Only the new Gen frigates, the MEKO A210 and FFM have MK41 32 SL cells. The MEKO A200 variants with 32 cells are not MK41.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0
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Only the new Gen frigates, the MEKO A210 and FFM have MK41 32 SL cells. The MEKO A200 variants with 32 cells are not MK41.
While the writer suggests any decision on the Hanwha takeover bid should be left until after the selection of the new frigate I am not sure that will neccessarily fix things. I don't imagine any of the other contenders would be happy at the prospect of Hanwha taking over either now or sometime down the track.
It could be possible that Hanwha may have cleverly guaranteed the selection of their design regardless of whether they buy Austal or not. That Richard Marles has seemingly washed his hands of the matter doesn't help. Unless the government comes out and straight up bans Hanwa from controlling Austal you may have the other contenders withdraw from the competition.
Correct me if I am wrong but I understand quad packed ESSM is 2 missiles side by side stacked upon another 2 missiles. So unless the missile is shorter than 3.6 m length quad packing would seem a difficult proposition in a 7.4m long Mk42 Unless they are skinny enough to be packed side by side x 4.
Lockheed Martin brochures show 4 missiles side by side.
See - https://www.lockheedmartin.com/cont...chers-and-munitions/MK41-VLS-product-card.pdf
This is the same for all multi-pack missiles in one cell that I know of. Note the length of ESSM (3.66 metres), & the fact that it could be quad-packed in the old self-defence length Mk 41, which was 5.2 metres total height, as well as the tactical length (6.7 metres), including a cover & some bits below the space for missiles..
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/cont...aunchers-and-munitions/MK41_VLS_factsheet.pdf
See - https://www.lockheedmartin.com/cont...chers-and-munitions/MK41-VLS-product-card.pdf
This is the same for all multi-pack missiles in one cell that I know of. Note the length of ESSM (3.66 metres), & the fact that it could be quad-packed in the old self-defence length Mk 41, which was 5.2 metres total height, as well as the tactical length (6.7 metres), including a cover & some bits below the space for missiles..
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/cont...aunchers-and-munitions/MK41_VLS_factsheet.pdf
Indeed. Umkhonto, or Mica VL. The MEKO A200s with Mk 41 can carry up to 32 ESSM - quad-packed in 8 cells.
OldTex
Well-Known Member
They are skinny enough to be packed side by side in the Mk41 cell (Tactical length). The use of a Strike length cell would be an inefficient use of the volume of such a cell. Based on the image in the LM Mk41 VLS product card as highlighted by #swerve.
Somewhat puzzled by this Austral takeover thing!
Four company's ( Nations ) are in contention for a very lucrative deal worth billions to do a mixed build overseas and locally in Australia at Austral.
Austal is up for a takeover by one of the overseas contenders and the government says I'm not getting involved!
Does this not look problematic on many levels.
Perplexed S
Hanwa recognise that if they own the yard, then they are in the box seat for the ship design and they can lock the other GPF tenders out. They are having a crack at trying to achieve that. Good on them, that's smart business, maybe they will be successful. I would do the same if I were in their shoes. Fortune favours the bold..
I haven't seen anything from the other three GPF providers stating an interest in purchasing Austal, so this is a unique offering from Hanwa and one of their differentiators. The others will eventually present their proposals for synergies and will have some different ways of demonstrating this.
I should note here that the other competitors to purchase Austal are all American private equity funds. Hanwa is the only ship builder that has a hat in the ring.
While the government have said that they have no concerns with Hanwa purchasing the yard, there have been some other media releases indicating that FIRB authorisation (necessary for any foreign bid) will be unlikely before the ship platform has been selected. So I think this will move forward on the go slow.
If the S Korean design is selected for the GPF then it makes a lot of sense for them to also own the yard. I think the Americans are comfortable with both the S Koreans and Japanese to be more involved with the USN program, so unlikely to be significant concern from them.
If the S Korean design is not chosen, then I suspect Hanwa will move on and look for another opportunity. Perhaps buy one of the other American yards currently for sale.
The government is saying they are not getting involved with the Austal sale process. Neither should they as it is a private business, not a public organisation. There is no difference to this than there would be to BHP or Rio Tinto. Privately they have right of veto through FIRB and via the Americans with their similar right of veto. They will do this when the time is right and they don't need to make a decision now.
I would be startled if the four GPF bidders are not all in communications of some form with the government or defence in the lead up to a tender being released. They are all hungry and want the work, and will be looking for any opportunity to give themselves a competitive edge, perhaps even steer/influence the tender to a scope that is favourable to them. There will be a lot of pushing and shoving and positioning going on.
The government will need to maintain an unbias position during the tender, hence their public position. Sometimes this comes off as being aloof. We all remember the debacle with the original conventional submarine tender where the government clearly had a favourite.
