Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0

[SammyC]

Hello everyone, first post to the forum. Thought I'd offer my (admittedly worthless) opinion.

It’s quite possible that the Virginia’s might be cancelled but I don't see how that would affect what is really the pinnacle of AUKUS; Australia's local build of British designed SSNs. There no real reason why the US would seek to block that and I’m not even sure that they could.

I wouldn't let the yanks make any demands at all for their transferring of the Virginia’s either. They're a stop-gap measure after all and if they come with strings attached, we’re better off without. Saab/Kockums, Naval Group, TKMS & Japan could all offer a couple of foreign built SSK’s by the mid 2030’s. We shouldn’t let the US blackmail us into changing policy. If they expect us to pay them for the privilege of basing troops/ships here, they can bugger off.

Finally, I don’t really understand a lot of the negativity here, I for one am optimistic about our future.

Hi Speedy, nice to meet you and welcome. All opinions are valuable.

I agree with your point that the pinnacle (and real value) is the AUKUS submarine, with the Virginia a stepping stone, or interim solution (albeit an important one), to achieve that pinnacle. Loss of owned Virginias does not alter that long term strategy.

The high end value from the US is in my view access to their training system for submariners and maintainers. The British system is simply not large enough for us to get the volume of people that we need through in the timeframe required.

The second highest value from the US is the rotational basing from 2027. We actually have a SSN capability from this point forward, just contracted rather than owned and with some limits on control. This will provide us with SSN patrols in our region, probably with vessels partially crewed with our own people, and the operational experience to strategically manage them.

We might well have a submarine (of any type) gap, but perhaps better leveraging the rotational basing, maybe we pay the US to provide subs for our needs, but they stay in US ownership.

I think however the US may see rotational SSN basing (and the marine basing in Darwin) as providing Australia a service and protection, and less a privilege provided by us to the US.

I would also think there is capacity to bring forward our AUKUS SSN construction to align with or possibly even lead the UK program. This would be expensive but doable.

I should note the public optimal pathway for Australian SSNs, was optimal because it managed cost to a required budget. Increase the budget, then a new shorter optimal pathway could be achieved.

I would see that the Virginia plan is in the US strong interest when applying a rational objective mindset, however I'm not sure that is the state of play with them at the moment. I would suspect they would continue after this review unaltered, however I think Australia is about to get a public shake down.

It will be interesting to see how the Albanese government handles that.It's not our first time in this arena, we worked through the Chinese coercion a few years ago really well.

I would be optimistic for our future as well, but I do see dark clouds on the horizon. I think Australia will be a lot more on its own over the next few decades and will need to have a more independent and robust capability to defend its own interests. My personal view is that the nation (not just the political class) is slow to see this.

 

[SammyC]

I would suggest that rather than investing money in US shipyards that the money be invested into ASC in Adelaide. Offer to build Virginia class modules in Adelaide and ship them to the US for integration into the finished product. This would allow the workforce to be built up and get experience prior to SSN-AUKUS.

There are lots of things that money could be spent on. Starting with Boxer, Redback and K9 SPG’s. And yes, some sort of Air Defence network over major bases probably wouldn’t go astray.

There is just about time to develop a Hawk replacement, the UK and Japan could possibly be interested in a joint program. It would probably be an idea to develop a light fighter variant at the same time along the lines of Hawk 200 or the F/A-50.

Basically, spend any increase in spending on equipment, weapons and increasing industrial capability.

I think a point that Trump will be making is that he wants Australia to invest more in its military, but importantly he wants that investment to flow to American companies. This is the America First principle. He sees this as one of the pathways to return manufacturing might, and the rivers of gold, to the US.

Investment in Virginias with HII and EB, missiles with LM and RTX, and drones with Boeing are all going to get bonus points.

Boxers, K9s, Redbacks, GPFs (unless we suddenly partner with the Constellation program god forbid) don't hit the register with Trump.

All that said, I agree that I would much rather see this money go into our Australian facilities, just I don't see the policical winds blowing entirely that way.

 

[hauritz]

I can understand why America is losing patience with Australian defence spending. We seem to have been just treading water since the DSR with defence spending still sitting at around 2%.

