That was a problem with the independence class? I thought it was just the freedom class.
Independence class had hull cracks which they fixed by welding in thicker plates.
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Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0
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That was a problem with the independence class? I thought it was just the freedom class.
Independence class had hull cracks which they fixed by welding in thicker plates.
iambuzzard
Active Member
I remember HMAS Manoora and HMAS Kanimbla. We don't want to go down that pathway again.
Look at the package, not the platform.They have 10-12 years of life left, a short-medium term solution before we go fully robotic. Cost unknown.
Most of the class are 1 module specific and no longer swap out equipment.
Containerised plug and play defense, 57mm + NSM + CIWS.
Not advocating for it but they are up for sale soon.
First Mine Warfare USV Embarked on US Navy LCS - Naval News
The U.S. Navy embarked the first Mine Countermeasures Mission Package (MCM MP) aboard USS Canberra (LCS 30), April 18, service officials announced.www.navalnews.com
The USV is exactly the sort of thing I was referring to as an FMS option.
Going Boeing
Well-Known Member
The Freedom class are the LCS variant with the drivetrain problems (combining gear) whereas the early Independence class had cracking issues. That wasn’t the reason that the USN gave for the retirement of the first two Independence LCS, it was because they were fitted with an early combat system that was going to cost in excess of US$400M each to upgrade to the newer version on the rest of the fleet. When that is combined with the usual “first of class” teething problems/design issues, it was cheaper to retire them and effectively replace them with newly built vessels.
Having said that, it doesn’t make sense for the RAN to set up the maintenance & logistics for such a small fleet.
Having said that, it doesn’t make sense for the RAN to set up the maintenance & logistics for such a small fleet.
Thanks for the reply’s regarding the MCM and surveying operations. As mentioned or enemy China and let’s just make this clear they are now the enemy.. have indicated that mine warfare is a weakness of western navies. So to have no vessels or tools to conduct these in 5 years time when vessels come redundant then I start to worry. While I understand the navy has been left to rot and it’s now clear we have been getting away with having no capability. It’s time to this government not worry about budgets as they are clearly aware that they will be thrown to the wolves as not being able to manage the budget and economy but currently all I see is cuts to all programs or not taking up long held programs that are beneficial to the protection of this country. There is a clear need for high tech mine clearance and right now we have just cancelled this and have not indicated.. he’ll the experts on here don’t even know a possible replacement. We have nothing I repeat nothing for the next 10 years.. be honest 20 years until we have full vessels and boats in service in numbers. If we are going to defend this great country of ours then we need to start thinking about cheap alternatives to vessels as we clearly aren’t going to come up with a solution in time. The bushmaster strike master maritime cruise middle is the only quick fix that we could have in numbers stretched out around Australia and all the pacific island imcludekmg the north Asian islands to our north. They could be sent out in small protection teams to cancel out any entry into our region. I honestly can’t see how we can actually kill in our kill web as we don’t have a end product..
Damen unveils new Multi-Purpose Support Ship MPSS - Naval News
Damen has unveiled a new ship design based on modern defence and security requirements. The Multi-Purpose Support Ship (MPSS).
www.navalnews.com
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
I am aware that there are advocates for an Australian A2/AD capability but I believe that the actual end product if Australia were to attempt to field land-based AShM launchers or artillery would be more a notional capability than an actual, operational A2/AD capability.
For starters, there are not any real SLOC chokepoints in/around Australia, unlike in the archipelagos to the north. So if the idea was to keep hostile warships away from Australia proper, then launch systems would need to be scattered all around the Australian coast. Given the length of coastline as well as how remote and/or inaccessible some of it is, I just do not see this as being viable, particularly given how limited a capability land-based AShM launchers are. In order for Australia to have an A2/AD capability covering the approaches to Indonesian, Malaysian or Singaporean territory, then Australia would need to have such units forward deployed into those areas or at least within coverage range of them. This is not something I consider likely to happen, or at least not in enough time to do any good. Nor do I foresee Australia being in a position to rapidly deploy land-based AShM to Malaysian or Indonesian territory fast enough to do any good, especially if the deployment was to be made without the consent of the respective national gov't.
