Having the ABC competing for funds with the ADF makes fairly certain they run negative articles on the ADF potentially turning young recruits away. The ADF recruitment marketing is failing. The actual recruitment process should be managed by the ADF…not contracted out.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0
- Thread starter OPSSG
- Start date
downunderblue
Member
I feel a bit whiny tonight. Have been travelling and pounding the pavement hard so am a bit tired. In this moment I should resist, but I can't so here it is.
How on earth did TKMS beat either of the Hanwha or HHI bids?
I'm sorry, but why two proposals from TKMS? The Egyptian Navy build is hardly inspiring but the design is OTS whereas the second design isn't. Or is it? Does the second bid qualify as OTS as it's essentially the ship the GPF's seek to replace???
I'm happy for it to be downselected so that us as taxpayers can go through a competitive process. If Mogami loses though, I'll go starkers down Bourke Street as I just can't see any justification to accept the TKMS bid.
The RAN has crewing difficulty- Mogami has a saving of 30+ crew a ship over the TKMS bid. The Mogami can do MCM in an environment where our existing capability has been lost, the TKMS can't. The Mogami has either a 32 cell VLS (yes I know (Evolved) or at min 16) and better ECM & AESA radar. The Mogami is bigger with potentially greater ability to modernise/ upgrade AND the Mogami aligns us (in multiple ways) with our second most important strategic partner. The thought of dishonoring them again after the Abbott/ Turnbull fiasco just is too much.
Is it too far fetched to think the RAN co-proposed to Govt the TKMS bid to make the choice so stark that only a fool would select it over their much favoured Mogami? Well my issue is, when you play those games with Govt you'll have egg on your face when they end up going against what a normal person would consider reasonable.
There I go. Rant over. I need to goto bed now but as I feel now I for one will bury my head in the sand if the TKMS bid gets up. It just doesn't make much sense at all.
How on earth did TKMS beat either of the Hanwha or HHI bids?
I'm sorry, but why two proposals from TKMS? The Egyptian Navy build is hardly inspiring but the design is OTS whereas the second design isn't. Or is it? Does the second bid qualify as OTS as it's essentially the ship the GPF's seek to replace???
I'm happy for it to be downselected so that us as taxpayers can go through a competitive process. If Mogami loses though, I'll go starkers down Bourke Street as I just can't see any justification to accept the TKMS bid.
The RAN has crewing difficulty- Mogami has a saving of 30+ crew a ship over the TKMS bid. The Mogami can do MCM in an environment where our existing capability has been lost, the TKMS can't. The Mogami has either a 32 cell VLS (yes I know (Evolved) or at min 16) and better ECM & AESA radar. The Mogami is bigger with potentially greater ability to modernise/ upgrade AND the Mogami aligns us (in multiple ways) with our second most important strategic partner. The thought of dishonoring them again after the Abbott/ Turnbull fiasco just is too much.
Is it too far fetched to think the RAN co-proposed to Govt the TKMS bid to make the choice so stark that only a fool would select it over their much favoured Mogami? Well my issue is, when you play those games with Govt you'll have egg on your face when they end up going against what a normal person would consider reasonable.
There I go. Rant over. I need to goto bed now but as I feel now I for one will bury my head in the sand if the TKMS bid gets up. It just doesn't make much sense at all.
Last edited:
downunderblue
Member
Good questions well asked, I don't know the answers. There's been very little detail provided in Senate estimates. But whatever recruitment/advertising company the ADF is using, they suck at it. There's probably a myriad of reasons, generational/cultural/economic, that play into the lower personnel numbers. Then there's the issue of retaining people at more senior ranks who have experience levels that need to be kept to help junior ranks.
Something has changed with ADF recruiting recently, for decades almost every young person that told me they were joining up was rejected including some outstanding applicants that stunned me when they were rejected. Lately almost every young, and not so young, individual whom I'm aware of applying seems to have been taken. And taken fairly quickly, without the usual year or two muck about.
I know with my two kids both now in their early 20s they had no interest in a defence career nor for that mater do any of their peers.
All good folk just not on their radar.
In part the recruiting challenge maybe to do with exposure.
Living in Melbourne there’s limited presence of the RAN or the RAAF. Even Army's presence is limited.
