Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[cdxbow]

Off topic, but doesn't Australia also have a rare earth mining industry? If so, then the CoA should very seriously consider investment in the processing of the ores because that is what is required urgently. There is also reason to believe that there is a significant rare earth resource on the Zealandia continental sea floor, part of which is an Australian resource extraction area under the UNCLOS.

The processing of rare earth ores is expensive, but in a defence context it could be argued that it would be an industry of national significance for Australia, because the processed ores are what is required for modern day electronics from magnets to chips. It would reduce the current PRC stranglehold on rare earths and create Australian self sufficiency in a highly strategic resource.

Activity in Oz has kicked up the last couple of years. Lynas a rare earth Oz company and has nearly finished a a large scale separation plant in Kalgoorlie. I think they are currently the only company doing large scale separation in Oz. The US government is also directly investing in Lynas, as they are building a processing plant in Texas. The U.S. Is Trying To Secure Rare Earth Elements For National Security. That Goes Beyond Simple Investment (forbes.com).

 

[StingrayOZ]

The rate earths are not that rare...mostly are commonly found but in minute volumes...so where mined typically a bit more concentrated...it’s just that it costs a fortune to process and is an environmental issue as the waste is toxic and has to be stored somewhere. no one wants a skate park next door so imagine trying to build a processing plant in au. That’s why Lynas mine the stuff here but send to Malaysia for processing.

Earth earths aren't that rare, they are just low concentration generally.

Australia does a huge amount of mining, and as part of that mining we are getting better at extracting other minerals out from the tailings. Olympic Mine is a great example. Its a copper mine, and earns 70% of its total from Copper. But it is also the second largest uranium mine in the world, with 25% of its earnings from uranium. They also extract copper and gold from it. Because it can operate even when the uranium price is low, it put the largest Uranium mine, out of business (McArthur River in Canada). Given you are already mining, and processing, extracting the additional minerals is much more cost effective than often even mining rich reserves of those specific elements.

Australia’s “forgotten” rare earths

There’s about 10 million contained tonnes of rare earths lying in just one mine in Australia – but whether they will ever […]

www.mining.com

The main themes have now been widely discussed, but on page 20 there’s a fascinating list of the main deposits outside the US.

There it is: Olympic Dam in the state of South Australia. Two billion tonnes of ore containing rare earth elements, and 10 million contained tonnes. There, too, is the grade: 0.5 per cent.

Olympic dam has one of the largest reserves of rare earths in the world, and its already mined. The only reason they haven't extracted them, is spending money extracting them would be more profitable extracting more copper, uranium, silver or gold.

Australia does also have the richest specific deposit, Mount Weld which is what Lynas is mining. Browns range is another specific site high in certain types.

But Australia doesn't do much onsite refining and processing in general. We do bulk extraction and ship it. Given the areas are often very dry or lack other resources need to process (coal etc) they have to be shipped anyway.

These were replaced. The previous props only had 3 blades each and a different profile. The new design is hopefully going to solve the severe cavitation and vibration issues experienced when operating above 16 knots.

Propellers are tricky business. Its not unheard of that a new (or modified) ship has issues with propellers. The classic example that comes to mind it Charles De Gaulle. It had vibration problems, and then later the propeller blades snapped off. They temporarily fitted the old prop from Foch.

A great scandale for the French

A jinxed ship shouldn't go to the Bermuda Triangle

www.irishtimes.com

Troubled Aircraft Carrier Illustrates France's Poor Military Preparedness - WSJ

www.wsj.com

Obviously if your building ships, building key parts that make them work is important. Not just for Australia. For the region. For our allies.

 

[ASSAIL]

LPropellers are tricky business. Its not unheard of that a new (or modified) ship has issues with propellers. The classic example that comes to mind it Charles De Gaulle. It had vibration problems, and then later the propeller blades snapped off. They temporarily fitted the old prop from Foch.

A great scandale for the French

A jinxed ship shouldn't go to the Bermuda Triangle

www.irishtimes.com

Troubled Aircraft Carrier Illustrates France's Poor Military Preparedness - WSJ

www.wsj.com

Obviously if your building ships, building key parts that make them work is important. Not just for Australia. For the region. For our allies.

The Majestic class light carriers had two different propellers, one 3 bladed and one 4. IIRC
There was an obvious difference as the two seperate engine rooms determined a large difference in shaft length but I don’t know if the different props were there from the initial trials or whether they changed them due to trial results.
I can only assume the Colossus class had the same arrangement.

