ADF General discussion thread

[Tasman]

Congressional approval was always needed, we knew that. Morrison talked to both House Leaders during a visit to Washington in late 2021, the White House must be quite confidant of getting that approval and generally overall the talk has been positive from both sides.

AUKUS is being sold as a win/win for all three partners.

While it is true that Australia will need to work hard to ensure that the project survives numerous presidencies and UK prime ministers as well as maintaining congressional support, both the USA and the UK stand to benefit from the deal. It will be important for Australia to continue to emphasize the extent to which Australia will assist the USN by not only providing a well supported base for forward deployment but also by contributing to the Virginia class production capacity.

In the case of the UK, Australia's participation in a joint program will be of enormous assistance as it will contribute to the development and potentially reduce both unit and ongoing support costs through economy of scale.

Tas

 

[Volkodav]

One thing is confirmed, no change at this stage to the Collins LOTE

Makes sense, look at the timings, without LOTE, the Collins class wouldn't last until the RAN Virginia's reach IOC. They definately wouldn't be around until the AUKUS boats.

 

[Vivendi]

Breaking news: the first AUKUS submarine has already arrived in Australia! Photographic evidence below:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1635630070629801984

 

[Todjaeger]

On Congress, I don't foresee it being an enormous obstacle. Senators have come out in support of AUKUS, while China (and hopefully Australia an ally) appear to be a bipartisan issue. You can never be too sure though...

There are a number of domestic issues going on within the US which IMO could be cause for concern. DT is really not the place to go into what could derail this in the Senate, but there are a number of things in play which have absolutely nothing to do with Australia or AUKUS which could cause problems, potentially just out of spite.

Congressional approval was always needed, we knew that. Morrison talked to both House Leaders during a visit to Washington in late 2021, the White House must be quite confidant of getting that approval and generally overall the talk has been positive from both sides.

However, it is now 2023 which means an entirely new Congress. Given some of the potential vote margins in the US Senate, as well as other things (again, not involving AUKUS) which would need to be passed in both sides of the US Congress, there is potential for one or more Senators to torpedoe any sub deal to sway votes on whatever 'their' pet rock bill is.

 

[hauritz]

Now that the dust has settled should we start to think about how this one project will distort Australia's defence force structure over the next five decades.

Richard Marles has already hinted that some programs might be cut back or even axed to pay for all this. This won't be a temporary thing either. Its not like we will cut this capability for now and bring it back later. We will effectively be locked into this program for the next 50 years.

Then of course there is the diplomatic side of things. Indonesia for example has expressed their concerns over this as has Malaysia. A lot of the smaller island nations also have reservations. You better believe that the Chinese have noticed this.

There are a number of domestic issues going on within the US which IMO could be cause for concern. DT is really not the place to go into what could derail this in the Senate, but there are a number of things in play which have absolutely nothing to do with Australia or AUKUS which could cause problems, potentially just out of spite.

However, it is now 2023 which means an entirely new Congress. Given some of the potential vote margins in the US Senate, as well as other things (again, not involving AUKUS) which would need to be passed in both sides of the US Congress, there is potential for one or more Senators to torpedoe any sub deal to sway votes on whatever 'their' pet rock bill is.

The cynic in me thinks that as long as the US Defence Industry keeps donating to US federal politicians and political parties this program is safe enough. General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingles are already preparing to set up shop in Australia.

AUKUS confronts ‘inflection point in history’ with $368b subs deal

The defence deal will be the biggest in Australian history but the first locally made nuclear submarines will not be delivered until the early 2040s.

www.afr.com

 

[Stampede]

There are a number of domestic issues going on within the US which IMO could be cause for concern. DT is really not the place to go into what could derail this in the Senate, but there are a number of things in play which have absolutely nothing to do with Australia or AUKUS which could cause problems, potentially just out of spite.



However, it is now 2023 which means an entirely new Congress. Given some of the potential vote margins in the US Senate, as well as other things (again, not involving AUKUS) which would need to be passed in both sides of the US Congress, there is potential for one or more Senators to torpedoe any sub deal to sway votes on whatever 'their' pet rock bill is.

AUKUS is politics, not just a propulsion system!
Our three layers of government.
Government of our two AUKUS partners.
Then there are our near neighbours and the broader international community.
We are locked in or locked out of this endeavour depending on the play of the above ingredients.

For now we finally have an intended road map going forward for our future submarine capability.
It's bold and ambitious.
Credit to the US for wanting to support us in this endeavour, but I see can't help but feel quite uneasy about where this is heading on many levels.
Still undecided.

