I would like to see Australia do something radical with their warships. We have Incat and Austal that the Americans have been looking at their products, and apart from Jervis Bay during the East Timor thing 9 – 10 years ago, Australia has totally ignored.
A few fast ships from Incat of about 15 – 17’000 tonne size would have more use than the two Spanish amphibs.
We could have produced a great looking AWD based on the Austal trimarine that the yanks are looking at. If one was built to about 4’000 tonnes it could carry everything the AWD can, plus more missiles. And it would be a lot faster also.
Years ago Incat had a design for a 112m mini- aircraft carrier. Maybe we could also build some bigger versions of this, since Incat have enlarged their ship building site to 150m.
Oh well, we can all dream.

I’m sorry, but the Incat range of pseudo ‘warships’ are anything but.

To acheive the performance they do, they are built light, both structurally and from lightweight materials such as aluminium. Ask the USN or RN about the issues with aluminium vessels and battle damage / fire. Above a certain temperature, aluminium burns / melts.

The RAN investigated the use of Incat style fast cats, but unfortunately to achieve their performance, their engines are optimised for two speeds, stopped and flat out at over 40 knots. The vast majority of the time warships tend to troll around at less than 20 knots, only occaisionally sprnting at a higher speed. The engines Incat proposes are very thirsty at high speed and positively voracious at slower speeds.

As for some fantasy of building an Aegis style frigate on a 4000 tonne displacement, go ask the Norwegians about how well that is working out. The answer is not all that well. To fit a ship with offensive capability, defensive systems, the Aegis system, and a useful range of capabilities on a seaworthy hull requires a minium base hull size, if only to deal with high seas states and remain functional. That size seems to be around 6-7000 tonnes.

The 113m (or even 150 metre) Incat aircraft carrier has been pretty comprehensively looked at by a number of navies, and the concensus that each of them came to was that it looks good on the CGI and on paper, but it had significant limitations as an operational concept beyond providing a modest helicopter deck.

It was not really suitable for CTOL or even VSTOL ops, for a range of reasons, including hull motion, stability issues, susceptibility to asymetrical damage, the risk of fire fed by JP5 on an aluminium hulled vessel, the issues of at sea replenishment of a ship with extremely high fuel consumption (and thats before the aviation fuel requirements of embarked aircraft) and integration operations with conventional warships.

On that last the Incat vessel had a much higher economical (and I use that term advisedly) speed than other, conventional hull ships, and they would not be able to keep up with it. If it slowed to task force speed it ran through fuel way too quickly.

Conversely, the limits of sea-keeping for an Incat hull are much lower than for a conventionally built monohull.

There are uses for the Incat design, but it isn’t as some kind of pocket carrier or a replacement for multi-role warships.

Unicorn

The RAN looked at this issue some decade and a half ago.

At that time the RAN surface fleet consisted of

Tier 1: Hobart class DDGs and Adelaide Class FFGs (basically the Area SAM ships)

Tier 2: The Anzacs, slated to be ‘fitted for but not with’ and a replacement for the old River class DEs.

Tier 3: The Fremantle class patrol boats, handling EEZ patrol, anti-smuggling and -illegal immigration interdiction and operations with our lower capability regional neighbors in the South Pacific.

Today the RAN consists of two tiers, the Tier 1 consisting of the FFGs and upgraded Anzacs (with the Hobart class to come on stream next decade), and the Tier 3 consisting of the Armidale class patrol boats.

What happened to Tier 2?

Basically the RAN discovered that Tier 2 ships are a poor choice for just about anything. The ‘fitted for but not with’ Anzacs had lower capability, which may have been fine for an exercise with South East Asian navies, but which made the ships unviable for a deployment into an operational zone against anything remotely resembling a threat, such as the Gulf. In effect they were poorly designed and very expensive OPVs.

The savings made by not fitting all the kit required was found to be false economy because it meant your Tier 1 ships were being backed up to handle the high end threat tasking as a sizeable percentage of your fleet was unsuitable for ops there. This meant the Tier 1 ships and crews were being overtasked and your Tier 2 ships were being undertasked.

The result was that the RAN and Government had a long hard look at the ‘FFBNW’ concept and junked it. This was the basis for the fitting of increased capability to the Anzacs (Nulka, Harpoon, ESSM, and the planned improvements to come (CEA-FAR, RAM, etc).

I understand the issues that are facing the RN, however it seems that the continued search for ephermeral cost savings are driving the RN towards a class of ships, C2, which may end up leaving the RN in the same boat as the RAN with Tier 2. An expensive ship with capabilities so limited that that they are restricted to a limited set of ‘safe’ roles and which would render them unable to be deployed to a threat zone when required.

IMHO it would be better to build a cheap range of C3 patrol vessels (the RNZN Otago class for example) to handle patrol taskings and ‘show the flag’ ops in backwaters like the West Indies and the UK EEZ, and concentrate the vast bulk of your money on ships capable of going anywhere to do any operations required.

It is better to have a high end surface combatant on West India guardship duties, massively overcapable for the role required, than to have a fleet of ships that cannot be sent into a threat zone when required.

To do otherwise is a false economy that will end up costing lives, as it always does.

Uncorn

Wow! Thats quite a sad end to the Collins class saga, I presumed that they would be in service for longer with AIP being introduced at a later date.

A 2018 in service date will require a very tightly run program, it will have to be a variant of an off the shelf design to meet that target date in my mind.

Expect every conventional western sub design houses to be offering increased endurance versions of their current designs. Certainly will be interesting:)

There is no ‘sad end’ for the Collins, with them remaining in service with upgrades until 2025. That will see a service life of 35 years.