I am sure all have all stood up an internal bid team to prepare their offer well in advance of the GPF tender being released. They will all know we are sensitive to having American weapon systems, have a desire to integrate Seafar and 9LV, want more missiles, and will have researched our local rules. And they will all be seeing what they can do without basterdising the base design, increasing the price or delaying production too much. The yard that can do this juggling act the best will likely be the winner.
I don't think that the government has washed their hands or are not being involved, just it is behind the scenes and key decisions will wait until the appropriate time to make.
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Ok good link. Thanks. So it comes down to missile diameter!
With Aus, USA, Phillipines, Vietnam wanting new ships, you would think Hanwha would have made a better offer.
Aus wants 11 GPFs, USA a second frigate line or possibly a destroyer line, Phillipines + Vietnam navy modernisation + commercial orders. Many decades of shipbuilding…
Pretty sure that was just the initial bid. Now that the government has dismissed any concerns it has over the purchase of Austal and its strong order book going forward then I would expect a revised offer will be made. I believe the offer was around $2.80 a share. Independant valuers put the real value of the company at around $2.90 but the sellers will be pushing for a bit more than that. Based on those numbers it seems that Hanwha's offer is in the ball park.
Dumb ideas are being re-assessed as perhaps good ideas. See SSN, frigates, destroyers, etc...
IMO there is also a place for a long range, land based solid rocket motor, big dumb missile. Guidance, speed, agility for land strike and naval strike don't have to be high priorities.
Something like a localized version of Hyunmoo-2A/B/C.. heck license it from the Koreans and integrate into 9LV. Its just a big dumb ballistic missile with decent reach. A terrible thing for the start of the war, when everyone has full stocks of wizzbang interceptors. But a marvelous thing to have middle-end of war when no one has wizzbang interceptors, and you can churn these out, either as sophisticated decoys, that fly a high fast trajectory and draw all and any interceptors, so you then have your low flying cruise missiles hit while they are focused on the sky. Or just load them up and see how many get through. This obsession with wuderwaffe is extremely damaging to Australia's interests. That each government must cancel all other weapons and systems, and announce a new, bigger, more expensive, ubermench weapon, that will be procured in even smaller numbers, that can fly faster, sail further, is physically bigger is demonstratable hurtful to military procurement in near conflict times.
Pending localization and our need to put mega sized radars up on them at the cost of things like launchers and deck mounted weapons. The Japanese may be at an advantage there, because their radar config is IMO more similar, and also they spent a lot of their budget integrating that dildo antenna that playing around with it too much will quickly be too expensive/time-consuming to do. IE it may be selected because of limitations. Maybe we might make it pointy and make it more appealing to our eyes, as our latest fearsome weapon.
But of course, I am not entirely sure that our defence procurement is that dissimilar to countries like Wadiya
Rocking and rolling on HMAS Rankin:
The submarine HMAS Rankin departs Port Phillip passing Point Lonsdale, Victoria, Australia. (youtube.com)
The submarine HMAS Rankin departs Port Phillip passing Point Lonsdale, Victoria, Australia. (youtube.com)
I did enjoy the dictator video, and seeing Rankin. I'll bet that crew were looking forward to diving under that weather.
I agree we do desperately need a decent mass produced home grown missile production industry. I would view that we are very vulnerable without one. I would prefer more money into this than fancy ships. None of the GP frigate choices, the Hobarts, Hunters or the LOCSVs would be worth a dollar without a repeated missile loadout capability.
COVID should have taught us that if we don't have our own in country capacity we go to the back of the queue and get the dregs. Big pots of money could not buy us early access to premium vaccines back then, and nor will it buy as scarce missiles in time of war in the future. It's scary that the global production of meat and potatoes missiles like SM2 is only 200 per annum. We think that 500 for the PAC3 is a lot. That's probably the first hour of use in a major conflict. I acknowledge this is peace time consumption, but there appears very little ability to rapidly expand.
So far all we have on the agenda is a GMLRS production line, possibly leading to a future PRSM factory. Not quite the monster missile you are looking for Stingray, but increment 2 is supposed to have land and sea strike capabilities. It might eventually get a range of 1000km. To your point, PRSMs are still expensive at $1.2M apiece (albeit for early production runs), so it becomes hard to get a large warstock (say 10,000 of them) for middle/end war use.
From an RAN perspective, if you look at the current/planned Naval missile portfolio, we use six (ESSM, Nulka, SM2, SM6, NSM and Tomahawk). We don't make any of these, the best we do is some design work and some componentry for ESSM and Nulka. None of them are mass produced and all are expensive as a result.
There is some talk of setting up a production line for NSM, and it might be able to double up with its JSM stable mate, but it will be after GMLRS/PRSM. It would be nice if it eventuates, but I won't hold my breath.