The DSR will be a very interesting read.


Interesting times S

 

[Redlands18]

Some Updates
ADBR Australian Defence Business Review | Indo Pacific News
The 29 AH-64E for the Australian Army are amongst the 184 ordered from Boeing under FMS, by the US Government.
The attrition replacement EA-18G has been delivered to the RAAF, bringing the compliment back up to 12 ac.
Rheinmetall begins local production of Boxer CRVs - Australian Defence Magazine
Construction on the first of 186 Boxer CRVs to be built at MILVEHCOE at Ipswich Qld began today 20 Mar.

 

[Morgo]

Defence budget in the firing line to pay for new weapons

A couple of snippets:

“In what insiders are describing as “hatchets to frontline budgets”, The Australian Financial Review can reveal program managers have been told to trim 10 to 15 per cent from “sustainment” budgets across the Australian Defence Force, with the savings to be used to buy new weapons recommended by a major review into the military.”

“Multiple sources confirmed Defence’s Capability, Acquisition and Sustainment Group, or CASG, had been seeking savings. One approach has been reducing the stocks of spare parts in store, which reduces upfront capital costs but can mean platforms can be out of action for longer while equipment is ordered and delivered.

The other major cost-cutting came from axing subcontractors working on projects. Sources said some were being defined as “consultants” to make their removal more palatable, given the Albanese government’s broader drive to eliminate consultants from the bureaucracy. Others are being redesignated as members of the public service to ensure they and their skills can be retained.

However, these consultant roles were actually project planners and engineers crucial to keeping platforms in service.”


I have no doubt that there are inefficiencies that can be found and rooted out but this does seem penny wise and pound foolish.

 

[hauritz]

After hearing the cost of the SSNs I am waiting to hear the other shoe drop when they release the DSR. I am expecting a cutbacks in other areas to cover those costs.

While I believe SSNs are vital going forward I can also see them distorting defence spending and the ADF structure for the next few decades.

Hints are being dropped of improved capability for the navy and airforce but very little positive stuff is being leaked for the army,

 

[ngatimozart]

Defence budget in the firing line to pay for new weapons

A couple of snippets:

“In what insiders are describing as “hatchets to frontline budgets”, The Australian Financial Review can reveal program managers have been told to trim 10 to 15 per cent from “sustainment” budgets across the Australian Defence Force, with the savings to be used to buy new weapons recommended by a major review into the military.”

“Multiple sources confirmed Defence’s Capability, Acquisition and Sustainment Group, or CASG, had been seeking savings. One approach has been reducing the stocks of spare parts in store, which reduces upfront capital costs but can mean platforms can be out of action for longer while equipment is ordered and delivered.

The other major cost-cutting came from axing subcontractors working on projects. Sources said some were being defined as “consultants” to make their removal more palatable, given the Albanese government’s broader drive to eliminate consultants from the bureaucracy. Others are being redesignated as members of the public service to ensure they and their skills can be retained.

However, these consultant roles were actually project planners and engineers crucial to keeping platforms in service.”


I have no doubt that there are inefficiencies that can be found and rooted out but this does seem penny wise and pound foolish.

They should look at the recent US DOD experience where the demands of the so called "War on Terror" resulted in the likes of the USAF and USN deferring maintenance and diverting funds from their maintenance budgets to their mission budgets. As a result both the USAF & USN have massive maintenance backlogs and lost capabilities, because aircraft and ships were broken and not being fixed.

 

[Bob53]

Defence budget in the firing line to pay for new weapons

A couple of snippets:

“In what insiders are describing as “hatchets to frontline budgets”, The Australian Financial Review can reveal program managers have been told to trim 10 to 15 per cent from “sustainment” budgets across the Australian Defence Force, with the savings to be used to buy new weapons recommended by a major review into the military.”

“Multiple sources confirmed Defence’s Capability, Acquisition and Sustainment Group, or CASG, had been seeking savings. One approach has been reducing the stocks of spare parts in store, which reduces upfront capital costs but can mean platforms can be out of action for longer while equipment is ordered and delivered.

The other major cost-cutting came from axing subcontractors working on projects. Sources said some were being defined as “consultants” to make their removal more palatable, given the Albanese government’s broader drive to eliminate consultants from the bureaucracy. Others are being redesignated as members of the public service to ensure they and their skills can be retained.

However, these consultant roles were actually project planners and engineers crucial to keeping platforms in service.”


