By José Cañadas M, 5 May 2022
On May 4th, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute published a 48-page report by Marcus Hellyer about the pricing of military equipment. There are similarities between Australian and Canadian procurement, in both cases project costs include much more than the military equipment itself. Facilities, training systems, documentation or intellectual property are added to the sum when reporting total costs. Developing the cost for the weapons or for the capabilities draws dramatically significant differences.
The report not only provides plain explanations for the general public to better understand these topics, but also devotes one of its seven chapters to the specific case of the Hunter-class frigate program, comparing its cost to the CSC, the British Type 26 (City-class) and the US Navy’s Constellation-class.
The report can be found at https://www.aspi.org.au/report/understanding-price-military-equipment
One thought on “Understanding the Price of Military Equipment”
A very interesting report by Dr. Marcus Hellyer. He gives a very indepth report of the Australian experience on how military equipment decisions and costs were and are made WRT the Hunter class frigate. He has also given some precise comparisons with the CSC Frigate, UK City class and USS Constellation class costs. He seems to be bang on!