 

[DDG38]

"HMAS Sydney departed her home port at Fleet Base East Sydney for to conduct trials on her AEGIS weapons system with the United States Navy. These tests are a crucial milestone in order for Sydney to be declared available for operational deployments. HMAS Sydney is the third and final Hobart Class Guided Missile Destroyers to conduct the testing." (Image source : ADF Image library - link)

 

[StingrayOZ]

The Majestic class light carriers had two different propellers, one 3 bladed and one 4. IIRC
There was an obvious difference as the two seperate engine rooms determined a large difference in shaft length but I don’t know if the different props were there from the initial trials or whether they changed them due to trial results.
I can only assume the Colossus class had the same arrangement.

So many variables, even in the same class of ship. One navy may one better slow performance economy, another want better top speed. As ships are reconfigured over their lives its not unheard of to change the prop if there is a change in displacement or a change in flow of the hull.

Carriers are often problematic because usually they have very high and very sensitive speed requirements. But also, like all military ships, you try to cram as much stuff as you can on them. I believe the Americans went through several versions of props on their carriers and battleships during ww2.

I believe USS midway had both 4 blade and 5 blade propellers fitted at the same time. I believe this was an upgrade to the original 3 and 4 bladed design. I would believe US experiences probably were shared with the British at some stage and vice versa, but the Americans had the industrial capability to experiment in war time.

Report - Naval Ship Research and Development Center

books.google.com.au

Then you have quality of manufacturing. Sometimes it may be useful to simply have a unique or different noise signature or move resonance vibrations to a different harmonic.

With submarines, props and pumps are usually secret, and they used to religiously cover them. So sovereign capability is important there. Subs are notorious for damaging propellers too, as they often do things you would never do in a regular ship, like sit on the bottom, drive through fishing nets or hide in seaweed. A famous incident is when a Russian submarine surfaced in front a US carrier and part of its prop was stuck in the front of the carrier bow.

Now with the Hobarts complete, we really are looking to the next generation of ships.

 

[ngatimozart]

Earth earths aren't that rare, they are just low concentration generally.

Australia does a huge amount of mining, and as part of that mining we are getting better at extracting other minerals out from the tailings. Olympic Mine is a great example. Its a copper mine, and earns 70% of its total from Copper. But it is also the second largest uranium mine in the world, with 25% of its earnings from uranium. They also extract copper and gold from it. Because it can operate even when the uranium price is low, it put the largest Uranium mine, out of business (McArthur River in Canada). Given you are already mining, and processing, extracting the additional minerals is much more cost effective than often even mining rich reserves of those specific elements.

Australia’s “forgotten” rare earths

There’s about 10 million contained tonnes of rare earths lying in just one mine in Australia – but whether they will ever […]

www.mining.com

Olympic dam has one of the largest reserves of rare earths in the world, and its already mined. The only reason they haven't extracted them, is spending money extracting them would be more profitable extracting more copper, uranium, silver or gold.

Australia does also have the richest specific deposit, Mount Weld which is what Lynas is mining. Browns range is another specific site high in certain types.

But Australia doesn't do much onsite refining and processing in general. We do bulk extraction and ship it. Given the areas are often very dry or lack other resources need to process (coal etc) they have to be shipped anyway.



Propellers are tricky business. Its not unheard of that a new (or modified) ship has issues with propellers. The classic example that comes to mind it Charles De Gaulle. It had vibration problems, and then later the propeller blades snapped off. They temporarily fitted the old prop from Foch.

A great scandale for the French

A jinxed ship shouldn't go to the Bermuda Triangle

www.irishtimes.com

Troubled Aircraft Carrier Illustrates France's Poor Military Preparedness - WSJ

www.wsj.com

Obviously if your building ships, building key parts that make them work is important. Not just for Australia. For the region. For our allies.

It was very careless of that office worker to over flambé their meal with the blow torch. Not only did it ruin good food but it started a fire. Merde.

 

[StingrayOZ]

It was very careless of that office worker to over flambé their meal with the blow torch. Not only did it ruin good food but it started a fire. Merde.

Hard to make creme brulee without burning cream.

Although to be fair, its seems as if every major navy has had a major shipyard fire in recent years. There are recent examples in Australia, China, the US and Russia that come to mind. However sometimes "accidents" are correlated to flawed projects. Unhappy workers result in more accidents.

The Denise Nedry problem from Jurassic park.

Something like 50-70% of workers are unhappy. Something like ~20% of workers are trying to actively sabotage their workplace. You would hope in defence related industries things are better than that.

