectors in SA. But this is far from a sure thing.
The mining industry makes up 1.5% of the Australian work force, the mining construction boom saw a temporary increase in the number of people employed.
Twist it anyway you like, there are reports going back two decades stating that the mining construction boom was distorting our economy and that the super profits from mining exports and investment in mining were damaging pretty much every other industry.
We had lots of money, now we don't, on top of that we no longer have the industries and workforces we had a decade ago.
I
I all worked on a number of projects for the OEMs, fixing and improving things. The changes under Tom Phillips at Mitsubishi and Peter Hannenburger at GMH were phenomenal.
There was a lot of boomer dead wood who were pretty much "we've always done it this way" "we've never done it that way", "why should we change", but the results proved them wrong and sometimes they were moved on.
Basically, in the middle of the extended mining construction boom, forced restructuring of parent companies overseas following the GFC, and the need to kick off new products the bloke who was obviously going to be the next PM was saying we don't need the industry.
He was wrong but hey that's life, livelihoods, industrial capacity, a nursery for technical, logistics and engineering people, who needs all that.
I was there until 2007 working contracts at multiple suppliers to help them reach the benchmarks. Basically they had an issue, the OEMs would tell them to fix it, and someone like me would.
I all worked on a number of projects for the OEMs, fixing and improving things. The changes under Tom Phillips at Mitsubishi and Peter Hannenburger at GMH were phenomenal.
There was a lot of boomer dead wood who were pretty much "we've always done it this way" "we've never done it that way", "why should we change", but the results proved them wrong and sometimes they were moved on.
Basically, in the middle of the extended mining construction boom, forced restructuring of parent companies overseas following the GFC, and the need to kick off new products the bloke who was obviously going to be the next PM was saying we don't need the industry.
He was wrong but hey that's life, livelihoods, industrial capacity, a nursery for technical, logistics and engineering people, who needs all that.
There's no twisting. That's completely consistent with what I said - that the mining boom (which is still going), and as others have said, low productivity/high labour costs are what killed local manufacturing previously. Not multinational tax avoidance (as pernicious as that is).
We still have lots of money. In the December quarter we ran a $17bn trade surplus. Our households are heavily indebted (2nd highest in the G20, only Switzerland is higher), but the Federal Government is not (2nd lowest in the G20, only Saudi Arabia is lower). We are one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, with GDP per capita 3rd in the G20.
I agree that we no longer have many of the industries we used to have, and in an open and peaceful world that's a good thing, and one of the reasons we are as wealthy as we are - as our resources have been directed where they are most productive. In a more fractured world (which we are in / are heading into) we need greater self reliance on supply chains within Australia and our key allies that we can defend. That's why I am supportive of some limited industry assistance for Defence and related industries, and this looks to be what the Government are doing.
Yep, no more enduring f/w ASW for the RAN.
As an ex CAG ASW I saw this as an act of bastardry so I resigned!
If they cared so little for ASW why should I?
This act led to almost 25 years of ASW neglect. It was not helped by the primacy of AAW in the heads of our leaders.
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John Newman
The Bunker Group
Swerve, mate,The UK had almost three times as many road traffic deaths back then as now, with about a third as many motor vehicles, each driving fewer miles per year on average than now.
Survivorship bias.
Yes we lived dangerously back in the day!
But.....
We didn’t know any different, as I said, back in the mid 1960s we bounced around in the back of the car without seatbelts, what was a seatbelt? I didn’t know, never seen one, maybe my father knew, but who knows?
Back then we cruised around in our 1960 FB Holden (sort of a scaled down 1957 Chev, see photo).
But our ‘tank’, an Aussie made tank was a big car compared to previous ‘British’ cars Dad owned, I can still remember the very early 1950s Hillman Minx Dad had, followed by the slightly younger, and larger Austin A40 Somerset (all three of those cars would be very collectable and very expensive today too!).
On a side note, I would have thought we here in Oz would have been behind the UK when it came to compulsory fitted seat belts, and seat belt wearing, but we were way ahead.
In Oz seatbelts were compulsory to wear from 1971, they didn’t become compulsory in the UK until 1983, and not compulsory for back seats until 1991, twenty years after Oz.
