Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0
- Thread starter OPSSG
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Are you able to elaborate within the realms of what’s publicly acceptable?Regrettably, that article contains a number of errors. Although it is aerospace focussed, that’s still disappointing.
Cheers S
Putting the costs aside as that was just a comment based on the Asiapacificdefence reporter article …acknowledge the fit out will double + the overall costs…I was impressed by April 2023 contract signing, and 12 months from being laid down to launch…30 months from contract signing to first launch…..noting it’s another three years till delivery On the first ship. How do we stack up on the Hobarts, Hunters, and GPFs?TBH no, not really. I do question the TWZ article as well as the writer of the article. The capability claim sounds like it might be a bit beyond hyperbolic, particularly when one keeps in mind the claimed price tag per vessel.
That pricetag of $200 mil. per vessel is less than the cost for a set of Aegis CMS and SPY arrays for a single vessel, never mind anything else a warship requires like a hull, weapons, machinery, etc.
Now I have not been able to work out what the cost per vessel was for Sinagpore's Formidable-class frigates, Taiwan's Kang Ding-class frigates, another derivative of DCNS's La Fayette-class frigate, cost roughly $300 mil. per vessel back in the early 1990's. This is the rough number I get when substracting some of the funding involved in the frigate purchase which might have actually been spent on kickbacks and other corrupt purposes. Otherwise, then one would be talking about $500 mil. per vessel, and again this would be in 1990's dollars, not 2025 dollars.
That makes me thing that whatever Singapore is getting for $200 mil. is not really that capable as a warship, or that is 'just' the price for the hull and perhaps the design, rather than an actual, completed warship. Given that the article mentions that now launched vessel will move to a yard for further outfitting, it is quite possible that a good deal of kit was not included in the pricetag.
Also, if one keeps in mind that OPV's typically run about $100 mil. and lack the sort of sophisticated sensors and CMS for a proper warship, that can provide a sort of base line when talking price.
Lastly, the article itself mentions the class including lead ship are planned for delivery starting in 2028 and onward. This means quite a bit of work remains to be done.