A big announcement of some defence procurement would be handy about now. It would have taken a lot of pressure off Albanese if he announced the SEA 3000 winner before he got on the plane to the G7 summit. Of course they have left that too late now.

My advice to Albanese would be to avoid any impromptu press conferences with Trump over the next week or so.

 

[Reptilia]

I can understand why America is losing patience with Australian defence spending. We seem to have been just treading water since the DSR with defence spending still sitting at around 2%.

A big announcement of some defence procurement would be handy about now. It would have taken a lot of pressure off Albanese if he announced the SEA 3000 winner before he got on the plane to the G7 summit. Of course they have left that too late now.

My advice to Albanese would be to avoid any impromptu press conferences with Trump over the next week or so.

They haven’t left anything late, sea 3000 final selection has always been Q4 2025 since it was announced.
A boost to defence spending is likely after today’s announcement. My guess is it will be similar to the u.ks announcement of 2.6% by 2027 heading to 3+% by 2034.

 

[K.I.]

I think a point that Trump will be making is that he wants Australia to invest more in its military, but importantly he wants that investment to flow to American companies. This is the America First principle. He sees this as one of the pathways to return manufacturing might, and the rivers of gold, to the US.

Investment in Virginias with HII and EB, missiles with LM and RTX, and drones with Boeing are all going to get bonus points.

Boxers, K9s, Redbacks, GPFs (unless we suddenly partner with the Constellation program god forbid) don't hit the register with Trump.

All that said, I agree that I would much rather see this money go into our Australian facilities, just I don't see the policical winds blowing entirely that way.

That seems to be their goal, but what are we going to buy from the US that's going to be delivered in the next five years? Maybe some munitions but that largely goes against GWEO these days, Patriot systems would still be years away even if ordered today. Maybe some specialised platforms but they would generally be one off orders with minimal ongoing purchases.
Any increased spending would largely be spent locally on infrastructure, procurement or manufacturing facilities; so not much in it for US based defence contractors unless they have an Australian company set up here.
Contributing more to US shipyards would really need to see some ironclad commitment to subs in return.
It honestly doesn't seem like a win for either if the US won't acknowledge its manufacturing issues.

 

[seaspear]

There is investment in American shipyards from Australia

Australia to invest $3b in US shipyards | The Australian Naval Institute

navalinstitute.com.au

Certainly the sale of two billion in training and training devices on top of this is putting money up front

US approves $2 billion AUKUS package for Australia - Australian Defence Magazine

The US State Department has approved the sale of "AUKUS-related Training and Training Devices and related equipment" to Australia for an estimated cost of up to US$2 billion | Ewen Levick

www.australiandefence.com.au

 

[Reptilia]

Expert says Australia's 'chronically over-budget' warship project should be scrapped

www.9news.com.au

Strategic Analysis Australia best buds Shoebridge and Hellyer say the Hunter frigate program should be scrapped.
Suggesting we buy cruisers off Japan or Korea, I guess ASEV(240 crew) or Sejong the Great class.(300 crew)

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

Expert says Australia's 'chronically over-budget' warship project should be scrapped

www.9news.com.au

Strategic Analysis Australia best buds Shoebridge and Hellyer say the Hunter frigate program should be scrapped.
Suggesting we buy cruisers off Japan or Korea, I guess ASEV(240 crew) or Sejong the Great class.(300 crew)

Let's just say I have a few problems with the article, such that I question this "expert"'s credentials.

1. Hunter isn't equipped with 32 missiles. It has 32 VLS cells. If the RAN wants to, it could embark the ship with 128 ESSMs, or 12 SM-2s and 80 ESSMs, or 12 SM-2s, 12 Tomohawks and 32 ESSMs.
2. There is scope to increase the number of VLS cells during refit. Strictly speaking, the RAN could have a capability insert project straight after the ships are commissioned.
3. The ships have already been ordered, with Hunter under construction. That means long-lead items have been purchased. BAE won't agree to a refund for them.
4. BAE may have required punitive cancellation clauses in the contract that doesn't make savings possible.
5. The high cost is due to a domestic build. Obviously Hunter would be cheaper if they were assembled in the UK. Neither South Korea nor Japan are going to set up Australian production lines for free.
6. If Australia wants ships quickly, the obvious answer is to have more evolved Mogamis built in Japan.
7. If Australia wants more fleet destroyers, that's when you want to get South Korea or Japan involved. Hunter's strength is anti-submarine warfare, not cramming in huge numbers of VLS cells.

