By David Morse, 13 November 2024
It's amazing how quickly the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has moved on its fleet plan project and how quickly they want delivery of ship one! Earlier this year the Australian government announced a significant reordering of surface fleet procurement plans under the general title of the "Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant Fleet." Under this plan the number of "combat ready" surface ships will rise from 11 to 26 of three types.
One consequence of this new plan was the reduction of the Hobart-class programme to the three under construction and the procurement of 11 smaller frigates. The RAN invited proposals from four builders and has recently shortlisted two for further consideration - Japan's upgraded Mogami 30FFM and Germany's MEKO A-200 - an interesting contest between the Mogami which benefits from a more recent design and stealthy, and the MEKO which the RAN knows well after 30 years of experience with the ANZAC variant. The new frigate programme has an aggressive schedule with the first ship to be built overseas by 2029.
8 thoughts on “Australia Fleet Plan Moves Ahead”
David,
I agree that the RAN has shown a commendable desire to be flexible in altering its current surface fleet development plans. As I have noted previously (“Attempting the Impossible?”, Broadsides, 24 May 2024, https://www.navalreview.ca/2024/05/attempting-the-impossible/), a critical element in Australia’s new approach to generating badly needed new ships sooner rather than later, lies in the RAN’s stated intention to adopt a ‘zero design change’ solution. This is a big ask for any western shipbuilding country, and we will have to see whether Australia has the political will to carry through with this approach in the face of seemingly inevitable local industry lobbying to garner greater domestic content.
Seems almost impossible for there to be zero design changes. Every sensor and weapons system is going to stay the same as the design country? The hotel services? Seems like an incredible logistics and training burden.
Good morning Wayne,
Excellent points. Thank you.
Ubique,
Les
Wayne,
I will only believe it if it really happens. VAdm Angus Topshee has said much the same thing about the next submarine the Navy acquires: “…the first thing is that we have committed that this is intended to be a military off-the-shelf procurement — buying a submarine that is in production. So not a design, not a concept, but something that actually exists and buying it as is. We have about 215 qualified submariners in Canada — we are not going to adapt a submarine
to them, we are going to adapt them to the submarine that we buy because we are too small of a force to do it any other way.” (Canadian Defence Review, 30-4, August 2024, p.18)
Good morning Dan,
So, should we understand that we will buy whatever weapons, sensors, and C2 system come with the chosen design and scrap all of our stocks that do not fit, even if they are better?
Shall we accept whatever standards that the manufacturer imposes for living conditions regardless of the operational environment for which the design was originally developed?
Maybe a necessary idea, maybe thoughtless posturing.
Ubique,
Les
Hello Les,
You raise some valid concerns, but much depends on what we are prepared to pay and how long you are willing to delay acquisition to ‘Canadianize’ the various items you mention.
In the case of Australia, recently released figures reveal that the RAN’s new Hunter-class frigates – heavily ‘Australianized’ – are now expected to cost €3.95B each, which works out to about $5.87B Cdn per warship.[See, Fabrice Wolf, “€4b per Hunter class frigate! What’s wrong with Australia?”, meta-defense.fr, 10 November 2024; and Marcus Hellyer, “The Hunter-class frigate program: delivering less, costing more, taking longer”, strategicanalysis.org, 27 September 2024]
This per ship cost is roughly in line with the figures estimated by the Parliamentary Budget Officer for the RCN’s River-class destroyers two years ago. Remember that DND was going to release updated cost figures for these ships a year ago? I think the silence from Ottawa reflects its concern about the ‘sticker-shock’ backlash it would likely receive if the actual costs became public.
Dan, that’s a good point with regard to our possible new submarines. Can it be done? Will it be done? Hard to say, although submarines are perhaps not as integrated with the rest of the fleet to begin with.
Smaller design changes with systems and sub-systems will likely happen but the main design ultimately must remain the same.
When you add things on and take things away or start to implement major changes, you then delay programs, increase costs and ultimately end up with something you didn’t want.
Major design change is an absolute project killer.