I can't help but notice that all our local production is focused on strike missiles. If however we run out of the defence missiles, particularly ESSM, then we can't put any ships to sea. I don't know what our inventory is, but I suspect it's not more than a couple of refills, say 500 above that at sea (I could be wrong and maybe we have a massive warehouse full of them). If Ukraine has taught us anything, wars aren't won in three days, and instead quickly become one of attrition. I would view that without our own ESSM manufacturing capability, we might find ourselves exhausted within a few weeks, and then our ships are stuck in port.
I would hope that ESSM, and its sister AMRAAM ER (good for NASAMS), is an early inclusion in the government's indigenous missile strategy, and we start making 1000-2000 per year for an eventual inventory of something like 20,000 units by the early 30s. We would be a useful resupplyer for our allies in any conflict with this capability too.
It would be nice to have an SM2/SM6 production line as well, but maybe that is too far for the time being. The air force would probably like something, maybe the AIM120. The army would likely give a lot to have spike made locally. And we probably need some 30mm bullet and 155mm shell factories.
But with GMLRS/PRSM and ESSM/AMRAAM ER lines, we would at least make the basic mass use missiles, and it provides a valuable strike/defence mix. I think also if you can make these then you can probably mix and match to make other things.
As a last point, I wonder if PRSM would fit in a Mk41 launcher. It could be a nice choice to load up on a LOCSV barge and launch a big volley.
I agree we do desperately need a decent mass produced home grown missile production industry. I would view that we are very vulnerable without one. I would prefer more money into this than fancy ships. None of the GP frigate choices, the Hobarts, Hunters or the LOCSVs would be worth a dollar without a repeated missile loadout capability.
COVID should have taught us that if we don't have our own in country capacity we go to the back of the queue and get the dregs. Big pots of money could not buy us early access to premium vaccines back then, and nor will it buy as scarce missiles in time of war in the future. It's scary that the global production of meat and potatoes missiles like SM2 is only 200 per annum. We think that 500 for the PAC3 is a lot. That's probably the first hour of use in a major conflict. I acknowledge this is peace time consumption, but there appears very little ability to rapidly expand.
So far all we have on the agenda is a GMLRS production line, possibly leading to a future PRSM factory. Not quite the monster missile you are looking for Stingray, but increment 2 is supposed to have land and sea strike capabilities. It might eventually get a range of 1000km. To your point, PRSMs are still expensive at $1.2M apiece (albeit for early production runs), so it becomes hard to get a large warstock (say 10,000 of them) for middle/end war use.
From an RAN perspective, if you look at the current/planned Naval missile portfolio, we use six (ESSM, Nulka, SM2, SM6, NSM and Tomahawk). We don't make any of these, the best we do is some design work and some componentry for ESSM and Nulka. None of them are mass produced and all are expensive as a result.
There is some talk of setting up a production line for NSM, and it might be able to double up with its JSM stable mate, but it will be after GMLRS/PRSM. It would be nice if it eventuates, but I won't hold my breath.
I can't help but notice that all our local production is focused on strike missiles. If however we run out of the defence missiles, particularly ESSM, then we can't put any ships to sea. I don't know what our inventory is, but I suspect it's not more than a couple of refills, say 500 above that at sea (I could be wrong and maybe we have a massive warehouse full of them). If Ukraine has taught us anything, wars aren't won in three days, and instead quickly become one of attrition. I would view that without our own ESSM manufacturing capability, we might find ourselves exhausted within a few weeks, and then our ships are stuck in port.
I would hope that ESSM, and its sister AMRAAM ER (good for NASAMS), is an early inclusion in the government's indigenous missile strategy, and we start making 1000-2000 per year for an eventual inventory of something like 20,000 units by the early 30s. We would be a useful resupplyer for our allies in any conflict with this capability too.
It would be nice to have an SM2/SM6 production line as well, but maybe that is too far for the time being. The air force would probably like something, maybe the AIM120. The army would likely give a lot to have spike made locally. And we probably need some 30mm bullet and 155mm shell factories.
But with GMLRS/PRSM and ESSM/AMRAAM ER lines, we would at least make the basic mass use missiles, and it provides a valuable strike/defence mix. I think also if you can make these then you can probably mix and match to make other things.
As a last point, I wonder if PRSM would fit in a Mk41 launcher. It could be a nice choice to load up on a LOCSV barge and launch a big volley.
Even a submarine is dryer than my Seajay tropic!
No doubt this will will be an interesting dance with a lot happening within government and the corporates behind the scenes.
Any deal with a number followed by 9 zeros will certainly be sort after.
The defence ministers words on the subject will be interesting!.
ASPI and other publications will critique what is said and the voting public will make choices.
Should be an interesting 12 months.
Cheers S
SwingShift
Member
Thales do this from a couple of sites in Vic and southern NSW, albeit probably not at the scale that may be required.
