Stuff is reporting that its unlikely that well have an operational frigate until 2022. Frankly the whole refit saga as been a screw up, given the length of time its taken. The comments on how Treasury might view the lack of frigates is also interesting given the comments in the recent navy publication.
It is 3 years since TK sailed away for its FSU. Thus it will be 4 years or in other words the time the US fought in WW2, until the ship and crew are fully combat ready!
And we will also be down to single Anzac again in 2027-2018 for around 12 months as TM and TK will both go into a further life extension due to them being pushed out for another 5-6 years of service under the current Governments so called "Enhanced Strategic Project" plan that went to Cabinet last year. However to be fair, the previous government in 2017 was suggesting creeping TK and TM out to circa 2030 as they became aware of the delays and budget over-run to get more VFM out of them. Mind you the Key's government had us down to a part-time frigate Navy circa 2012 when the PSU project was underway.
Under the "Enhanced Strategic Project" scenario, the plan is replace the Anzac's with two Frigates mid 2030's, replace the two OPV's with two larger more capable OPV"s early 2030's, the CY in 2027, the SOPV to arrive in the same timeframe, the Manawanui in the early 2030's and have the 2nd Strategic Amphibious ship arrive before the Anzac replacement.
The two Anzacs were envisaged following the DWP10 and prior to their current upgrade in 2014 to to be able to provide a "relevant combat capability" for the following decade once the FSU had been completed with the then due exit dates of 2027 (TK) and 2029 (TM).
Now the plan is to give them a further major refit to get them to the later revised date of replacements circa 2035. They will not be relevant in a combat sense post 2030. I doubt very much any sort of combat systems upgrade will happen, that it will be more just a keep them going for a few more years.
The strategic risk to having 0 or just 1 Frigates available between early 2018 to late 2022 they might get away with. However, the strategic environment and consequences I fear will become even more pronounced later in this decade and into the following. They will not get away with it a second time.
All such mistakes have their genesis years before. Twenty years ago ADM's Teagle, Wilson and Welch, plus others, all predicted this eventuality, now present, when we dropped the option to buy at least three Anzac's. They correctly predicted, as flag rank professionals, that just two vessels would be overused, wear out at a faster rate and that any set backs or issues in a future refit may cause us to be without any Frigates for a period of time. How right those gentleman were.
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