But does it really matter if Osborne is busy with At least 6 committed hunters, 6 Collins LOTE, 3 Hobart upgrades, 7-8 Anzac Upgrades, and 3x SSN building? Thats quite a lot of work. More work than any Australian ship yard has ever had.
If Henderson spits out a handful of smaller ships plus perhaps 2-3 majors, it doesn't really implode Osborne. Osborne is still the major hub, and in fact, I think any fitout of any major ship will involve time at Osborne.
CIVMEC business model doesn't need exactly continuous high end shipbuilding. They spread across mining, infrastructure like roads, renewable power, and ship building. They are kind of dependant on government spending, but not specifically military ship spending. CIVMEC is more about steel fabrication. So they are a yard, but a yard that can happily be fed, mining, bridges, maintenance etc.
IMO I don't think Austal gets anything as a prime going forward. Thats part of what CIVMEC brings. Anything bigish goes through CIVMEC. CIVMEC's yard is light years ahead of anything else on the west coast. CIVMEC had like a billion in revenue last year. Austal is having a bit of a tough time with the LCS ending and the expeditionary class. Despite what WA thinks, they are still part of the country. Money spent their does filter around the economy as a whole.
In less than two weeks we will know. People will be disappointed, but hopefully, it provides some sort of pathway to the RAN expanding fleet numbers.
Also I don't think there is much of an issue of the RAN disposing of ships before they are completed rusted out. Ship building is complex business, and smaller countries would often quite happily pick up a ex-RAN ship in good condition ~10-20 years old. We won't make a lot of money on said ship, but I don't think we will lose a lot of money either. If in 10 or 15 years we had to get rid of the existing Hobarts, I don't think that would be hard to find an interested buyer.
What I am concerned about is that sustainable levels of work and development are maintained at one Australian naval construction facility, a national centre of excellence if you will. This would of course be a change for Australia, given the RAN's order history post-WWII, with a one point Codock, then Williamstown/Transfield/Tenix/BAE, now ASC in Osborne, etc.
As I understand it, if the
Hunter-class order gets cut to ~six vessels, the last of these would likely be completed by the end of the 2030's if not a little sooner. By that point, any upgrades for the
Hobart-class should have been long completed, and the
ANZAC-class frigates would have been decommissioned. It is at this point where sustainable naval shipbuilding could once again be in trouble. Absent a national shipbuilding programme, then the RAN might once more have a shipbuilding 'Valley of Death' were little or nothing is ordered, which would waste the time and expertise which would have been built up at Osborne, as well as the efforts to establish a digital shipyard there. Or more vessels might get ordered, but not what are MFU's but instead what might be considered Tier 2 (or 3, or 4...) vessels which are less capable and cost less, and might be able to be built elsewhere.
The yard work for subs I see a bit differently, simply because it is my understanding that at least some of the skills and techniques used for subs do not quite translate to being useful when working on surface vessels. To put it another way, a yard worker who is skilled in working on surface warships might not be qualified to work on subs.
Now if the
Hunter-class order is to be cut to just six, then have a project to replace the
Hobart-class stood up, so that construction on those replacements can begin not long after the last of the
Hunter-class is launched. Something worth keeping in mind (and part of the reason why I have kept banging on about timelines and timeframes and how bloody slow and long the process is to have naval vessels ordered and built) is that the SEA 5000 project first commenced in 2015 and the contract ordering nine
Hunter-class frigates was not signed until the end of 2018, whilst first steel was not cut for another four years after that, or about seven years after commencement. If the last of the (six) frigates ordered is planned to start trials ~2037 or 2038, then projects to provide work after SEA 5000 is complete would likely need to start by ~2030. At the same time, there would need to be some recognition by gov't and/or the RAN that such a project is needed, before it could be initiated. Where we appear to stand now, is that there does not seem to be official recognition of a need to have surface warship work once SEA 5000 is done.