I have no doubt that there are inefficiencies that can be found and rooted out but this does seem penny wise and pound foolish.

Turn all equipment into MH90 then… shortsighted if correct. Sure cut waste but seems hard to get things done as is,

 

[swerve]

They should look at the recent US DOD experience where the demands of the so called "War on Terror" resulted in the likes of the USAF and USN deferring maintenance and diverting funds from their maintenance budgets to their mission budgets. As a result both the USAF & USN have massive maintenance backlogs and lost capabilities, because aircraft and ships were broken and not being fixed.

I think the German armed forces diverted money from maintenance to operations & procurement in response to a lng-term budget squeeze, apparently reasoning that it's quicker & easier to boost maintenance when the money tap's turned back on than to get new kit delivered,

 

[Volkodav]

Admiral Fisher was very much of the opinion that upgrading old ships was poor value for money, which is something I find I am in agreement.

Life cycle costs decrease as a capability matured but increase as it ages. While mid life upgrades are arguably cheaper than replacing platforms the capability gains, if any, are less than you would achieve with a new build or acquisition. Eventually you end up paying more, and taking longer, to maintain a capability that is no longer state of the art, than you would a new platform.

When you factor in sovereign capability, this adds further to the argument to replace rather than upgrade. Why spend billions upgrading an aging platform when you could sell it, or cascade it to another role and replace it with new, ensuring capability increases.

Here's a scenario, instead of upgrading the four US built FFGs we could have deleted the Mk-13 launcher and re-roled them as patrol frigates. This would have freed up cash and sufficient crew to acquire the already upgraded USN Kidd Class DDGs.

Instead of remediating the Armidales they could have been replaced by Capes (which were already in production and while still not good at least better than the remediated Armidales).

Where would we be now if we had ordered F/A-18Ds instead of doing the F-111 upgrade? Arguably instead of buying the fifteen F-111G's we could have continued building Ds. Then instead of doing HUG we could have gone F/A-18E and F, then replaced the Ds with Block II Fs and G's. We would now likely be assembling F-35s and have a much larger production share.

Flow on effects, maybe we could cascade our equipment to our neighbours, as we once did, reducing Chinese and Russian influence.

 

[kato]

I think the German armed forces diverted money from maintenance to operations & procurement in response to a lng-term budget squeeze, apparently reasoning that it's quicker & easier to boost maintenance when the money tap's turned back on than to get new kit delivered,

The Bundeswehr diverted money away from maintenance due to economists considering spare parts stocks to be "dead capital", with governments since ca 2010 following that line of thinking. This anti-stockpiling concept is fairly widespread worldwide at some levels since first invented twenty years ago.

 

[swerve]

In the UK, the Treasury introduced "capital charges" on assets, encouraging the armed forces to scrap (or just wreck, to render it useless) anything they didn't need immediately, so they didn't lose money from budgets, e.g. for operations & maintenance. Crazy!

A former colleague once told me, on a late train home, how he'd spent the entire day saving a lot of spares for a mobile phone network from being sold as electronic scrap, because our employer operated something similar. Those spares had been bought just before they went out of production, so older parts of the network could be updated or replaced on a controlled schedule. Without them we'd have had to rush around pulling out old kit & replacing it whenever a minor part failed. But the warehouse where they were kept was penalised for holdng stock with turnover below a certain level. That made sense as long as you assumed that every piece of equipment needed could be bought & delivered quickly at a reasonable price. Obviously, that couldn't be relied on for equipment which was out of production, but it took a lot of arguing to convince accountants of that.

He reckoned he'd saved the company a few million pounds.

It's easy to see why it's an inappropriate model for armed forces. "Oh, we're under attack! We'd better buy more tanks, guns, shells, ships, aircraft, etc. Do you think they can be delivered tomorrow?"

 

[south]

In the UK, the Treasury introduced "capital charges" on assets, encouraging the armed forces to scrap (or just wreck, to render it useless) anything they didn't need immediately, so they didn't lose money from budgets, e.g. for operations & maintenance. Crazy!

A former colleague once told me, on a late train home, how he'd spent the entire day saving a lot of spares for a mobile phone network from being sold as electronic scrap, because our employer operated something similar. Those spares had been bought just before they went out of production, so older parts of the network could be updated or replaced on a controlled schedule. Without them we'd have had to rush around pulling out old kit & replacing it whenever a minor part failed. But the warehouse where they were kept was penalised for holdng stock with turnover below a certain level. That made sense as long as you assumed that every piece of equipment needed could be bought & delivered quickly at a reasonable price. Obviously, that couldn't be relied on for equipment which was out of production, but it took a lot of arguing to convince accountants of that.

