Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0

[ADMk2]

I viewed some of the posts with interest regarding an offensive weapon for small patrol ships ,normally I would hope theses sort of vessels are not put in such position that heavy weapons are required but wondered if electronic warfare or some other soft kill means could be considered ?

The point was that everyone seems to be forgetting, that the other side actually get a say too… Whst is RAN going to honestly say? Our enemies will understand these are only “Constabulary” vessels so therefore they’ll be civilised enough to not shoot them?

Is “the” plan here to tie up more than half the RAN fleet and just rely on the, well we didn’t “expect” a shooting war was about to kick off and thus have rested on our laurels? Despite constant warnings about how dangerous our current world is?

We seem to have forgotten that they may actually be shot at, regardless of RAN’s “intention” for them.

If the reality is that our “minor war vessels” can’t even be “minor” war vessels, than the RAN should be rightly subject of criticism for what it is “requiring” of these vessels.

 

[Volkodav]

My argument is we have them so should use them for what we bought them to do but never pretend they are in any way survivable.

We would never send G-wagons into a war zone, and if the war zone became Australia, we would be building additional Hawkies and Bushmasters as quick as we could to avoid sending them.

Trained personnel are harder to replace than equipment, in fact, partially or even untrained people are harder to replace.

The Capes and even Arafura's are not as solidly built, well armed, equiped or versatile as the WWII Fairmile Ds or Bathusts, and those were supplemented and replaced as quickly as they could be later in the war.

The second a shooting war starts we should pull these vessels back and use them for training crews for actually survivable vessels. As a last ditch I would look at uncrewed conversions of them, by all means bomb them up with any available systems and use them for local defence and screening.

 

[Stampede]

My argument is we have them so should use them for what we bought them to do but never pretend they are in any way survivable.

We would never send G-wagons into a war zone, and if the war zone became Australia, we would be building additional Hawkies and Bushmasters as quick as we could to avoid sending them.

Trained personnel are harder to replace than equipment, in fact, partially or even untrained people are harder to replace.

The Capes and even Arafura's are not as solidly built, well armed, equiped or versatile as the WWII Fairmile Ds or Bathusts, and those were supplemented and replaced as quickly as they could be later in the war.

The second a shooting war starts we should pull these vessels back and use them for training crews for actually survivable vessels. As a last ditch I would look at uncrewed conversions of them, by all means bomb them up with any available systems and use them for local defence and screening.

No one wants to take a knife to a gun fight.
It’s about freeing up our limited number of majors to enable them to concentrate on the hi end stuff.
Do we really want them doing robust constabulary work?
Ten majors for the next decade until their numbers grow finally in the late 30s .
Concerning prospect and numbers !

If an up gunned Cape and OPV can handle a contingency that could not be handled by the same vessels without enhancements then I’d suggest up gunning is a prudent investment.

We all recognise the Capes and Arafura’s have limitations.
But we also recognise they have potential to offer a lot more and provide a lot more options than the status quo.

Navy having another eighteen vessels with some limited bite is not going to cost the earth ; but it may just be the answer on the day when the majors are thousands of km away from where they are actually needed at that contested time and place.

Cheers S