 

[SammyC]

That seems to be their goal, but what are we going to buy from the US that's going to be delivered in the next five years? Maybe some munitions but that largely goes against GWEO these days, Patriot systems would still be years away even if ordered today. Maybe some specialised platforms but they would generally be one off orders with minimal ongoing purchases.
Any increased spending would largely be spent locally on infrastructure, procurement or manufacturing facilities; so not much in it for US based defence contractors unless they have an Australian company set up here.
Contributing more to US shipyards would really need to see some ironclad commitment to subs in return.
It honestly doesn't seem like a win for either if the US won't acknowledge its manufacturing issues.

I don't think Trump is actively looking for immediate spending. He would be perfectly happy with public commitments. Expenditure can come later, potentially years later.

In regards to buying American, and buying things that are useful to us:

• I would think that a choice of an IAMD system will come from Raytheon or LM.
• We eventually need to return to the table for a satellite communications package, probably from Boeing or LM.
• We could easily add to our SM2/SM6 and Tomahawk missiles, which we will never have enough and will never make in Australia.
• A couple of extra Tritons to take the fleet back to the original 7 would also be an easy and good option.

 

[iambuzzard]

Expert says Australia's 'chronically over-budget' warship project should be scrapped

www.9news.com.au

Strategic Analysis Australia best buds Shoebridge and Hellyer say the Hunter frigate program should be scrapped.
Suggesting we buy cruisers off Japan or Korea, I guess ASEV(240 crew) or Sejong the Great class.(300 crew)

In the words of Darryl Kerrigan (slightly modified) "Tell 'em they're dreaming!"

 

[iambuzzard]

Let's just say I have a few problems with the article, such that I question this "expert's" credentials.

1. Hunter isn't equipped with 32 missiles. It has 32 VLS cells. If the RAN wants to, it could embark the ship with 128 ESSMs, or 12 SM-2s and 80 ESSMs, or 12 SM-2s, 12 Tomohawks and 32 ESSMs.
2. There is scope to increase the number of VLS cells during refit. Strictly speaking, the RAN could have a capability insert project straight after the ships are commissioned.
3. The ships have already been ordered, with Hunter under construction. That means long-lead items have been purchased. BAE won't agree to a refund for them.
4. BAE may have required punitive cancellation clauses in the contract that doesn't make savings possible.
5. The high cost is due to a domestic build. Obviously Hunter would be cheaper if they were assembled in the UK. Neither South Korea nor Japan are going to set up Australian production lines for free.
6. If Australia wants ships quickly, the obvious answer is to have more evolved Mogamis built in Japan.
7. If Australia wants more fleet destroyers, that's when you want to get South Korea or Japan involved. Hunter's strength is anti-submarine warfare, not cramming in huge numbers of VLS cells.

Common sense is absent with a lot of journalists. The ABC's Bureau Chief in India is an embarrassment.

 

[Stampede]

Let's just say I have a few problems with the article, such that I question this "expert's" credentials.

1. Hunter isn't equipped with 32 missiles. It has 32 VLS cells. If the RAN wants to, it could embark the ship with 128 ESSMs, or 12 SM-2s and 80 ESSMs, or 12 SM-2s, 12 Tomohawks and 32 ESSMs.
2. There is scope to increase the number of VLS cells during refit. Strictly speaking, the RAN could have a capability insert project straight after the ships are commissioned.
3. The ships have already been ordered, with Hunter under construction. That means long-lead items have been purchased. BAE won't agree to a refund for them.
4. BAE may have required punitive cancellation clauses in the contract that doesn't make savings possible.
5. The high cost is due to a domestic build. Obviously Hunter would be cheaper if they were assembled in the UK. Neither South Korea nor Japan are going to set up Australian production lines for free.
6. If Australia wants ships quickly, the obvious answer is to have more evolved Mogamis built in Japan.
7. If Australia wants more fleet destroyers, that's when you want to get South Korea or Japan involved. Hunter's strength is anti-submarine warfare, not cramming in huge numbers of VLS cells.

