The Light Legend?
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0
- Thread starter OPSSG
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Scott Elaurant
Well-Known Member
As an engineer I admit to bias but yes I strongly agree on the desirability of developing a permanent local ship design bureau. Design is not actually that expensive, relative to construction. Local design knowledge gives us far greater control of our own naval destiny, and allows the RAN to benefit from design refinement of successive iterations of classes. The design expertise would also allow much better informed assessment of construction tenders. This is how countries get good at ship construction.
That's why you batch build. That's whole reasoning behind the Hunter build plan.
The more of a design you build the cheaper it becomes. I am sure @Volkodav has posted figures etc., on here about this. From memory he does have experience in Australian naval ship building.
Next if you are looking at an AAW variant of the Hunter, why on this green earth would you want to look at the Type 83? Moving to that is a very large extra cost that could be avoided. What is a Hunter MMF? It appears to be some beastie dreamed up by posters on here.
Please get real. You are moving into fantasy and you're not RR Tolkien or David Eddings.
Dead right.
Ahem the terminology being used comes from the DSR. Whilst the DSR introduced the terminology, it didn't provide any definitions for said terminology. That's where some people are having problems and why I suggested that the Naval News definition is probably the best to work with at the moment.
Do you mean go 6 ASW (instead of 9) and 6 AAW?
At present don't be concerned so much about the ADF budget because budgets and priorities change.
Not aimed at anyone in particular.
We don't know about what the RAN Force Structure Review has recommended. What we do know is that:
- The DSR review has recommended that the " ... fleet made up of an “optimal mix” of “Tier 1” and “Tier 2” surface combatants".
- The public release of the review has been delayed until next year.
Anything else in the MSM is just pure supposition based on little if any knowns.
To many posters are getting bogged down in fantasy fleet and fantasy platform ideas. If you want to discuss fantasy stuff, do it elsewhere and not on here. Discuss based on only what we know about.
There's another one floating around with the Israeli marinised C-Dome plastered on it.
Which ones?
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
WRT crew expansion, this article suggests crewing might be a challenge in the future. Although it is American centric I think it is applicable to other Western countries. A crisis could change things but many positions take time to develop, especially for specialists aboard warships.
www.newsweek.com
Americans don't want to fight for their country anymore
The military is struggling to recruit, amid an apparent disconnect with the younger generation. But it is a complex picture.
www.newsweek.com
Even if hunters 7, 8, 9 drop 10%-20%, they are still more expensive than other options, especially the AAW variant.
Hunters are not comparable with the Type 83. Hunters are current gen and the new cruisers are next gen. You cannot fit giant super capacitors in/on the Hunter hull now or into the future. All systems and eventually the whole propulsion system will be electric. It’s not a matter of cost but necessity. When Hunters are upgraded, we may see lasers and hypersonics but that’s about it.
Shipyards will also change significantly and ships will be produced much faster and cheaper than today with a reduced workforce. Some nations already have completely automated panel lines and block assembly. 3D printing a corvette/frigate is not out of the question by mid century.
MMF = multi mission frigate, FFM or EGPF all the same…
What I mean is we need to see north sea economies. Did the UK naval export followed the civilian sector or was it decoupled? The same for the other nations around.
The smaller countries that design their own ships are probably Netherlands, Denmark and the Finnish. But all of them have very big (relative to the national economy) blue economies behind. Denmark blue economy is 10% while if not wrong the Australian one is 3-5% of the national production. I'm no expert on Australia economy, but do you have companies like Damen ,Maersk ,Wärtsilä?
Is a defense sector able to stand alone or do you need first to invest in the civilian sector to make it sustainable? What priority will have Australian shipbuilding in respect to other sectors of the economy if the growth will stop? How strong are the lobbies of the sector?
So if I had to look for an answer, as written before, I would look for naval exports from UK and see if they were decoupled from their civilian sector (BRENT, fisheries, etc... etc..) or they followed the same trend.
Correct, it would be quite difficult to compare the Hunters to a design which as of yet doesn't exist in any meaningful form.
Also this is likely me being a pedant but I'm not a fan of the term "cruiser" being thrown around suddenly as if it has any generally agreed upon meaning in the modern naval context, which it very much doesn't.
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
Anthony_B_78
Active Member
If you read what I wrote, I was positing that an interim frigate (or large corvette, nomenclature isn't so important) would make sense if it were to help retire the Anzacs earlier than if they are to be decommissioned one on one as the Hunters enter service. My take on it all is that the problem we are grappling with now is because we've left it way too late to replace the Anzacs.
What I was suggesting would mean that the manpower requirements might actually fall somewhat through to the end of the '30s if the new class had a smaller crew, which it seems likely it would. Only when, say, the fifth Hunter enters service would you need more crew than we have now, on current plans that would seem to be in 2040.
I absolutely agree, and said as much, that attracting, training and retaining personnel is the greatest challenge facing our military.
On the discussion of the whole tier 2 narrative, I suggest we should allow for the political influence here. How would a government sell the acquisition - particularly if built, wholly or to any extent offshore - of a new class in addition to the Hunters? (How would defence sell it to the government, for that matter?) Would they admit there was a failure of planning and decision-making by past governments (Coalition and Labor)? Unlikely. Differentiating the new class might help with the political sell, which will come up against opposition. I expect they already very much had an idea of what the thinking is when they threw the term out there.