Memories.......
Attachments
Which is sort of odd given than 40 years ago ..1982 ish…. when that was taking place no country other than the USA had aircraft that could reach Australia ( maybe NZ?…or did Indonesia still have their Beagles and Badgers in 1980?) but a heap of countries had subs that could travel this distance and there was no SCS threat on the horizon then. It was all Soviet Union as the threat.
I think there’s an opportunity to start up a
Side note - there were quite a few ex-Toyota people at Barrow, in the early 2010s they were driving the turnaround. Interesting question as Australia scales up this industry- where are the people going to come from? Maybe they need to be recruited straight out of school, a massive STEM push
Our cars had seat belts, I remember my dad fitting them. "Hey son, get in the back of the car and hold this bolt while I tighten it from underneath" I wish he had told me to get out before he drilled the next hole, right into my foot!
Years later I was certifying cars to ADR 3 and 5 for seat and seat belt anchorages, knowing what I know now, it's fair to say that while a seat belt is better than no seat belt, the early ones were far from safe. We are talking the difference between a fatality and maybe surviving with life altering injuries, or as was often the case, dying in hospital, instead of at the scene.
Engineering, not just on the actual vehicles, but on the roads has had more impact than any arbitrary road rules. That said, you have to set some rules, otherwise every idiot in a blinged up crew cab ute will try to drive it like a touring car, likely on the wrong side of the road. Engineering can mitigate the damage caused in a given accident, but it can't mitigate stupidity.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Canada’s auto industry only survives because of access to the US market. Without this access our auto sector would die. GM left Canada (claiming they are going all electric so they needed to close Oshawa). The US companies really did produce crap much allowed the Japanese to penetrate into NA.
Biden is now proposing huge incentives for buying electric vehicles but only if they are produced in the USA. That’s what America First really means.
Biden is now proposing huge incentives for buying electric vehicles but only if they are produced in the USA. That’s what America First really means.
This is very likely an early speculation(sorry mods) but there is this possibility, so my understanding is that the Collins class submarines will have all completed their LO.T.E by 2026 modernising them and extending their life till the 2040,s ,the first of the Virginias class submarines will be available in the 2030,s from 2 - 5 , my query is if there is a transition for training and transferring of crews from Collins to the Virginia's what to do with the still capable Collins class ? I s there a possibility of selling some of these still capable vessels?
Back on topic please. This is a RAN thread, not a thread for the discussion of vehicles and industry. Thanks.
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
Collins Life of Type Extension (LOTE) - ASC
The Collins LOTE is due to start in 2026 with HMAS Farncomb first Sub up, it will add 10 years to the life of each Sub and is due to be completed by 2038. They are doing 1 Sub at a time and is expected to take around 2 years per Sub. I believe the fitting of the Optronic Masts may be done by 2026. Finding crew for the Collins class may be an issue by the early 2040s though.
Going Boeing
Well-Known Member
In addition to Redlands 18‘s reply, if you refer to the chart in my post #3400, it will show the planned progress of the Collins LOTE in conjunction with the normal Full Cycle Docking schedule. Most of the boats will have been fitted with the upgraded sonar before the LOTE.
Manning of the Collins will be an ongoing issue as the RAN is probably already taking crew from them to have SSN training on RN & USN boats and will be really stretched when the Virginia’s arrive in the early 2030’s.
On another matter, Sky News is reporting that the Collins class are to get Tomahawk capability.
Australia set to acquire long-range missiles on Collins-class submarines
Looking through your post 3400 it mentions one ssn coming into the fleet after the Collins have completed L.O.T.E in 2038 though it has been reported as 3 interim Virginia class submarines becoming available earlier adding them to the number of available Collins class suggests manning all these submarines may be a concern
While that may well be the case, as I think we have discussed before on the forum, the recent notification of US export approval was for the RGM-109; that is the surface launch version. There has not, so far, been any approval of the submarine launched version, the UGM-109, that I have seen.
Going Boeing
Well-Known Member
I should have added that was an old chart made well before the recent announcements but it was only to give you an indication of the LOTE schedule, the SSN details are out of date.