Yep very quiet indeed!
The RAN needs to rebuild it's capability to crew additional ships first, especially at mid career levels in technical and warfare areas, officers and ORs. Decisions made ten plus years ago (as well as more recently) on personnel levels in specialities means there are not enough POs, CPOs, LCMDRs, CMDRs. The assumption was made the RAN could do with fewer people but it turns out new capabilities required more, they are no playing catch up.Yep very quiet indeed!
Would of preferred a frigate / destroyer force of 13 rather than 11 going through the 2020's.
So I guess time will tell if the sale of the FFG's proves a good decision.
Maybe we could buy a couple of foreign MEKO 200's for the revenue received for the FFG's
Regards S
My gut feel is that the ongoing pandemic will improve retention for those you list for quite some time.
No - according to the ABC article it due to Chilean politics - the riots against austerity cuts there a few months ago would raise questions about any defence spending:
www.abc.net.au
To a degree, yes, but some areas were so badly underestimated that even if minimal separation occurs it will take over a decade to recover. Some areas have serious bottle necks in training capacity, so even when talking lateral transfer of LT, LTCMD from related areas, they still can't get enough throughput to meet requirements.
A smart move could be to come to an arrangement on some of our newer ships. Sell them the Hobart's before they come due for MLU and put the sale money with the upgrade money and subtract it from the cost of replacement ships.No - according to the ABC article it due to Chilean politics - the riots against austerity cuts there a few months ago would raise questions about any defence spending:
Retired Australian warships handed to Chilean Navy in secretive multi-million dollar deal
Chile's Navy is preparing to sail two recently retired Australian warships out of Sydney after purchasing them in a deal believed to be worth more than $100 million.
Thanks @SteveR that makes some sense.No - according to the ABC article it due to Chilean politics - the riots against austerity cuts there a few months ago would raise questions about any defence spending:
Retired Australian warships handed to Chilean Navy in secretive multi-million dollar deal
Chile's Navy is preparing to sail two recently retired Australian warships out of Sydney after purchasing them in a deal believed to be worth more than $100 million.
Something based on the F-101 is probably what the Chilean Navy would love to get hold of, maybe a couple of Spanish F-101s might become available in the next few years.
Would the Goalkeeper be too heavy to go onto the FFG's, also doesn't it have to have quite a large deck penetration compared to Phalanx? It will be interesting to see if the Chileans also attempt to alter the size of the hangers to fit their Super Pumas. Cheers.
I highly doubt that the Goalkeepers could be used in place of the Phalanx, or at least not without some fairly major modifications. The RAN's Phalanx CIWS are non-deck penetrating so they can be basically just plugged/unplugged and swapped between vessels, as long as the reinforced deck mounting/plate and connections are available. The 30 mm Goalkeeper is a much larger system which is deck penetrating so if a Chile were to attempt to fit it to the ex-RAN frigates, it would either have to be in place of the 76 mm gun, or a hole through a deck would need to be cut and underlying compartments and perhaps structure would need to be re-arranged to accommodate the Goalkeeper.
Yea good point so i would doubt that the Chilean Navy would go to that much trouble for ageing Warships, and it may not be doable anyway.
I suspect this would be difficult as the Goalkeeper is a big unit with deck penetration required. Not sure top weight would be an issues but real estate is likely to be.
A particular statistic that shocked the RAAF and Army people around the table was provided by a RAN Principle Warfare Officer - in recent history there were more PWOs above CAPT (RAN) than there were collectively at SBLT, LEUT, LCDR and CDRE. Good thing PWOs aren't essential to a warship!
I hope you are being sarcastic! For those not familiar with the beast, PWOs coordinate the fighting of the ship, and are the experts in sensor and weapon employment and usage. They are critical components of any surface combattant. And this from a Pusser who has no great love for the breed as a group, though some of my best friends are members of it.......
VeryI hope you are being sarcastic! For those not familiar with the beast, PWOs coordinate the fighting of the ship, and are the experts in sensor and weapon employment and usage. They are critical components of any surface combattant. And this from a Pusser who has no great love for the breed as a group, though some of my best friends are members of it.......
There are those that are and those that wishI hope you are being sarcastic! For those not familiar with the beast, PWOs coordinate the fighting of the ship, and are the experts in sensor and weapon employment and usage. They are critical components of any surface combattant. And this from a Pusser who has no great love for the breed as a group, though some of my best friends are members of it.......
even very old ones!
Indeed and at last, those skilled in the dark art of ASW are regaining their place at the apex after years being subordinated by those practising the mundane and simple practice of above water warfare.Very
I'll leave the PWO v Nav v Engineer v Loggie argument to someone else. Although the different types of PWO are....entertaining
Tell that to the FSU production planners who were trying to figure out which projects to pull man power from to support the transition, or to the FFG qualified sailors who had commenced new postings being asked if they would come back and help with training.