I would suggest there is close to zero chance of something being built offshore. If it can’t be built here I’d reckon it’s not going to get built.
Anthony_B_78
Active Member
I agree politics makes it unlikely; not a close to zero chance in my book, but low. Of greater chance is partial build offshore, to some extent. My point is even that would bring opposition. Really the whole idea of building another class is a difficult sell politically, not to people like us, but to the wider political landscape that doesn't overly support defence investment.
What we need is a political leader willing to stand up against Australian shipbuilders and unions and make a decision that is in the best interest of Australia’s security. This would involve a risky captain’s choice of a ship, probably built overseas, and probably with minimal Australian industry involvement. It would be a project with a high chance of budget blowouts or even complete failure and a risk of electoral backlash in a number of key seats.
Let’s be honest no PM would ever take that risk.
I would almost say any interim actually needs to be compromised rather than perfectly good enough.
Part of the reason we are in the position we are in is because the Anzacs were large enough and good enough to be upgraded. They allowed future governments to gut the 1st tier and upgrade the second to back fill.
They were too good for what they were acquired to do, but not good enough to be the next level up but had to step up anyway.
Any interim capability we get needs to meet our needs but ideally not capable of displacing tier 1 combatants in any way shape or form.
What the interim actually needs to be is tier 3, i.e. very definately not a tier 2 let alone a tier 1.
This is where a Corvette would fit. Something with the range / endurance or a Cape or Arafura, but faster and much much better armed.
They do what the current PBs do, but are survivable and have a war role. Most importantly, not even the most delusional, cheap government, could pretend they are frigates, let alone destroyers.
Had Australia bought baseline MEKO 200s with CODAD instead of CODOG propulsion, Mk-29 for NSSM, instead of Mk-41, 76mm instead of 5", they would have been just as useful as patrol frigates, but government would have been forced to maintain a proper 1st tier.
Part of the reason we are in the position we are in is because the Anzacs were large enough and good enough to be upgraded. They allowed future governments to gut the 1st tier and upgrade the second to back fill.
They were too good for what they were acquired to do, but not good enough to be the next level up but had to step up anyway.
Any interim capability we get needs to meet our needs but ideally not capable of displacing tier 1 combatants in any way shape or form.
What the interim actually needs to be is tier 3, i.e. very definately not a tier 2 let alone a tier 1.
This is where a Corvette would fit. Something with the range / endurance or a Cape or Arafura, but faster and much much better armed.
They do what the current PBs do, but are survivable and have a war role. Most importantly, not even the most delusional, cheap government, could pretend they are frigates, let alone destroyers.
Had Australia bought baseline MEKO 200s with CODAD instead of CODOG propulsion, Mk-29 for NSSM, instead of Mk-41, 76mm instead of 5", they would have been just as useful as patrol frigates, but government would have been forced to maintain a proper 1st tier.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
What Australian shipbuilders, exactly? If you are referring to shipbuilders that do commercial work, then it has SFA to do with CoA aside from sources of tax revenue. If you are referring to shipbuilders that build vessels for Ausgov and/or the RAN, there are but a handful of those, and the CoA has not exactly been those yards afloat with work. Also what is likely the most capable Australian facility to produce warships is IIRC ultimately owned by the CoA.
It is most likely in Australia's best interests (strategically and economically) to have and maintain a domestic industrial base to support and sustain domestic warship production. Where Australia seems to have run into problems, repeatedly, is with failures by gov't to place orders for work, as well as different parts of the country being given work when orders do get placed. This is at least part of the reason why there has been a 'valley of death' in terms of naval shipbuilding, as well as why there have been several boom/bust cycles where facilities and work forces have been stood up in an area, only to have the facility idle and workforce move once a specific programme or programmes has been completed.
Sorry but that is just totally untrue and to be honest, delusional.
The reason we are in this situation is because Australian politicians traditionally completely disregard the needs in industry and the ADF and outsource to the point we can't even sustain equipment locally.
When local work is kicked off again we need to rebuild degraded skills and often, due to pork barrelling, build new facilities.
The biggest impact on security is not maintaining sovereign capabilities, usually in favour of short term savings, with known, long term cost impacts, to free up cash in the short term for political priorities.
Entire industries in one state or the country as a whole are killed to boost others in states with votes to be bought. Let's wack a highway, a railway or a dam somewhere were votes are needed, while sovereign capability is killed off elsewhere.
This is basically the Murdock media diatribe, unions bad, union members are workers so workers bad, workers work in industry, so industry bad. So by association if you are involved in an industry that makes stuff you are a bad person, a leach and a rent seeking leaner.
It's not even a political mantra anymore, although some, mostly minor party politicians hitch to the narrative, its a trumpist, delusional rant. Its the Murdoch piedpiper for the elitist entitled set who've never done a days physical work in their lives as well as the uneducated, unskilled. Both groups resent anyone who earns a living through knowledge, skill and making things.
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