Depending on where you live you could go weeks or months without seeing someone in uniform
Difficult to envisage a career in a realm you never see on the street.
No doubt this lack of presence is mirrored around the nation
It would be interesting to know the geography as to where people are recruited across the services.
Does it mirror our defence base locations
For the RAN. Do more recruits come from Sydney than Melbourne. Both like sized city’s??
Cheers S
Makes some sense to me too as part of the process. The TKMS bid seems to be the fallback if the one we want doesn't work out. Most likely the TKMS bid looks good in terms of on-time, on budget delivery, but provides a less capable vessel (from what we know). It gives the govt an option if the Japanese can't deliver after all.
It doesn't appear to be a competition between two equal but different designs, but rather between two approaches to the problem?
Still a bit of a shame if it is chosen, at least in terms of raw capability in a dangerous place and time. However, I'm sure the A-200 could still deliver as a patrol frigate.
iambuzzard
Well-Known Member
The Evolved Mogami is heads and shoulders above all the others due to it's capabilities. Here's hoping common sense prevails.
It does beg the question re SEA 3000 as to the feasibility of this build being a success.
The projects to build the 18 LCM and 8 LCH are significant endeavours in themselves.
Add existing work and projected/speculated projects both military and civil and you have a lot of work some,with with tight timeframes.
A challenge for an existing and seasoned yard familiar with this sort of work.
Now add to the mix potentially eight much larger and more complicated ships of the type you have not built and the expectation they are to be constructed at “speed “
Well realistically how is that going to work!
Don’t get me wrong I want it to work, but there are a lot of variables at play here.
Concerned S
StevoJH
The Bunker Group
The other question other than capability and schedule is cost.
What is the cost difference between the two (three) options both capital and ongoing?
Saying that, the presence of strike length Mk.41 on the evolved Mogami is a huge plus. Especially if it means offloading land attack missiles off tier 1 assets.
What is the cost difference between the two (three) options both capital and ongoing?
Saying that, the presence of strike length Mk.41 on the evolved Mogami is a huge plus. Especially if it means offloading land attack missiles off tier 1 assets.
The last time we did that we ended up with a guided missile frigate instead of a destroyer. In fact it happens time and time again, a ship that does not meet requirements, or has previously been rejected, is selected.
It goes in phases.
I had a total of five intakes cancelled in the early/mid 90s, i.e. I had been selected but the intakes never happened.
I was a reservist and went inactive in the late 90s because my employer made me choose. Then all of a sudden I was being cold called about full time contracts.
I'm old, I'm physically broken, yet my uniform colleagues, and even one of my surgeons (who knows how F'd I am) are pushing me to join mid career.
Swings and roundabouts.
Under the Keating government, defence went into caretaker mode.
it got so bad that we didn't even have blanks at times, and machine gunners were known to yell "Buckets of bullets, buckets of bullets!" to simulate suppressing fire.
C Coy 3 RAR, became "HAGAR Platoon" and A and B companies were both under strength.
There was no recruitment for some time, which lead to even more discharges and worse under manning.
It was soul destroying and criminal IMO.
Then, all of a sudden, we needed to be bought back up to strength, and we had to run I.E.T training within the Battalion, which turned out to be a really good thing, as we could train paratroopers how we wanted them, set a high standard .
Very soon we had a full Bn again, and well motivated and trained.
Then....the money stopped again, but not as dramatically.
The point is, when you lose so many staff so quickly, it rubs off on those who remain, and causes a sort of work place depression.
This depression leads to poor performance and lack of motivation, and further discharges. Those that do not snap out of the depression, resent the new motivated guys, and then end up discharging themselves, losing a once very good soldier. And the retention issue begins.
I imagine it would be similar in the Navy, the job I am in now is going through a similar phase right now.
There is NO quick fix. We have had so many new staff that I don't know many of the new names. An experienced officer is now 18 months in the job compared to 8 -10 years. A new culture has crept in, and its ugly. Inexperienced staff, mentoring and training more inexperienced staff.....what could possibly go wrong!
Us old hands can only do so much.