 

[Stampede]

We will stick with the Hunter Class, but it’s not unreasonable to question large defence projects not delivering a capability on time and on budget.
We can justify the reasons for the delays but their still needs to be accountability.
Now will the Hunter turn out to be a good vessel. Probably
An excellent vessel, well wait and see.

In hindsight, VLS cell counts should of been a bigger part of the equation for a ship of that size starting with ship one.
Excellent ships in the 2030s / 40s won’t have 32 VLS

Also let’s get rid of the ASW frigate tag and Air warfare destroyer thing for the Hobart Class.
Any vessel over 4000t has a capability across all domains of naval warfare.
They are all multipurpose ships.
The defence site lists the ships as FFG and DDG.
Not their so called specialist role

Cheers S

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

We will stick with the Hunter Class, but it’s not unreasonable to question large defence projects not delivering a capability on time and on budget.

Whilst that's true, almost every article on this sort of subject amounts to "CANCEL NOW! BUY OTHER THING!" Then when money has been wasted on cancellation and new thing has been ordered, another person will shout "CANCEL NOW! BUY OTHER, OTHER THING!"

And you get a situation like the submarine replacement project where you have nothing being constructed and old boats having to stay in service potentially another two decades. Even now there are people wanting SSN-AUKUS to be cancelled and to go back to Japanese conventionally-powered submarines, or somehow convincing the French to sell their SSNs and not having a sovereign, domestic industrial base that can build and maintain them.

These defence "experts" aren't serious. They're just trying to be noticed, presumably so they can get people interested in their books or to justify more grants if they're in higher education. They say the most stupid, outrageous thing, even if it's unprofessional and diminishes confidence in academia, the sector that should be sending out reliable information to the public rather than engaging in grifting.

No one is talking about accountability, because accountability is boring. Julia Gillard is the chief culprit for the RAN's lack of capabilities. Which of these experts is calling for her to be summoned to a parliamentary inquiry? None of them.

 

[hauritz]

One point these experts seem to be missing is the primary role of the Hunter is ASW. Quiet hull, huge mission bay, underwater sensors and the like might not sound as important as lots of VLS but by the 2030s probably half the world’s submarines and hundreds, perhaps even thousands of UUVs will be patrolling this region.

 

[seaspear]

One point these experts seem to be missing is the primary role of the Hunter is ASW. Quiet hull, huge mission bay, underwater sensors and the like might not sound as important as lots of VLS but by the 2030s probably half the world’s submarines and hundreds, perhaps even thousands of UUVs will be patrolling this region.

Although the other new frigates may not be as stealthy as the Hunter class I would keep my fingers crossed that the A.S.W component is as capable as Captas 4 as per the Hunter class

 

[SammyC]

A couple of points on the Hunter build cost.

I suspect if we built any modern large warship in Osborne Park, the cost would be significantly higher than in its indigenous shipyard. Be that a Burke, baseline T26, Maya or KDXIII. So a big component of the price is because we elected to build a frontline cutting edge warship in Australia from scratch with almost no supply chain or deep experience. We will get a capability for that additional cost, which has use in the future, and it would be expected that future batches have a lower cost from learnt efficiencies. That capability is the ability to make weapons independently of others when our neighbourhood has deteriorated and our allies can't help us. We could have perhaps avoided this expense had we not stopped ship construction following the ANZAC and AWD builds. This is the cost of that short sighted decision. The question is do we value this or not.

Secondly, the Hunter is expensive because the equipment going into it is expensive. The drivetrain for instance is designed to a submarine noise suppression specification that is multiple times the price of a standard Naval drivetrain that you would see on say a Burke. The Brits pay a lot for this in their T26 as well. The question is do we want ships with high end equipment to be able to counter enemy systems that are also high end.

Thirdly the Hunter is expensive because we had limited ability to keep it as a specialised single capability platform as per the British T26. It had to be multi purpurse on top of the ASW specialisation because it will need to operate independently in hostile environments. This point drove all the changes for the more powerful combat system and radar package. Our Navy is simply not big enough for single purpose ships and we would need to accept a much larger fleet to enable specialised platforms. The Brits can afford to send a T45 and T26 on a joint deployment, but even then only just. I will note here that our single biggest limiting factor on the size of the Navy is people. The question is do you want a smaller fleet of multipurpose warships with a smaller crew footprint, or do you want to pay for a larger fleet of single purpose vessels that must operate together with a larger crew requirement.

The fourth point driving expense is a view that undersea warfare will become the most concerning future threat environment. At the moment we mostly see that air warfare is the dominant and we talk about missile defence and offence. In 10-15 years (when the Hunter will come online in numbers), I would view that will switch to staffed and autonomous submarines as our single biggest operational threat. Instead of VLS capacity, we will be talking about noise supression, sonar sensitivity, helo capability and drone interoperability. ASW is more expensive and complex than AAW. The question here is do you want a warship built for tomorrow's threat environment or today's.

If the answer is yes to the above questions, then it unfortunately costs a lot of money. I feel like much of the critism is akin to asking for a Ferrari because we want to go professional racing, but expecting it to be the cost of a Hyundai.

 

[76mmGuns]

That seems to be their goal, but what are we going to buy from the US that's going to be delivered in the next five years? Maybe some munitions but that largely goes against GWEO these days, Patriot systems would still be years away even if ordered today. Maybe some specialised platforms but they would generally be one off orders with minimal ongoing purchases.
Any increased spending would largely be spent locally on infrastructure, procurement or manufacturing facilities; so not much in it for US based defence contractors unless they have an Australian company set up here.
Contributing more to US shipyards would really need to see some ironclad commitment to subs in return.
It honestly doesn't seem like a win for either if the US won't acknowledge its manufacturing issues.

The last 25 years have been a problem in buying things from the USA. Their concurrency philosophy meant a lot of duds were built eg LCS, which nobody will buy, and the hugely expensive F35 meant huge opportunity costs- no other planes were designed/built, their Army wasn't modernised as well as it could have been. Even India has hypersonic missiles (collab with Russia). It's why I've thought Europe must maintain their military industries because it only takes 1 misstep to cause a problem , so the Western world needs options.

 

[Todjaeger]

The last 25 years have been a problem in buying things from the USA. Their concurrency philosophy meant a lot of duds were built eg LCS, which nobody will buy, and the hugely expensive F35 meant huge opportunity costs- no other planes were designed/built, their Army wasn't modernised as well as it could have been. Even India has hypersonic missiles (collab with Russia). It's why I've thought Europe must maintain their military industries because it only takes 1 misstep to cause a problem , so the Western world needs options.

Firstly, there is a difference between a country purchasing (military/naval) things from the US, and US defence development and procurement programes. Looking through examples of FMS purchases, it does seem more like this tend to go reasonably well. If one looks at Australia's purchases of the F/A-18F, EA-18G, C-17, C-130, SM-2, and so on. Now IIRC there were some issues with the purchase of the Aegis systems and SPY-1 arrays which went into the Hobart-class DDG but that was more to due with how the build was managed and carried out, in that the kit was ordered from the US long the vessels were ready for the kit to be installed. This in turn meant that by the time of installation, some (all?) of the warranty periods for the kit had ended.

As for problems with US development and procurement programmes... this certainly has been a thing, but part of it IMO was due to how involved and overly focused leadership, esp on the civilian side at the upper echelons, got on terrorism/counter-terrorism. Literally trillions of US dollars will have been committed to the GWOT efforts once everything is finally done years from now. Kit was developed which was appropriate for certain circumstances which might not really be all that suitable for other military scenarios. Likely making things worse is that by having so much focused on counter-terror ops, not as much thought was given to other likely defence and security scenarios. When one then also factors in degrees of arrogance on the part of that leadership regarding 'new' ways of doing things being better traditional methods and capabilities, or that technology can solve all problems, then one can understand how the US developed a mess like the LCS programme.

 

[ADMk2]

The last 25 years have been a problem in buying things from the USA. Their concurrency philosophy meant a lot of duds were built eg LCS, which nobody will buy, and the hugely expensive F35 meant huge opportunity costs- no other planes were designed/built, their Army wasn't modernised as well as it could have been. Even India has hypersonic missiles (collab with Russia). It's why I've thought Europe must maintain their military industries because it only takes 1 misstep to cause a problem , so the Western world needs options.

Why do you think the F-35 is “hugely expensive”?

The aircraft itself (-A model here) is actual very competitive on cost with any other current Western fighter.