John Fedup
The Bunker Group
The six diesel/electric and two nukes comment at the end of the article does seem more realistic.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Brazil can afford a larger navy (I think) but what threats merit such a large submarine fleet (assuming the 15 SSKs and 6 SSNs are actually built)? Their surface fleet renewal is fairly ambitious as well.
There are a lot of similarities between Brazil and Australia despite all the differences. For instance they also weathered the GFC quite well, have/had a booming resources sector and had a very strong, almost painfully highly valued currency causing pain for non-resource sectors, especially manufacturing.
The big difference is in how they handled the commodities boom, as I understand it they introduced a systems where imports that competed with local products were evaluated case by case basis and the level of assistance received by those imports was determined (such as subsidies and protection they benefitted from) and an appropriate level of tariff was maintained or even increased to level the playing field. Economists cried foul but Brazils manufacturing sectors are growing, not shrinking and the number of people employed by them increasing, not reducing. This is not a permanent thing but rather a nurturing process where the industries are protected when vulnerable then weaned off protection as they became, or returned to competitiveness.
To me it makes sense that when you have invested billions in tax payers money developing industries over decades that you protect them for periods when global economic conditions introduce temporary circumstances that make them uncompetitive. Once the boom ends you need those industries to step up otherwise your economy tanks, i.e. like the current situation in Australia, iron ore price is currently a third of what it was, the construction boom is over, a sizable number of the only 2% of the workforce that was actually employed by the resources sector, at its peak, are being made redundant and now the dollar has dropped back to where it would have been without the distortion of the commodities boom and manufacturing is suddenly profitable again.
I am not for one second saying Brazil is better than Australia as I know they do have a lot of issues I am glad we don't have, rather that there are some areas where they are smarter than us. Their automotive sector is growing and economists are, in their usual short sighted way, hammering on about how inefficient it is and how it can't survive without protection, highlighting that they should remove protection as they did for agriculture and aerospace. THey obviously aren't very good at history because the only reason those sectors are strong enough to survive now is because there were protected when they were vulnerable.
Sorry about the rant but I believe this does tie into the shipbuilding discussion. I wonder what would happen if they redid their sums for the AWD and SEA 1000 based on the current exchange rate rather than the unusually high rate from the last decade.
One benefit the French off that I hadn't actually thought about previously is the very close relationships between there conventional and nuclear powered subs. If Australia was to partner with DCNS for SEA1000, apart from the ITAR and export control challenges with preferred US systems, a continual build would have the advantage of having an easy path to an SSN should the strategic situation ever dictate it.
I fully agree, I hate protectionism as much as the next guy but when the value of the dollar is pushed up unnaturally high for a short period of time due to circumstances out of a nations control then it is a prudent and responsible action to bring in temporary measures to protect the industry, That being said the resource boom was only part of the problem for Australia, Another issue is we simply managed our finances too bloody good compared to the rest of the world in effect making us the safe bet that every one jumped on.
You are correct that the historical exchange rate need's to be compared to what it has been in recent times. From 2009 - 2015 the average exchange rate has been roughly 0.92 AUD to the USD compared to the 25 year average of 0.76 AUD to the USD, Or 21% higher then average.
Same thing popped into my head, Guess the question comes down to if down the track we decide to acquire nuclear submarines to supplement our conventional submarines what would we want.. Something similar to the Barracuda or something along the Astute/Virginia classes?? Off the top of my head I imagine the Virginia's would be viewed as too crew heavy for our navy size, So which would be better, Barracuda or Astute??
Are the figures being bandied about how inefficient our shipbuilding and manufacturing sectors are based on the historic exchange rate or just that of the last decade? I caught something on tv the other week, a US expert being interviewed about the Trans Pacific Partnership and he was asked about the Productivity Commissions unfavorable findings. His response was the PC relies on a limited selection of economic tools to model things and if they can't work out how to model an effect they leave it out all together, unfortunately, many truly innovative concepts and all indirect benefits do not fit the tried and test methods of old school economists, therefore are automatically dropped from any modelling they do, resulting in them always finding innovative concepts or indirect benefits to be unproductive, therefore not worth doing or retaining.
I am no expert but I do recall how black and white economics was from year 12, even more so than physics, or from more recent studies, six sigma processes. No acknowledgement that there is a grey area or uncertainty. If it doesn't fit in one of their pre labelled boxes, it can't be measured therefore doesn't exist.
Indeed, which is still interesting. However, I would imagine if a super conventional submarine could be offered to them that allowed long range patrols they might be interested particularly if it came from an existing submarine supplier and was cheaper to build/operate than a SSN.