There is no in-service date of 2018 for the new subs. The date beng considered is 2023. 2018 would be launch date for the first. This has been previously announced by the former government but the new Labour government is trying to make itself appear as if it has new ideas.

The likelyhood of a fouth AWD is receding, not getting stronger, with the new Treasurer looking at slashing current government expenditure to fund the new governments programs. There is nothing so vulnerable as an as-yet unordered, un-contracted military procurement.

The name Australia is currently reserved for a major surface combatant, which the LHD’s does not comprise. There may be rumours, but the section that handles naming of new ships (Naval Historical Section) confirms that Australia is not under consideration for the LPA’s.

As for the public pushing for name changes, the public barely knows about the RAN’s new building program,let alone get excited about naming. Sounds like some collumnest getting themselves lathered up about nothing.

The robotic systems are not on the menu for the RAN, the manufactuer is talkig up the possibility however it is a non-starter for a few reasons. There is negligable pirate activity in Australian territorial waters, which means the only place these would be used is in other people’s territorial waters (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore). These nations have shown themselves to be VERY reluctant to allow other navies to undertake anti-piracy operations within their waters, let alone the use of deadly force. Now we are supposed to believe that not only will they authorise deadly force but that they will allow someone else’s UAVs to do so. Nah, not going to happen this decade.

There has been no order for F35Bs, I don’t know where your getting your info Ja, but they should try a reality check. There has been no contract signing for the actual order of F35s, let alone an order for a sub-group of B models. Australia has signed a MOU for F35s however no contract for acquisition has been signed.

The RAAF is opposed to a split buy of A and B models, and Navy is painfuly aware it does not have the personnel to reconstitute the fixed-wing FAA, leaving it reliant on the RAAF for pilots and MX.

Talk has been going on that NH-90s were gong to be acqured to replace the Super Sea Sprites for at least five years, pre-dating the MRH-90 buy. At this stage it is possible that the new government may junk the aircraft, blaming its failures on the previous government and order something new, but no decision has yet been made by the Minister or CDF or CN.

Unicorn

Defence Models and Graphics have built the LPA in 1:100 and I believe they may be also doing it in 1:72, so they will have the plans either available or will be able to direct you to the right place to get them

The guy who runs the company’s name is Russ French, drop him a line

http://www.defencemodels.com.au

Unicorn

Hi Tiddles, I was about to post about the RAN experience when I saw that you had beaten me to it.

Basically the RAN’s reason for knocking it back is that it could not afford the manpower req that a modernised Essex would impose. Even then the RAN’s problem was manpower, not money (the more things change…)

Unicorn

One question might also be how the deck officer in Flyco is going to be able to see a chopper landing on the aft, maindeck, spot?. By the look of it the thru-deck obscures the view!!!.

Other than that – interesting design!

Probably camera’s, have seen similar on lots of frigates and such where the superstructure obscures the flight deck.

Unicorn

From the general news thread that also should be here.

Govt Tows Admiral Gorshkov

Russia’s government is raising money to complete the upgrade of Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier that was ordered by India. Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko has proposed to Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to cover a portion of costs by another export contract. Simultaneously, India has been notified of the need to reconsider the Admiral Gorshkov contract in view of increasing its value.

Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko has addressed Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, seeking his help to sort out the problem of upgrading Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier. The delivery of the vessel has been put off by over three years, while the cost of the ship soared by $380 million “less potential penalty,” Khristenko told Serdyukov via a letter of August 22.

The contract is executed by Sevmash Production Association and it needs the government’s support to fulfill the obligations. The state could back up the enterprise by contracting it to construct two diesel-electric submarines of Project 636 ordered by a foreign client. Then, Sevmash will be able to transfer some funds “to offset money shortage” generated when re-equipping Admiral Gorshkov, Khristenko said. According to the sources, the two submarines mentioned by the minister have been ordered by Venezuela.

India got the hull of Admiral Gorshkov (renamed to Vikramaditya) free of charge in 2004 on condition that the aircraft carrier would be upgraded at Sevmash. The contract budget is roughly $1.5 billion. Of this amount, about $700 million is to be spent for the vessel, while the remainder will go to buy 16 MiG -29KKUBs. Shelving the dates of Admiral Gorshkov’s handover from 2008 to 2011 or 2012 is being currently negotiated.

In Military and Industrial Commission, they say Sevmash has promised to allocate roughly 2 billion rubles ($89 million) from the submarine contract to complete the upgrade of Admiral Gorshkov. But this amount won’t solve the matter. They need up to $1 billion in addition and the talks with India are underway to step up the contract budget.

http://www.kommersant.com/p818496/India_Gorshkov_shelf/

Unicorn

The war was inevitable as Japan was running out of the fuel required to support it war in China, let alone a war of agression throughout the Pacific.

The reason that Dec 1941 was selected as the date for the ainvasion was that Japan’s logisticians calculated that by that date there would remain enough fuel to support a rapid advance to the East Indies oil fields, and supply the IJ military while the East Indies fields were brought back on line.

The timing was driven by the fuel situation.

As for not attacking the US, there was no way the Imperial Japanese General Staff was going to go to war with their left flank left exposed. Any drive to the East Indies would require the Phillipines to be neutralised in the opening moves, otherwise it would provide a base for the US military to build up and menace Japan’s oil pipeline to the home islands.

There was never any real liklihood of the US and Japan not going to war, the Japanese saw only two options one the oil embargo cut in, capitulation or conflict.

Given the mindset of the Japanese military of the time, conflict was the only option.

Unicorn