If such plans were made for a 3 tier structure, I'd be worried they'd want to keep the front line ship numbers static at 12, and thus force small/tiny numbers of each class. Would , say, 3 corvettes, 3 GP frigates and 6 heavy frigates be worthwhile?, as against, say, 12 Hunters, + 6 GP frigates, and 6 corvettes? (yes, logistics, infrastructure, money, politics play a role). I mean, look at it now. Is the issue with Anzacs only their age, or are they underarmed for what we want our front line ships to do? If they are, then we can't skimp on the number of heavy combatants, and any cuts to them, to fit in a few corvettes, isn't in our interest.
The minimum numbers determined during the post-cold war peace dividend, i.e. no China threat, were 8 or 9 tier 1, 8 tier 2 and 12 tier 3. So 16 to 17 destroyers and frigates and a dozen corvettes with Harpoon, ESSM and Penguin armed Super Sea Sprites. The proposed 12 majors and 12 OPVs we are aiming for now is significantly less than the minimum peace time force we knew we needed in the late 80s/ early 90s.
I have brought these figures up a couple of time a year since joining this site over a decade ago, there have been counter arguments that escort numbers have never been more than a dozen, but the facts are until the late 90s there were other capabilities or planned procurements that mitigated the dozen.
For example, until 1982 there was a carrier with strike aircraft, fix wing ASW and heavy ASW helos, when the carrier was not replaced the mitigation was an increase in escort numbers from 12 to 17, 14 of which were to have ASW helos. Up until the early 80s there was the carrier, destroyers and frigates, plus combat capable training ships, i.e. Vampire that was arguable more capable than the Riverclass Frigates in their last couple of years. Prior to that there was even a reserve fleet with older frigates and destroyers.
There are 3 Hobarts, 8 ANZACs and 12 OPVs (under construction), this is the minimum, simple as that. The corvettes are proposed as alternatives for the full twelve OPVs,
NOT AS A REPLACEMENT FOR THE ANZACS OR AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE HUNTERS. The corvettes, if they are procured will be a capability increase, not a decrease, a supplement, not a replacement for the majors.
People seem to be scared that if the RAN get useful small combatants, it will be at the expense of large combatants, it's this type of thinking that caused our current problems. The ANZACs were the second tier there were Patrol Frigates, not even GP frigates, there were meant to have the endurance and capabilities needed to do the work the corvettes we never got couldn't, they were never intended to be the backbone of the fleet, but delays in replacement of high-end ships and rejection of interim options saw upgrading the ANZACs as the only remaining option. We were offer the four Kidd Class DDGs as hot transfers from the USN, these ships have recently completed their NTU and had SM-2. The reasons they were rejected is to crew them we would have had to retire our two oldest FFGs and there was also the concern their capability was such that the government may choose to keep them as DDG replacements and only replace the FFGs with a frigate instead of a destroyer.
Reality check, four Kidd Class DDGs, four FFGs and eight ANZACS is a pretty impressive fleet. So, the Kidds mean the government goes looking for an FFG instead of a DDG, planning to replace the Kidds later, well without the money wasted on the FFGUP or the money spent converting the ANZACs into GP frigates, we could have afforded to build four F-100s to replace the remaining FFGs, but several years earlier.
The insidious way the ANZACS became our front-line frigates is the upgrade of Melbourne and Newcastle became a life extension planned for all six FFGs (FFGUP) to permit the retirement of the DDGs before their replacements were ordered. These replacements would then follow the ANZACs out of Williamstown, there would be six or seven of them (to replace the DDGs and US built FFGs) and they would serve alongside the ANZACs and the Australian built FFGs. The FFGUP was screwed up and we got four upgraded ships instead of six, so in less than a decade nine destroyers and frigates became six frigates, then four frigates, which were then replaced by three Spanish frigates we call destroyers. The first tier became one third its planned size. This happened in the middle of the largest economic boom our country has ever seen.
The irony is, had the ANZACs been smaller and less capable than they were, i.e. as they were originally planned, no one could have pretended that they were GP frigates, and the first tier could not have been shrunk by two thirds. There is more risk of major numbers being eroded if we procure the high-end GP frigates some seem to be pushing instead of corvettes or OPVs. I like the Type 31 and am a fan of its ancestor, the Absalon Class, I can even see a RAN role for them as modern day APDs, fleet mine hunters and USV/UUV mother ships, but only in addition to the Hunters and Corvettes.
During the peace dividend it was deemed that we needed 8 (or9), 8 and 12, I think in this day and age 12, 12 and 12 could easily be justified.