In Brazil's case it might be much better to consider a rolling build of SSK's(8-12) and just 2-3 SSN's. I would imagine the DCNS sub may be considered in a future Canadian project as well.
While it may not be Australia's perferred choice, it still might become a real sub in someone else's Navy.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
If a future Canadian government were to consider a sub fleet renewal, a French sub would not be politically viable outside of Quebec and Quebec would not support any sub IMO. A sub replacement program could be a tough sell in the rest of Canada as well. Canada's economy is heading south much faster than Australia's. The future Canadian Surface Combatant Ship program called for 15 ships, we will be lucky to get half than number.
I would like to think Canada will get out of this funk and sort out its problems in 10-20 years. (Particularly given russias recent interest in the north and testing other coastal defences).
Looking at this I see the Navy has tried to justify the submarine arm:
Royal Canadian Navy Submarines: Fleet Status
Subs do Fisheries patrols? Deter polluters?
In Canada they do
... not to derail this any further, but I've actually heard a RCN commander describe how they've used subs to interdict foreign fishing vessels operating just inside Canadian waters. The Canadian govt. was having a difficult time prosecuting these foreign fishing vessels as they would quickly dart towards international waters if they were about to be caught. So subs would then be used to sail under the suspect vessel and resurface between the fishing vessel and international waters and supposedly say "gotcha!" and pin them there until the could be processed by a nearby surface vessel with a boarding team ect. Canada had a pretty serious issue with illegal fishing back in the 90's and no doubt was looking for creative ways to deal with it.In Canada they do
....carry on
That could be an interesting way to monitor the usual high jinx, between the Japanese Whaling Fleet and Sea Shepherd in the Southern Ocean every summer. Anyone not ideologically sympathetic to either side is probably of the belief that there are ggod guys where whaling and anti-whaling protests are concerned, maybe conducting surveillance and reporting on the true activities of both parties would result in better behaviour all a round. I wonder if Japan would object to such a use of subs they designed and most likely built for us?
Be an interesting way to deal with Sea Shepherd in my opinion.
They are on a noble cause, but as far as I am concerned, they are terrorists, and the whaleing boats have the right to protect them selves.
They are on a noble cause, but as far as I am concerned, they are terrorists, and the whaleing boats have the right to protect them selves.
Agreed, A noble cause that has been taken out of hand.. How often that happens...
What was it Abbott said about there being no good guys in the Syria civil war, the same pretty much applies here. Sea Shepherd are the perfect example of the end not justifying means, while the whaling industry strike me as rent seeking corporate vandals, continuing their pointless, loss making business because they are making too much money from government subsidies.
The fact that we are so limited in what we can do to patrol the Southern Ocean, when most Australians seem to think we should, is probably part the reason we are now looking at OPVs.
Nah, they'd probably just see it as an opportunity and use submarines themselves to conduct their whaling. Much more stealthy that way...
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
I would like to think so as well but I have serious doubts. Thanks to a generation of multicultural BS, there is little census on anything in this country other than pandering to whiners. Defence issues only get attention when bitching about kit cost.
Well they do say active sonar kills whales, maybe that's why Japan has invested so much in ASW, it's been a cover preparation for a return to industrial scale, hi tec whaling!
Your right it is a Noble Cause as is the preventing of over fishing and exploitation of food resourses for a ever increasing global population. But who is to do it?
Sea Shepard opperates in the southern oceans because of a constabulary void. It's also why the industrial fishing / whaleing fleets opperate as well.
If you go for a tour of the MY Steve Irwin its hard not to be taken with the passion of the crew. Call the crew young ,call them naive, call them many things but IMO I would reserve the terrorist badge for other more destructive groups.
But passion and conduct must have accountability and so who is to say what really happens in the conflict between whaler and Sea Shepard. As one of sea Shepards crew said if we cannot capture an event of film it did'nt happen.They exist to make the news.They know the art of the media and make no appolgies for being in your face to create a scene. It makes the news! but how far is too far and what is the legal/moral limit.
If we dont want a SEA Shepard then elected governnments accountable to law must be activly doing the Noble Cause. Protect one's own EEZ and monitoring the activities of both the fishing fleets and greens groups in international waters and holding all to account.
As Australia ponders it's fleet size and composition there has been much talk of OPV's as part of the mix. Maybe we might also consider a separate class of large, long range, robust, helicopter capable, ice strenghened vessels for our southern oceans.
I doubt there is any votes in it but suggest the needs there now and increasingly so in the future.
A class of four. Two in Hobart and one out of Perth with one in refit.
The big seas of the southern ocean are not kind to a FFG or an ANZAC.
We need specialist ships for a southern ocean that needs more focus.
Regards S
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