Redlands18
Well-Known Member
Discussion is ongoing on the ADF thread.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0
- Thread starter OPSSG
- Start date
iambuzzard
Active Member
They have rel;axed the one child policy in the last few years but it will take over a decade to catch up if the young parents choose to go down that path, which at the moment doesn't seem to be happening too much. As mentioned elsewhere this is worthy of a separate thread. This is getting off topic.
iambuzzard
Active Member
I have been there several times and it's interesting to see the changes.
Scott Elaurant
Well-Known Member
Right. I understand in China they actually call the “one child policy” the “four grandparents policy”. Its a big burden on the young.
Defence and Anduril unveil first Ghost Shark prototype.
www.australiandefence.com.au
Defence and Anduril unveil first Ghost Shark prototype - Australian Defence Magazine
Anduril Australia, the Royal Australian Navy, ASCA and DSTG have announced that the Ghost Shark program is ahead of schedule and on budget, with an unveiling of the first Ghost Shark manufactured prot...
www.australiandefence.com.au
Lot bigger than I thought they would be.Defence and Anduril unveil first Ghost Shark prototype.
Defence and Anduril unveil first Ghost Shark prototype - Australian Defence Magazine
Anduril Australia, the Royal Australian Navy, ASCA and DSTG have announced that the Ghost Shark program is ahead of schedule and on budget, with an unveiling of the first Ghost Shark manufactured prot...
From the defence page. Short clip.
+Channel 7 Report
Defence Imagery: S20240968 Ghost Shark.mp4
images.defence.gov.au
+Channel 7 Report
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Just looking at some of the Navy specific items from the recent national defence strategy.
- The JSS will be scrapped. No great suprise as this transitioned into the LCM and LCH program. Not sure what this means for Choules.
- No AOR commitment. Also no great suprise as the fleet size will not expand over the 10 year period of the plan.
- Hydrographic survey looks like it will be outsourced. I had thought this would be a possibility, however I was still suprised to see it in the plan. So, the Leeuwin class will be the last and there will not be a replacement for them (at least a grey painted replacement).
- Unless I missed something, there was complete silence on the minehunter capability and plan for the Huons. I will take a stab that this means minehunting rolls back into the GP frigate program requirement.
- I also noted in the under the undersea warfare section, investment in hydrophones. I assume this is the fixed seabed type (like sosus). I would be interested to see what happens here, as this would be a significant capability increase and shows the concerns with future submarine threats.
- There is a lot of money going into the Hobart Aegis upgrade, more than just the control system. I suspect this includes the upgraded SM2 and SM6 missiles for this kind of price.
- There appears to be a lot of upfront money for the GP frigates as well, more than just needed for construction ($11B). There will be three constructed overseas in the 10 year timeframe (say $1B apiece so $3B), plus early works on local builds (say another $2B). Some of this will go to project management and design (say $2B). This leaves around $4B unaccounted (yes very sketchy breakdown). I wonder if this will fund a new construction facility in Perth for the GP frigates separate to Civmec and Austal. Maybe it is for long lead items for the full fleet. Maybe the frigates will cost more than $1B each.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the minehunting role was given to the new GP frigates. The Mogami class comes with its own minehunting sonar for example.
As for additional AORs I don’t see any expansion of surface ship numbers until the late thirties. By the mid thirties we might see the surface fleet contract to maybe 3 Hobarts, 2 Hunters and perhaps 3 or 4 new GP frigates.
That so much money is being spent on Hobart upgrades emphasises how important this class will be going into the 2030s.
Personally I would take a more radical approach and have three upgraded Hobarts built in Spain instead of the first three OS built GP frigates.
As for additional AORs I don’t see any expansion of surface ship numbers until the late thirties. By the mid thirties we might see the surface fleet contract to maybe 3 Hobarts, 2 Hunters and perhaps 3 or 4 new GP frigates.
That so much money is being spent on Hobart upgrades emphasises how important this class will be going into the 2030s.
Personally I would take a more radical approach and have three upgraded Hobarts built in Spain instead of the first three OS built GP frigates.
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Start mine hunting with 3000 ton frigates and you’re likely to be short a few frigates. If it’s done by remote control or autonomous vessels linked to a frigate then you’d be a lot safer - but using frigates for mine hunting is a waste of a resource. Having a mine avoidance capability in the frigate is a different matter, and quite common.
I'm pretty sure I saw something a few years back about an MCM ROV that replaces one of the RHIBs on a DDG. If memory serves it was part of a distributed system derived from the one that was being developed for the LCS program.
I think that was the plan. Instead of relying on purpose built platforms, ensure the required capability was available to deploy with any major platform as required.
I wouldn't be buying a rubber band from Spain, let alone purchase three more ships from N****** given their recent track record.
Submariner training progress
While there is a lot of attention to the large and shiny Virginia procurement project (and all the concerns that go with it), it is interesting to observe the other less public steps that underpin this plan.
Developing nuclear proficient submariners is one of the more important, and the attached article provided a heartening update on those at the vanguard of this. The first three officers were sent some time back to commence USN submariner training, and it would appear that they recently successfully completed it (note, there was never any doubt they would) and are now about to be deployed to sea on Virginias. Hats off to them.
There are others already in the training system, just at earlier stages, and an interesting line in the article advised that the numbers of Australian personnel in the USN system will be 100 within 12 months. This represents quite a rapid increase and probably a sizable portion of the existing RAN submariner corps.
Its still early days, and that is still well short of the numbers needed to crew a single boat, however in my view it's good progress. It would indicate that by the time submarine rotational force west comes online in 2027 (with three or so USN Virginias based out of Perth), there will potentially be a significant number of qualified Australian officers and sailors on those boats at that time.