I come to work to do my job, not my job and train the new guy as well....permanently. I still have 10 years of this, it has been the way it is now for at least the last 2 years, and no signs of improvement. We red line every day. An average day would see between 10 and 40 staff short, no matter how many new courses we put through, and its gone from 1 course of @ 12 per year, to now, 4 courses of 20 + a year.
it got so bad that we didn't even have blanks at times, and machine gunners were known to yell "Buckets of bullets, buckets of bullets!" to simulate suppressing fire.
C Coy 3 RAR, became "HAGAR Platoon" and A and B companies were both under strength.
There was no recruitment for some time, which lead to even more discharges and worse under manning.
It was soul destroying and criminal IMO.
Then, all of a sudden, we needed to be bought back up to strength, and we had to run I.E.T training within the Battalion, which turned out to be a really good thing, as we could train paratroopers how we wanted them, set a high standard .
Very soon we had a full Bn again, and well motivated and trained.
Then....the money stopped again, but not as dramatically.
The point is, when you lose so many staff so quickly, it rubs off on those who remain, and causes a sort of work place depression.
This depression leads to poor performance and lack of motivation, and further discharges. Those that do not snap out of the depression, resent the new motivated guys, and then end up discharging themselves, losing a once very good soldier. And the retention issue begins.
I imagine it would be similar in the Navy, the job I am in now is going through a similar phase right now.
There is NO quick fix. We have had so many new staff that I don't know many of the new names. An experienced officer is now 18 months in the job compared to 8 -10 years. A new culture has crept in, and its ugly. Inexperienced staff, mentoring and training more inexperienced staff.....what could possibly go wrong!
Us old hands can only do so much.
I come to work to do my job, not my job and train the new guy as well....permanently. I still have 10 years of this, it has been the way it is now for at least the last 2 years, and no signs of improvement. We red line every day. An average day would see between 10 and 40 staff short, no matter how many new courses we put through, and its gone from 1 course of @ 12 per year, to now, 4 courses of 20 + a year.
Going Boeing
Well-Known Member
I suspect that the cost difference would not be too large as most of the cost is in the systems which will be very similar. As many have said on this forum, “air is free and steel is cheap“ so the larger size of the evolved Mogami should not come with a hefty price tag.
Economy of scale for many of the systems on the Mogami that are common to Hunter & Hobart classes contribute to lower operating costs. The MT-30 gas turbine is also on the Hunters, Mk-41 VLS (manufactured by Mitsubishi) & Mk-45 Mod 4 127mm guns are on both Hunters & Hobarts, the hanger and support systems for the Seahawk R is another common feature so the choice of the Mogami as the RAN’s Tier 2 FFG should not be too onerous for the Australian taxpayer.
I haven’t seen any discussion about whether the Evolved Mogami requires extra power because of the increase in size and weight. The base Mogami has two 12 cylinder MAN V28/33D STC Diesels but these engines are also available in 16 & 20 cylinder versions with large gains in power. As the Evolved Mogami hull will be longer, they may have already planned the additional space required for these longer versions of the diesel engines. Apart from propulsion, extra power is important for future DEW’s, etc. The MT-30 gas turbine will be more than sufficient as it’s capable of powering the 8,800t Hunter class at high speed.
Screenshots courtesy of MAN.
Last edited:
Japanese sources say $350-400 million on average to build a Mogami, $1.16 billion for the build of 2 upgraded FFM.
Figure likely to drop but still looking at around 30-40% more per ship over time.
Cost per unit for Australia, thats the governments job to negotiate.
Pity they shut down Williamstown, good size yard for something like LCM, LCH and other vessels below 4,000ton - OPVs, LOSVs etc
Henderson could have focused on building frigates and larger ships.
Last edited:
Going Boeing
Well-Known Member
Thanks for those figures.
I believe the base Mogami figures don’t include the 16 cell Mk-41 system which is being retrofitted. With the Evolved Mogami getting a 32 cell Mk-41 and other system upgrades, the price increase to $508 each is understandable. Of course the later ones for the RAN will be dearer as a result of being built locally.
Oh. So its Keating's fault and 'it has been the way it is now for at least the last 2 years'. So ONLY when Labor is in power. So the 21 years out of the last thirty where the LNP was in power everything was fab in the ADF and look at our Navy now. Your obvious political bias makes everything you write about the RAN (which isn't much) to be not taken seriously. This forum should be 'Right-wing Australian Navy Forum 2.0'.