So far that is just touching on issues with the idea of launchers, there are also a whole pile of issues which would become involved in target detection, identification, tracking and engagement. Such issues also grow increasingly difficult as the range increases and/or the area of interest grows in size. I suspect that Australia currently would be hard-pressed to be able to monitor, detect, ID, track and then engage hostile targets within 200 km of an Australian coast without either deploying a RAN or RAAF asset to take a look at a suspicious contact prior to engagement. Trying to monitor a busy SLOC were there are some 200+ vessels transiting daily I suspect would cause such an effort to collapse if one were to try relying upon land-based units.
‘The contract for manufacturing 78 new Bushmasters over the next 18 months was signed at Thales Australia’s Bendigo facility at the end of May 2023’
Strikemasters or more HIMARS, we will probably get an announcement sometime this year on LAND 4100 phase 2 with production to begin in 2025 if it ends up being the strikemaster platform.
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I would be suggesting deployment to countries like Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, PNG, Timor, Christmas Island, coco leaking and along the Australian coast line. Well position strikemaster units forward deployed during a war in numbers.. as you could build 100’s of units for a fraction of the coast as one frigate. All built in Victoria. Each unit could comprise of a couple of strike masters, a strix long range drone for isr and targeting and a protection unit. Mass produced forwarded deployed would not only protect our near neighbour’s but Australia at distance.
I quite like the strike masters. They look to be an interesting antiship system. Mind you the NSM missiles they are based on are not cheap at about $3m a pop, and several would be needed to pose a threat to a warship. I see them being a system that combines with other mobile army units such as a NASAMS platoon, and general force protection, and then island hops. Note NSM only has a range of about 250 kms, so they are not long range strike, only tactical. Unfortunately I don't think strike masters are in the plan at the moment though (maybe 4100 as Reptilia suggests). Shame. P8s and possibly ghost bats armed with LRASM offer potentially a more strategic solution, or in combination.
In regards to the effectiveness of the strike master in defending Australia and their value over a long range combat ship. I doubt an enemy would likely be in a position to attack our shores directly. A lot has to go wrong before this happens. An enemy however can cripple Australia much easier by severing our supply lines, and it does not have to come anywhere near us to do this. Nearly all of our petrol and diesel comes from Singapore. We only have one refinery remaining and no crude oil production in country. We would physically stop as a nation and have no warfighting capacity within a month without this. All it takes is an attack on one tanker anywhere in the journey or a strike on the Singaporean facilities. Likewise Japan would be severely impacted if we were unable to ship LNG to its shores, or our offshore gas platforms were damaged. That supply chain is just as vulnerable.
It would be very difficult to defend those supply lines, not to mention all the other ones from a shore line, as significant portions are outside the 250km threshold of an NSM. Simple SSK subs could devastate commercial shipping in an unprotected part of the ocean. It would be akin to shooting fish in a barrel.
That said I think there is a place for both. Frigate convoy protection through the remote areas, then shore protection in the littoral waters around key ports and straits, all with sub and surveilance air cover as well.
In regards to the effectiveness of the strike master in defending Australia and their value over a long range combat ship. I doubt an enemy would likely be in a position to attack our shores directly. A lot has to go wrong before this happens. An enemy however can cripple Australia much easier by severing our supply lines, and it does not have to come anywhere near us to do this. Nearly all of our petrol and diesel comes from Singapore. We only have one refinery remaining and no crude oil production in country. We would physically stop as a nation and have no warfighting capacity within a month without this. All it takes is an attack on one tanker anywhere in the journey or a strike on the Singaporean facilities. Likewise Japan would be severely impacted if we were unable to ship LNG to its shores, or our offshore gas platforms were damaged. That supply chain is just as vulnerable.