This in turn indicates that the foundations are in place to be ready for our own fully Australian crewed boat in the early 2030's.
I suspect the SSN training and work stream won't continue to accelerate at the above rate, as there will be some balance with personnel numbers that need to maintain the Colins fleet (which I thought was already stretched), so will be interesting to watch progress.
While there is a lot of attention to the large and shiny Virginia procurement project (and all the concerns that go with it), it is interesting to observe the other less public steps that underpin this plan.
Developing nuclear proficient submariners is one of the more important, and the attached article provided a heartening update on those at the vanguard of this. The first three officers were sent some time back to commence USN submariner training, and it would appear that they recently successfully completed it (note, there was never any doubt they would) and are now about to be deployed to sea on Virginias. Hats off to them.
There are others already in the training system, just at earlier stages, and an interesting line in the article advised that the numbers of Australian personnel in the USN system will be 100 within 12 months. This represents quite a rapid increase and probably a sizable portion of the existing RAN submariner corps.
Its still early days, and that is still well short of the numbers needed to crew a single boat, however in my view it's good progress. It would indicate that by the time submarine rotational force west comes online in 2027 (with three or so USN Virginias based out of Perth), there will potentially be a significant number of qualified Australian officers and sailors on those boats at that time.
This in turn indicates that the foundations are in place to be ready for our own fully Australian crewed boat in the early 2030's.
I suspect the SSN training and work stream won't continue to accelerate at the above rate, as there will be some balance with personnel numbers that need to maintain the Colins fleet (which I thought was already stretched), so will be interesting to watch progress.
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Agreed, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t go anywhere near them. Thing is we could order three Hobarts from them tomorrow. As for the alternative of three GP frigates it could be a year or more before we even select a contender.
.....but that would require actually committing money now, instead of just saying you are going to spend money sometime in the distant future.
Yep, and for the record I had thought that an additional three Hobarts (or updated version thereof) would have been the pragmatic option, but was proven wrong.
In disecting this decision, there is information that we are not privy to, however I would be very suprised if this option was not thoroughly evaluated. For reasons that have not been announced it was found wanting.
I suspect that at the heart was a view that time is available to construct an optimised fleet, rather than a rushed fleet. This goes to the various discussions on the potential timeframes for hot conflict.
If then looking at an optimised fleet, then I think crew sizing and individual platform cost would have been more important considerations. This pertains to the strategy of a larger number of smaller platforms (the distributed be everywhere approach). Unfortunately additional Hobarts doesn't align with this strategy.
My own personal view is that Hobarts don't offer enough firepower (magazine size) to outweigh their shortfalls, and therefore on balance, don't fit the long term future. The existing three are fine, primarily as we have them, and they will get some upgrades to ensure they continue to be capable and useful. They will be replaced by something else in the early 40s that does align more with the strategy.
Had we gone with more Hobarts, then it is likely the GP frigate program would have been limited to say less than six hulls, or possibly reduced to a corvette design. I doubt there was ever the potential to have additional Hobarts and the full GP compliment, so it was always a choice.
We can now hope that a really good GP platform is selected (fingers crossed). We should know more later this year.
To change topic, but also relevant, the other point I took out of the defence strategy, was the formal intention to assess the viability of fitting Tomahawk to the Hunters. I can't see how this system would be viable with a 32 cell VLS without seriously compromising other requirements. Maybe this indicates that an expanded magazine may still be on the cards for the Hunters. Hobarts have 48 VLS and the view of Defence is this is evidently sufficient, so I will tempt my crystal ball (which has failed me miserably in the past) with another forecast for a moderate VLS increase to be announced for the Hunters. It will be interesting to see the results of this study.
In disecting this decision, there is information that we are not privy to, however I would be very suprised if this option was not thoroughly evaluated. For reasons that have not been announced it was found wanting.
I suspect that at the heart was a view that time is available to construct an optimised fleet, rather than a rushed fleet. This goes to the various discussions on the potential timeframes for hot conflict.
If then looking at an optimised fleet, then I think crew sizing and individual platform cost would have been more important considerations. This pertains to the strategy of a larger number of smaller platforms (the distributed be everywhere approach). Unfortunately additional Hobarts doesn't align with this strategy.
My own personal view is that Hobarts don't offer enough firepower (magazine size) to outweigh their shortfalls, and therefore on balance, don't fit the long term future. The existing three are fine, primarily as we have them, and they will get some upgrades to ensure they continue to be capable and useful. They will be replaced by something else in the early 40s that does align more with the strategy.
Had we gone with more Hobarts, then it is likely the GP frigate program would have been limited to say less than six hulls, or possibly reduced to a corvette design. I doubt there was ever the potential to have additional Hobarts and the full GP compliment, so it was always a choice.
We can now hope that a really good GP platform is selected (fingers crossed). We should know more later this year.
To change topic, but also relevant, the other point I took out of the defence strategy, was the formal intention to assess the viability of fitting Tomahawk to the Hunters. I can't see how this system would be viable with a 32 cell VLS without seriously compromising other requirements. Maybe this indicates that an expanded magazine may still be on the cards for the Hunters. Hobarts have 48 VLS and the view of Defence is this is evidently sufficient, so I will tempt my crystal ball (which has failed me miserably in the past) with another forecast for a moderate VLS increase to be announced for the Hunters. It will be interesting to see the results of this study.
The elephant in the room is the current upgrade program for the Hobart's.
Look how much it is costing to upgrade our near new ships to remain viable through to mid life.
I don't know exactly what Spain was offering but unless it was already more advanced and capable than an upgraded Hobart, or an enhanced Hunter, it would be a complete misappropriation and waste of resources.