More Than Half Of U.S. Workers Are Unhappy In Their Jobs: Here’s Why And What Needs To Be Done Now

Many people feel underemployed, stuck in their dead-end jobs and not earning close to what they’re worth.

www.forbes.com

Worldwide, 13% of Employees Are Engaged at Work

Only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work, according to Gallup's new 142-country study on the <i>State of the Global Workplace</i>. Low levels of engagement hinder gains in economic productivity and life quality.

news.gallup.com

Some people are buttholes, in other cases, people are just tired working for buttholes. Some people are just trapped in impossible situations.

 

[76mmGuns]

"HMAS Sydney departed her home port at Fleet Base East Sydney for to conduct trials on her AEGIS weapons system with the United States Navy. These tests are a crucial milestone in order for Sydney to be declared available for operational deployments. HMAS Sydney is the third and final Hobart Class Guided Missile Destroyers to conduct the testing." (Image source : ADF Image library - link)
View attachment 48063

Every time I see a Hobart, I think- I wish we built the fourth one.

 

[ADMk2]

Every time I see a Hobart, I think- I wish we built the fourth one.

Yep. We had to have one term of Labor right in that moment didn’t we? What an amazing time for Navy. No 4th AWD, AWD build timeline stretch out to save money (it didn’t), no subs, no ordered new ship of any kind whatsoever during that period.

Unbelievable while our existing ships (at that time) were tiring rapidly and our strategic situation deteriorating right in front of their eyes...

 

[Boagrius]

Every time I see a Hobart, I think- I wish we built the fourth one.

...and the tenth and and the eleventh and the twelfth ;-p

 

[John Newman]

Yep. We had to have one term of Labor right in that moment didn’t we? What an amazing time for Navy. No 4th AWD, AWD build timeline stretch out to save money (it didn’t), no subs, no ordered new ship of any kind whatsoever during that period.

Unbelievable while our existing ships (at that time) were tiring rapidly and our strategic situation deteriorating right in front of their eyes...

Actually it’s worse than that, two terms, 2007-2013, Rudd/Gillard/Rudd.

Two terms, six years of no orders, not even a row boat.

 

[John Newman]

Every time I see a Hobart, I think- I wish we built the fourth one.

Well, sort of.

At the time I would have said yes to a 4th, but then would the Hunter class been increased from eight to nine? I don’t think so.

Whichever way you slice and dice it, I think the Government has settled on a fleet consisting of 12 DDG/FFG.

I might be a cynic (ok, yes I am a cynic), in my opinion the reason the FFGs were increased from eight to nine is less about providing the RAN with that number of ships, and more about making the ‘numbers’ work for the Continuous Shipbuilding Plan.

Eleven hulls isn’t enough (the drumbeat is too big a gap), 12 just gets there, 13 or 14 would be better, just reduce the drumbeat.

Same with the submarines, 12 boats, with a 24mth drumbeat, just allows for continuous submarine construction too.

Cheers,

 

[Tasman]

HMAS Canberra looked spic and span as she entered the Derwent this morning. The sun showed her new coat of paint to advantage and her black funnel is certainly different..

Tas

 

[DDG38]

HMAS Anzac conducts a replenishment at sea with HMAS Sirius in the South China Sea. (Image source : ADF Image Library link)

 

[John Newman]

HMAS Anzac conducts a replenishment at sea with HMAS Sirius in the South China Sea. (Image source : ADF Image Library link)
View attachment 48110

You’d have to think this is her last deployment, I saw this this morning:

HMAS Stalwart starts sea trials - APDR

Navantia has commenced sea trials for the future HMAS Stalwart (III) for the Royal Australian Navy.

asiapacificdefencereporter.com

NUSHIP Stalwart has commenced sea trials and is due to commission late this year.

I wonder where Sirius will end up, maybe we can flog her off to the Canucks? They’re still a few years away from receiving the first of their two new AORs.

Cheers,

 

[StingrayOZ]

PM will now chair new naval ship building committee.

Shake-up of naval shipbuilding as concerns grow over future submarines, frigates

A powerful new Cabinet committee is formed to tackle problems with Australia's multi-billion-dollar Naval Shipbuilding Plan, as more concerns emerge over the federal government's complex future submarine and frigate projects.

www.abc.net.au

Don't know if that improves the situation, but I guess shows the priority of it, given the current non-defence related mess that is going on at the moment.

 

[DDG38]

In my experience, projects are rarely improved by scrapping one committee and creating a new one with similar staff. This smells of busy work and trying to create the impression of doing something. I'll be happy to be proved wrong however.

 

[John Fedup]

In my experience, projects are rarely improved by scrapping one committee and creating a new one with similar staff. This smells of busy work and trying to create the impression of doing something. I'll be happy to be proved wrong however.