He reckoned he'd saved the company a few million pounds.

It's easy to see why it's an inappropriate model for armed forces. "Oh, we're under attack! We'd better buy more tanks, guns, shells, ships, aircraft, etc. Do you think they can be delivered tomorrow?"

Just in time sparing (or munitions stocks) doesn’t work for the military…the surge is use when combat operations begins results in the log trail not keeping up. People need to accept that it’s just the cost of being prepared…

 

[ngatimozart]

In the UK, the Treasury introduced "capital charges" on assets, encouraging the armed forces to scrap (or just wreck, to render it useless) anything they didn't need immediately, so they didn't lose money from budgets, e.g. for operations & maintenance. Crazy!

A former colleague once told me, on a late train home, how he'd spent the entire day saving a lot of spares for a mobile phone network from being sold as electronic scrap, because our employer operated something similar. Those spares had been bought just before they went out of production, so older parts of the network could be updated or replaced on a controlled schedule. Without them we'd have had to rush around pulling out old kit & replacing it whenever a minor part failed. But the warehouse where they were kept was penalised for holdng stock with turnover below a certain level. That made sense as long as you assumed that every piece of equipment needed could be bought & delivered quickly at a reasonable price. Obviously, that couldn't be relied on for equipment which was out of production, but it took a lot of arguing to convince accountants of that.

He reckoned he'd saved the company a few million pounds.

It's easy to see why it's an inappropriate model for armed forces. "Oh, we're under attack! We'd better buy more tanks, guns, shells, ships, aircraft, etc. Do you think they can be delivered tomorrow?"

We have that Capital Charge here and it does more harm than good where defence is concerned. Treasury love it.

 

[Morgo]

In the UK, the Treasury introduced "capital charges" on assets, encouraging the armed forces to scrap (or just wreck, to render it useless) anything they didn't need immediately, so they didn't lose money from budgets, e.g. for operations & maintenance. Crazy!

A former colleague once told me, on a late train home, how he'd spent the entire day saving a lot of spares for a mobile phone network from being sold as electronic scrap, because our employer operated something similar. Those spares had been bought just before they went out of production, so older parts of the network could be updated or replaced on a controlled schedule. Without them we'd have had to rush around pulling out old kit & replacing it whenever a minor part failed. But the warehouse where they were kept was penalised for holdng stock with turnover below a certain level. That made sense as long as you assumed that every piece of equipment needed could be bought & delivered quickly at a reasonable price. Obviously, that couldn't be relied on for equipment which was out of production, but it took a lot of arguing to convince accountants of that.

He reckoned he'd saved the company a few million pounds.

It's easy to see why it's an inappropriate model for armed forces. "Oh, we're under attack! We'd better buy more tanks, guns, shells, ships, aircraft, etc. Do you think they can be delivered tomorrow?"

This kind of stupidity does my head in.

It absolutely makes sense for almost all businesses and most government departments to be held accountable for their working capital use, especially when interest rates are high / rising.

Where it doesn’t make sense is for parts of Health and parts of Defence where a supply chain disruption would be catastrophic rather than merely inconvenient. I would put spares for major war fighting platforms in this category. Probably less so for the stationery in the offices at Russell.

This obviously requires some skill and judgement which is often in short supply.

 

[Bob53]

Is there a planned date for the DSR announcement? All I can find is it was planned for early April which seems to have come and gone in this part of the world….

 

[Bluey]

Is there a planned date for the DSR announcement? All I can find is it was planned for early April which seems to have come and gone in this part of the world….

Good question. The defence minister made the statement in parliament during question time that the government would be releasing their response to the DSR in the week coming up to Easter. This obviously hasn’t happened. I’ve searched as well and can’t find a time frame anywhere either. i heard him say it as I happened to be listening to the ABC coverage of parliament at the time. From memory, it was the Wednesday not Thursday as first thought, the week before Easter.
Here’s the link and the relevant extract of the statement:

Hansard Display

Hansard Display

www.aph.gov.au

Well, our government is very different. We are serious people making serious decisions about serious capability with serious money. That is what we have done with the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. That is what we will do with the Defence Strategic Review that we will release next week because we understand that it is in the making of hard budget decisions that we actually acquire the military capability that we need as a country to keep Australians safe.