Excellent, you’re it next.

Oops, did not see that. Bringing back some shots from Doha which will be good for the next edition however.

No insult intended Pred but are you sure on those figures?. They sound extremely high for a relatively modest hull when compared to other, international, large OPV projects and especially when you compare to current Arleigh Burke builds!.

Unfortunately these look quite solid.
GAO Report 06-546 titled “COAST GUARD Changes to Deepwater Plan Appear Sound,and Program Management Has Improved, but
Continued Monitoring Is Warranted” has costings (based on USCG figures) down as follows:
National Security Cutter:
Original cost for 8 vessels in FY2002 plan: $1,838.1 million
Revised cost as of FY2005: $2,875.1 million
Revised cost as FY2005: $2,875.9 million

Makes for a unit cost of $360m. (Ha, so I was off with my $500m for series production in fact). But first two are over budget and needing extra work to the tune of $255m between the two of them, and later ships are to a modified/strenghtened design.
Most recent contract gives good indication of costs (minus Government furnished equipment):
https://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/786/167626/
Since then we have also had Northrop Grumman offering a NSC based “patrol frigate” with minimal changes for just under $400m to fill the gap left by LCS troubles.

Definitely DDG 91 and Flight IIA, though not sure about location of torpedo tubes on all of the batch, Pinkney and subsequent seem to have them on hangar (http://www.news.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=31669) and first Flt IIA USS Oscar Austin through to DDG 90 have them midships.

one of the ships there an type 23 the one with the boxy funnel.

One down, 5 to go. Almost completely hidden here we indeed have Type 23 frigate HMS Monmouth complete with Agusta-Westland Merlin helo and stealth cuppola Mk 8 4.5′ main gun.

Of the 3 remaining pics I’d say one shows one of the four Pacific class PBs operated by Papua New Guinea, and then we also have a pic of one of the three Waspada FAC in service (still) with Brunei.

That leaves 1, but no ideas for now.

Pedant mode – GRP is a composite, so I assume you are refering to Carbon-fibre composites (CFRP)?

You are quite right, my bad.

Studies I have done show very few designs able to meet the RAN’s requirement and taking all this into account, it leaves out the German 212/214 classes or the new “Cheap Sub” from France DCN, given relations over the Type 471’s in RAN service- it is highly doubtful that Australia will return to Sweden anytime soon for sub designs. This leaves three logical and possible solutions; 1. Electric powered Virgina class from the US (in the past the USN has offered the RAN D/E powered LA boats but were turned down due to the cost of refitting the design for such power), 2. Electric powered Astute class boats from the UK (similar problems as those faced coming from the US, 3. Spain is known to posses a Scorpean design that is bigger and does incorperate TLAM’s and AIP. Now having a pure electric motor does negate having AIP, the fact that this design includes TLAM’s seems to open a few eyes.

Ja, while existing TKMS and DCNS SSK designs are too small for requirements here they may both be eyeing a larger boat, and TKMS as of 2007 has a “large submarine” on their roadmap. You can have a debate about the many other factors in this, however from a technical standpoint do not leave out the new French SSN, Barracuda (Suffren class). This is smaller (4,700t) than the UK and US SSNs and already has a “hybrid” nuclear-electric propulsion system that just might take alternative prime movers.

Something else that bugs me with this announcement is the figure of AUD25billion being thrown around. Let’s say this figure is derived at in a similar way to the recent Canadian programmes which total up acquisition cost and cost of operation for 25-year period.

Yes. I presume TKMS know what they’re doing (they’ve built enough ships), & she doesn’t look worse than many cruise ships which have ridden out hurricanes safely enough, but as someone said, you can see why she has thrusters both ends. Would need ’em coming alongside in heavy weather.

Cruise ships and large ferries are indeed quite impressive these days. Try and look up Irish Ferries’ M/F Ulysses which was built to deal with difficult conditions on the Hollyhead-Dublin route.
But no matter what they are built for, unexpected conditions can still unsettle these vessels, as recently shown when FS Tonnerre was torn from its moorings near Toulon and drifted across the harbour before 10 tugs came to the rescue.
http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=105864