RAN Archives - Page 12 of 13

How to buy a submarine – part 2

24 June 2014

The building of a replacement for Australia’s Collins class submarines will be the country’s most expensive and complex defence project to date. There are a myriad of capability, commercial and industrial issues to be managed: the expertise for the design and construction of conventional submarines resides in Europe and Asia while Navy’s preference is for American combat and weapon systems. Pulling those elements together while managing the technical risks is no easy task.

Local construction of the future submarine has been a bipartisan position for several years, and it has the support of industry and the bureaucracy. But there’s no simple or fast way to produce a unique Australian submarine. If the government decides to go down that path, it will have to do so in the knowledge that it’s a high-stakes venture.

In April 2014, ASPI held a two-day conference called ‘The Submarine Choice’. At the conclusion, we were left with three disquieting impressions. Read more

Submarines: does Moore mean less?

9 April 2014

Back when I were a lad, some 40 years ago, my family was just thinking about swapping our trusty old black and white TV for the technological marvel that was colour. The internet was yet to escape the US DoD’s clutches—not that anybody had a computer at home in any case—and the first live cricket telecasts from England were a big deal. Back then a high-tech car had seatbelts, not computers.

The reason I’m getting all nostalgic is because I’ve been putting together my thoughts for ASPI’s Submarine Choice conference. I was pondering the fact that, if past platform lifetimes are any guide, the future submarine will still be with us 40 years from now.

I’ve written before about the exponential growth trend in computer power known as Moore’s Law. The past 40 years has seen an increase in computing power of over a million times. And, unlike the cost of military hardware, costs have trended steeply downwards as performance has soared. The next 40 years will likely see the same increase in our ability to capture, process and move information around. Read more

Why an amphibious capability? (part 1)

18 November 2013

Nic Stuart made a straightforward point last Wednesday: if you want an amphibious capability, make your case. I do, so I will. But at least there has been plenty of debate. By a rough count there are a dozen or more posts on The Strategist that have looked at the ADF’s emerging amphibious capability, starting off with two post that I made back in December 2012 (here) and January 2013 (here). I won’t reiterate the points I made in those posts, but I will suggest that those interested in the ADF and amphibious operations should read John Blaxland’s new piece in the latest Security Challenges, and take a close look at the role of the ADF’s amphibious capabilities in operations over the last few decades, in particular in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

Happy Birthday Navy!

8 October 2013

Well, she certainly doesn’t look a hundred. Indeed, it’s rather more as if the Navy’s developed something of the sophisticated allure of an older woman; after all, she was painting her ships 50 shades of grey long before an erotic book popularised the look.

As well as that, the spectacle of a good water view has always possessed its own attraction. They never go out of style, and that’s why no one was really fooled, during the recent election campaign, when the politicians pretended the fleet was going to be moved north for ‘operational reasons’. Everyone knew they had their greedy little eyes on the picture-perfect Sydney Harbour-side property bonanza that would become available. And who can blame them! Read more

In the market for a naval shipbuilding plan

25 September 2013

In the first week of October, the 2013 Pacific Maritime Congress and Exposition will be held in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. It’ll be a massive event. More than 400 companies from 17 countries will take part in the Exposition, expected to attract around 10,000 people from Australia and around the world, including ‘numerous senior commercial, military and government delegations from some 30 countries’. Keeping with the scale and importance of the event, the (invitation only) opening ceremony next Monday will see speeches by no less than the new Defence Minister, the Chief of Navy and the NSW Premier.

The unashamed focus of the event is business. Suppliers of maritime and naval equipment will be there show off their wares. Private buyers and government officials will be looking to see what the market has to offer. