I am a fan of the F-124 (and the F-123 for that matter) but it was eliminated when the government selected AEGIS and SPY-1D for AWD, this is when the F-100 became the minimum fall back design. Looking at the cost so far and the RANs continued desire for a bigger ship with larger VLS, it appears an early build of a Flight IIABurke in Williamstown, would have been better value for money, if not cheaper. Throw in Advanced Hybrid Electric Drive, electric, rather than pneumatic or hydraulic, auxiliaries, crewing, operating and maintenance costs could have been brought down significantly.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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TomcatTerry
New Member
@StingrayOz
new to forum. Any discussion been held around Aust developing fleets of drone mini subs and drone surface combatants in light of recent discussions around Aust future new submarine obsolescence? Would be good to see White paper in Aug and any submission from TKMS with these options. Otherwise our new subs will end up "white elephants" themselves.
new to forum. Any discussion been held around Aust developing fleets of drone mini subs and drone surface combatants in light of recent discussions around Aust future new submarine obsolescence? Would be good to see White paper in Aug and any submission from TKMS with these options. Otherwise our new subs will end up "white elephants" themselves.
The White Paper is a strategic document outlining our strategic circumstances and generic ways in which we intend to address these circumstances. The Defence Capability Plan is the document listing specific capability solutions designed to address the strategic goals listed in the DWP.
I have no doubt the RAN plans to deploy exactly these types of capability in future years, along with traditional submarine capabilities (ie: ISR, anti-shipping etc) along with Special Forces insertion / recovery and new generation long range land attack capabilities.
t68
Well-Known Member
Well I agree with some of the sentiments and along with the required funding increase (which is not there)that Army does need to be enlarged as we have seen Army stretched with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we haven't seen the full effect with our Amphiboius task group yet.
Army could do with an extra Brigade and should be a heavier hitting *conventional land forces, I also dare say that the *Amphiboius role should be taken away from Army and aligned with the Navy with 2x light infantry *Marine Brigades * with supporting light AFV such as the ASLAV/Viking APC with Navy also getting another pair of LHD's plus a pair of STOVL carriers with pilots coming from both Navy and Marine aviation streams.
With the corresponding increase across all services across the ADF with RAAF predomantly * supporting Army with troop and heavy lift and a re-raised Australian national line shipping in a PPP RFA style arrangement moving heavy equipment for Army*
A Navy/Marine ARG/E will have all Amphiboius planning/operation roles weather that be blue/brown, Amphibious demonstrations/raids/Assaults
Naval Aviation will take over the current Blackhawk fleet and zeroed hour and marinized as far as possabile and additional airframes bought and made into battle hawks along with 24 new build Chinnock and 54x F35B
Christ I think I just bankrupt Australia!!
This seems to be getting some air in the press, from US sources. I don't think its that helpful. Drones, UUV's and dismounted systems are certainly the future. But the pacific and Indian oceans are huge oceans. There will always be a need for long range ocean subs.
Certainly smaller subs and their missions might be completely swallowed by progress made with drones.
But launching land attack missiles, inserting or extracting special forces, or making decisions underwater are best done with capable manned subs. As mentioned the subs might be motherships to drones and dismounts.
Its certainly difficult to pick a winner from public information. We aren't even sure what the RAN or the governments requirements are exactly. This will certainly be an important whitepaper.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Indeed. Subs like the Collins-class SSG are first and foremost, strategic ISR assets. Whatever design is selected as a replacement will almost certainly continue with that capability, and possibly add a strategic land-attack/strike component.
Given the progress made in ROV, UUVs, etc. I can see in the next few decades some designs emerging that take over portions of the anti-access/area denial capabilities of current submarines. However, I do not see such systems being able to do this over the sorts of distances which the Collins-class can currently operate, unless there was a 'local' launching and controlling platform. Even then, it is questionable that a UUV would be able to perform some of the ISR/harvester functions of a crewed submarine to the same degree, given likely size, power supply/generation/consumption, and bandwidth constraints.
For those not already aware, during parts of the Cold War, RAN O-boats took snaps inside the harbour at Vladivostok, before returning back to Australia. I do not foresee an unmanned submersible being able to engage in a similar such mission any time soon because of the great range, and resulting difficulty in maintaining adequate SA and control of a UUV, and the likely complication of the UUV needing to be difficult for the opposition to detect.
Or, a modest approach.
1 full RAR each optimized for: Armor, amphibious, special warfare and air mobile, the rest are as reserve or light infentry
3 AWD +9 ANZAC replacement + 12 corvette/OPV +12 SSK and 3 LHD with jet facilities. So we can always have a task group of 1AWD+3FFG +4DE + 1LHD as troop carrier or light carrier ready.
And yes, get RAAF 1 Sq (25+) of F-35B and a full sq (12) of C-17 as well.
So when shit hit the fan, we can always deploy a complete and capable task force where ever we need.
I don't believe they will be sufficient for the RAN either. But they will be for Government I believe, unfortunately...
I think there is next to no chance getting another LHD. My guess is the only "new" ship surprise from the DWP could be another Bay class. Seems to be a little talk around about the upcoming SDSR that the UK may be decommissioning another one. Not sure though how accurate that is, but if it did occur probably makes sense to have another to rotate.
TomcatTerry
New Member
French LHDs for Russia
Sounds like a great opportunity for a bargain here
Well...there's two LHDs that the French aren't giving to Russia...mmmm
Sounds like a great opportunity for a bargain here
One of the objectives of the ASC replacement sub program, as well as with the 2010 DWP sub concept was that they should be able to operate UUVs. One concept, seen on the Nordic Viking project subs, was replacing the centre pair of torpedo tubes in the bow with a large diameter lockout chamber for divers, under water vehicles and / or UUVs.
Interestingly the when the Australian government decided, based on a Rand report, that ASC lacked the capability to design the replacement submarine, many of the designers from ASCs Deep Blue Tech design team packed their bags and returned to Sweden taking up senior roles on Viking successor A26 program. Rand completely overlooked the fact that many of those with extensive experience on multiple generations of Swedish subs, including Collins, as well as others from the UK and other submarine building nations were, not only working at ASC in their respective fields, but mentoring other ASC personnel.
Interestingly the when the Australian government decided, based on a Rand report, that ASC lacked the capability to design the replacement submarine, many of the designers from ASCs Deep Blue Tech design team packed their bags and returned to Sweden taking up senior roles on Viking successor A26 program. Rand completely overlooked the fact that many of those with extensive experience on multiple generations of Swedish subs, including Collins, as well as others from the UK and other submarine building nations were, not only working at ASC in their respective fields, but mentoring other ASC personnel.
Haven't heard anything like that over this side, wouldn't put too much into it.
t68
Well-Known Member
That's what's happening now from what I gather, 1 on call Battalion will become the main focus point of the ARG and will rotate 2x Company thru the ARE role on Choules or the LHD for 12 months every 12 months the role revert to another Battalion.
Ship building valley of death can be mitigated by not moving up the Anzac replacement but by an additional 3x flight II Hobart AWD, which gives plenty of time to get the ASW Frigates right.
At the moment to put an entire ARG to sea will require all our Amphiboius shipping 2x Canberra's and Choules, we saw the end result of the kanimbla class of 2 ships worked hard along with Tobruk (still going) we don't want to see a repeat of that also the problem with Choules and her transformer set taking the ship off line for a considerable amount of time leaves the capability at the whim of maintenance scheduling and unexpected mechanical breakdowns.
With 4x Canberra's will eliminate that to a degree with 1x operational 1x working up the 3rd surge capability and the 4th for intensive maintenance program *leaving Choules(need another 2 with all 3 in a RFA arragement along with the oilers 4x)for her intended role of Strategic sealift, the uplift of this is that it too will give Williamstown more work with an additional 2 structures to build and even more if we do a similar way of building 2x ASW carriers(18x F35B &6x MH60R) which would also give the other options for either long range strike fleet defence and on call CAS.*
And we still have the OPV/ Anzac replacement to build yet, in years to come with an expanded tech port we could in theory have the ability to build the replacements for the LHD and ASW carriers plus the oilers etc
Agree on the C17, but not on the RAAF F35B 54x F35B(best case 36x minimum) with Squadrons size of 18x aircraft which leaves a Squadron to rotate on the ASW carrier x2.
that also leaves us with an additional buy of 18x MH60R for the FAA, expand the chinook fleet with 4 per LHD using 2x airframes for large troop movements along with Blackhawk plus the Battlehawks as overwatch and escort 3rd and 4th CH47 can be used to ferry bulk or heavy supplies if needed.
History has shown us that the ADF has had two significant eras of intensive operational activity since the ending of WWII, 1950-1973 we had Korea-Malaysia -Borneo & Vietnam, and in this time also keeping our presence in Singapore with the Far East Fleet and aircraft for RAAF Butterworth as well as the collective defence of Australia.
The other period 1990 till the present, we had the 1st gulf war-Cambodia -Somalia - Rwanda - East Timor - Afghanistan -Iraq - Solomons Island( with a rotation of A-Resevre on full time duty) as well as countless minor blue helment operations for the UN from 1947 to the present. All the while also our commitments to domestic and overseas exercise's.
Army is stretched there is no doubting that and the recent operational tempo of 6mths deployments and having to make numerous regular deployments must be wearing thin and having an adverse complication to the family involved and overall retention of ADF members across the board.
We have yet to see where the current situation evolves (daesh) as well as the implication's of of an ARG. We are taking the baby steps in setting up an ARG this will take many years to develop if the current tempo remains, for this reason learned in the next few years will be critical and I believe a separate marine force is the most likely outcome to relive pressure from Army.