Standard MO for pollies. This diversion tactic occurs on a regular basis at both the provincial and federal government here in Canada.

 

[alexsa]

You’d have to think this is her last deployment, I saw this this morning:

HMAS Stalwart starts sea trials - APDR

Navantia has commenced sea trials for the future HMAS Stalwart (III) for the Royal Australian Navy.

asiapacificdefencereporter.com

NUSHIP Stalwart has commenced sea trials and is due to commission late this year.

I wonder where Sirius will end up, maybe we can flog her off to the Canucks? They’re still a few years away from receiving the first of their two new AORs.

Cheers,

The Sirius did fill a gap while the Success was out of service and provided a west coast capability. For hat was paid this was a relatively cheap and effective stock gap as a training and support platform. But s not without its shortcomings and I suspect it may find it hard to find a buyer. I don't think conversion back to a merchant vessel is practical is the vessel has not be maintained in line with relevant conventions (or changes to them) and such a conversion is likely to be expensive.

I could be wrong but there area issues to be aware of when it is trying to fill in for an AOR (noting she is just an AO). These are:

• Its speed - it is a tad slow at about 15 knots to support the normal speed of advance of a group
• The fuel it burns which marine fuel oil not the fuel used by the rest of the fleet. Mind you they may have fitted a preheater to solve that problem but I an not aware of this. If the Navy are following MARPOL the vessel should have converted to low Sulphur DO but they are not obliged to do that. She is not fitted with an exhaust gas cleaning systems so low sulphur fuel would be the only way to comply with the SOx 0.5 limits.
• The limitation on other supplies it can transfer. This is after just an AO and it does not have the capacity of an AOR to provide stores and other materials
• The limitations of the aviation facilities. That flight deck is an ugly monstrosity and I understand it is only used for VERTREP with landing on an emergency activity.

 

[Stampede]

The Sirius did fill a gap while the Success was out of service and provided a west coast capability. For hat was paid this was a relatively cheap and effective stock gap as a training and support platform. But s not without its shortcomings and I suspect it may find it hard to find a buyer. I don't think conversion back to a merchant vessel is practical is the vessel has not be maintained in line with relevant conventions (or changes to them) and such a conversion is likely to be expensive.

I could be wrong but there area issues to be aware of when it is trying to fill in for an AOR (noting she is just an AO). These are:

• Its speed - it is a tad slow at about 15 knots to support the normal speed of advance of a group
• The fuel it burns which marine fuel oil not the fuel used by the rest of the fleet. Mind you they may have fitted a preheater to solve that problem but I an not aware of this. If the Navy are following MARPOL the vessel should have converted to low Sulphur DO but they are not obliged to do that. She is not fitted with an exhaust gas cleaning systems so low sulphur fuel would be the only way to comply with the SOx 0.5 limits.
• The limitation on other supplies it can transfer. This is after just an AO and it does not have the capacity of an AOR to provide stores and other materials
• The limitations of the aviation facilities. That flight deck is an ugly monstrosity and I understand it is only used for VERTREP with landing on an emergency activity.

For all the deficiencies of HMAS Sirius, it has provided some level of respectable service to the RAN.
Should we have done things differently in acquiring replacement supply ships earlier, I'd say yes, but that is now history.
The question is what do we do with HMAS Sirius now.
It has a small crew and probably owns us nothing.
It would not bring much as a sale item so what is it's current value?
Some would suggest that with two new supply ships just around the corner and an equally capable vessel across the ditch in NZ our supply needs are well catered for in this part of the world.
On the other hand we intend to add in the near future two new Logistic / amphib ships to the fleet to replace HMAS Choules thus bringing our current supply / Amhib fleet up from five to a total of six vessels.
It would be prudent to have a force of Six ships NOW.
The retention of HMAS Sirius will bring the RAN to such a total today
While it has been pointed out it has it's deficiencies, there is still a lot that it can do.
Sirius is a big ship
It can carry a massive amount of fuel in addition it has the capability to carry a modest number of containers.
Some basic modifications could increase this capacity.
We currently have a very small merchant so a ship like Sirius as a semi active reserve vessel would be a valuable sovereign asset for many contingency's.

What it can do, not what it cannot.

For not much out lay in dollars and crew we get a lot, lot more in return.
The ship should have enough life in it until the first of the new Amphib / logistics ships enter service.
It would be great to get a second hand Juan Carlos or Bay Class vessels today but they are just not available at the "second hand ship shop".
HMAS Sirius is and certainly worth investing in to provide service in the 2020's



Regards S