It would be very difficult to defend those supply lines, not to mention all the other ones from a shore line, as significant portions are outside the 250km threshold of an NSM. Simple SSK subs could devastate commercial shipping in an unprotected part of the ocean. It would be akin to shooting fish in a barrel.
That said I think there is a place for both. Frigate convoy protection through the remote areas, then shore protection in the littoral waters around key ports and straits, all with sub and surveilance air cover as well.
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Tbone got me thinking and I did do some research on what the various GPF options bring to the table for mine defence. The Daegu, Meko and Alpha3000 options don't have a fitted mine detection package that I can see, however the Mogami does.
It operates the Mitsubishi ozz5 remote drone with a battery of nine hours and a speed of 7kts. It's a joint venture with Thales, so has some good capability. It looks comparable (at least same ball park) to the detection systems presented by Exail and saab. It is combined with the Hitachi oqq11 dipping mine sonar. There is not a lot of technical information available on this, but its the kind of gear you would need to hunt mines with.
The point is, its a packaged deal that comes with the Mogami platform, and would be part of the GPF funding if it were selected, so no extra budget line item. I suspect the ozz5 could also be used independently on other platforms as well.
Combined with that, Australia recently entered into an agreement with Japan to specifically collaborate on underwater drones. Maybe it is a coincidence that we entered into this agreement at a similar time that 1905 was cancelled.
I'm drawing a bit of a long bow here, and I'm not saying it with any backing, however this is a possible solution to the MCD conundrum.
It operates the Mitsubishi ozz5 remote drone with a battery of nine hours and a speed of 7kts. It's a joint venture with Thales, so has some good capability. It looks comparable (at least same ball park) to the detection systems presented by Exail and saab. It is combined with the Hitachi oqq11 dipping mine sonar. There is not a lot of technical information available on this, but its the kind of gear you would need to hunt mines with.
The point is, its a packaged deal that comes with the Mogami platform, and would be part of the GPF funding if it were selected, so no extra budget line item. I suspect the ozz5 could also be used independently on other platforms as well.
Combined with that, Australia recently entered into an agreement with Japan to specifically collaborate on underwater drones. Maybe it is a coincidence that we entered into this agreement at a similar time that 1905 was cancelled.
I'm drawing a bit of a long bow here, and I'm not saying it with any backing, however this is a possible solution to the MCD conundrum.
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Too many flaws in the Mogami design. If Indonesia request some and extend the production line, it may have a chance but the new offering (The FFM) is an improvement in every area over the Mogami - and still just 90 core crew - also 3 will be in service by 2030. Even if Australia added additional crew, it is far less than the other options. (exception - the Tasman corvette)
Having the stern ramp is not necessarily a game changer, a usv can be lowered via crane on the meko design also.
Austal/Mitsubishi collaboration in my mind seems unlikely.
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Hi Reptilia, I have a tendency to use mogami, 30FFM and new FFM terms interchangeably, perhaps incorrectly. I am looking forward to Japan naming the second flight of frigates with something proper to avoid the confusion .
If we are to go with the Japanese design I would view it is the new FFM, not the original. This is the one that will be in hot production.
If we are to go with the Japanese design I would view it is the new FFM, not the original. This is the one that will be in hot production.
Trouble is… it doesn’t meet the ‘in service currently’ criteria.
Maybe they can sell it to the media and the public as a batch 2 or evolved Mogami like they sell the avante 2200 Saudi corvette as the Tasman alpha 3000, which it ain’t.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
One of the fundamental problems with a land-based AShM capability is that those critical SLOC chokepoints are essentially all outside of Australian territory or control. This in turn means that these hypothetical Australian AShM batteries would not be in position at the outbreak of a conflict and would need to be deployed from somewhere else. To provide a better scale for the issue, the straight line distance between Darwin and Singapore is roughly the same distance as between Perth and Sydney. This complicates any sort of rapid build up of AShM batteries, assuming that Singapore, Indonesia and/or Malaysia were willing to permit Australia to forward deploy such units, since airlifting such units would be a fairly resource intensive operation over such a distance. If those countries were unwilling to permit Australia to forward deploy the batteries, then Australia would likely have to make a forced amphibious landing to get the batteries into position. Doing this would likely require significant air and naval escort in order to get the amphibs or landing craft to the appropriate landing sites. If such an Australian deployment was opposed, then the situation gets massively more complicated and would require significantly more resources to get the batteries established and the keep such a deployment operational.