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A Marine Corps doesn't relieve any pressure from Army whatsoever. Any increase in manpower requires, A. They be recruited and B. The funds being made available. A Marine Corps would require even more of both than would simply boosting Army to fill the same role. If you created a Marine Corps just by stripping Army, how does that help Army's overall capability and 'relieve' anything?
Creating an Amphibious Brigade within Army is a more likely future option as far as I can envisage any future amphibious capability enhancement occurring within ADF.
I would support same, as long as it was in addition to the existing multi-role brigades and would hope it would be equipped properly (ie: a dedicated amphibious armoured vehicle - BAE's ACV 1.1 for example) but I recognise this would be a multi-billion dollar investment and one that would likely take a decade to bring up to full operational capability.
The other options, the F-35B, 2 extra LHD's, 3 extra AWD 'Flight II' vessels, they're all good too, I like all of them. I do wonder where the seemingly bottom-less pit of money, manpower and resources are suddenly coming from to organise and acquire all this though?
Where is that like button when you need it. I would love a lot of things but would be happy with 9 MFU after the AWD, a capable (and resonable number of) OPV or OCV (or conbination) and at least 8 new Submarines in the short term.
Given Navy...... and others.... have been given a message to keep it real I don't think we can get too hopeful unless the security situation takes an unexpected dive.
Off topic .....
What a pity we did not simply go to the US and buy the upgraded M109 for land 17 instead of wasting a shed load of money and getting no SPG ....... sorry still does my head in how much we spent for nothing,
Ho hum
Bluey 006
Member
Agreed, but tiny chance that instead of 2 x replenishment ships, we get 1 x replenishment ship and 1x Karel Doorman class ( which has replenishment and amphibious capability)
t68
Well-Known Member
No matter if a Marine Corp was stood up funding and recruiting would still happen either way if we stood up a single dedicated Army Amphiboius brigade let alone two.
Land Army would not be strip of anything, in fact we now have an opportunity to seriously look at the direction of both land and Amphiboius forces with Army needing to upgrade their armoured capability,it could be with heavy protected AFV such as the IDF Namer or SPG like the PZH 2000 or M270 MLRS. As noted previously Marine infantry would become the light infantry with LAV-Viking family of wheeled and tracked vehicles
As far as I am aware that policy of government for Army's strategic guidance is the ability have a Brigade sized formation available for extended operations and be able to rotate that force as well as having capability to deploy a separate brigade sized force to another theatre for shorter duration Ops and also taking into account the need training / deployment / resetting cycle for force generation. 3 Multi-Role Brigades is cutting it thin if crapola hits the fan.
I agree it's the most likly option in the future if funding was to materialise
I did say I'd most likely bankrupt the nation, but the case is there for a fourth Multi Role Brigade to relive pressure on Army now.
What? Who mentioned standing up TWO Army Amphibious Brigades? (Amphibious Brigade used for brevity sake, not necessarily representative of what ADF would call such a formation).
Of course Army would be stripped. Creating a Marine Corps completely from scratch in Australia is a fantasy. Any such formation would be heavily based on the extant capability within the Australian Army, ie: 2RAR and suggesting they be equipped, trained, resourced and housed from scratch and as a completely separate entity to Army, is suggesting something that just isn't going to happen. Period.
The strategic guidance as I recall is to have a brigade sized force available for a medium intensity operation, that can be supported and replaced by a similar formation for an extended period and a separate battalion group sized for available for low intensity operations of a shorter duration (and only replaced after sufficient lead up time if needed, by Reserve formations) elsewhere. This guidance in my understanding basically mirrors what we needed to do Timor and the Solomon Islands, simultaneously in a sustainable manner that could be conducted (as it was) for years on end.
That is why Plan Beersheba was created, to go some way to meeting this requirement. The 3 multi-role combat brigades meet the strategic brigade requirement and 2RAR as the 'odd one out' I suppose, meets the 'battalion group' requirement as well as providing for Australia's nascent amphibious warfare capability. LAND 400 is aimed at allowing us to undertake operations that are quite a bit more 'kinetic' than Timor proved to be. What it is NOT addressing however, is tube or rocket artillery or indeed overall fire support requirements for any amphibious warfare capability.
All that wouldn't bankrupt us, but it would certainly far exceed any Government budget planning for Defence that has been seen since WW2.
I'm not sure Army IS all that pressured right now. We have a lot going on, that is true, but it's a lot less going on operations wise than it was 4-5 years ago.
I'd like a 4th multi-role brigade based in Adelaide as well, but you're talking about a $10b budget requirement to do so, plus a shed load of recruiting and infrastructure building (as the 3rd requiredunder HNLF) and many years to get it ready. I'm not sure anyone in power is thinking along those lines at present...
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