Now the cost of a battery of AShM launch vehicles as well as the missile loadout would likely be significantly less that of a single, modern warship, a warship can transit 3000+ km of potentially contested waters to maintain a distance presence for days or weeks at a time, whilst land-based vehicles cannot cover that distance over waters on their own.
Note the bolded text. All of these are foreign nations and unless/until Australia is ready, willing and able to invade them, Australia cannot deploy AShM batteries without permission. Further more, of the entire list, Fiji, Vanuatu, as well as the Australian territories of Christmas Island and the Cocos or Keeling Islands are so far apart that land-based AShM would not cover the entirety of the distance between them and the next nearest land masses. It is a little under 1100 km between the capitals of Vanuatu and Fiji. It is nearly 1,000 km between the Cocos Islands and Christmas Island, the next closest inhabited land mass. Unless Australia were to acquire a stock of extremely long-ranged land-based AShM (i.e. something with 1000+ km range, rather than the ~250 km range of NSM) lots of places would be out of reach. In the unlikely event Australia did acquire something like land-based Tomahawk AShM, that potential range increase would also just make the situation harder.
Using NSM as an example, a single launcher site could potentially cover an area of some 196,000 sq. km which in turn means that Australia would need to be able to monitor ship traffic within that distance, for each launch site. That kind of area volume to cover would need more than a few drones to monitor that great an to keep under surveillance. If we were to consider something like land-based Tomahawk AShM, then the area of potential coverage for a single launch site would be a little larger than that of mainland Australia. This large an area would then require some significant resources just to monitor for potential adversaries, making the whole proposition a losing one.
I would agree. Can't go island hopping without the approval of the host nation.
I would have the view however, that if we needed to do this then it would be because Indonesia, Malasia, Brunei, Vietnam and Philippines would all be on the front line of the conflict and would be asking for our (and others) support.
Their shipping lanes aren't too different to ours and their national security is impacted by the same things that ours is. It would be a combined allied approach, never Australia by itself.
I would have the view however, that if we needed to do this then it would be because Indonesia, Malasia, Brunei, Vietnam and Philippines would all be on the front line of the conflict and would be asking for our (and others) support.
Their shipping lanes aren't too different to ours and their national security is impacted by the same things that ours is. It would be a combined allied approach, never Australia by itself.
Sounds easy peasy eh!
So, lets say we build hundreds of these land based anti ship missile launchers.
Say we deploy 30 or 40 at a time.
How many soldier's to man one unit 24hours a day?
How many soldiers will each unit need as a protection force, or do we leave them to protect themselves?
How will they be protected from air threats?
Seriously, if I was the bad guy, I would send a small SF patrol to watch these units, work out the easiest way to hit them. Say a 5 man SF patrol with a Javelin like missile. No need to use much more. find them with a satellite, hit them with a small drone or javelin, and that's the end of a land based threat, the main convoy continues on course and on mission.
I really don't rate the land based anti ship missile system as an effective deterrence at Australia's level, I just cant see how they could be defended in the satellite age. Would be easy to find them, their I.R. foot print and even just the resup of the troops would make them easy to find. If you can find them, you can kill them easily. Unless they are well defended. Then they get even easier to find!
With the hugely increasing reliance and capability of networks between platforms I think it would be highly detrimental to the capability of the fleet to have a major class of ships unable to communicate stuff like targeting data directly between them as can be done with AEGIS in the form of CEC and certain methods with 9LV.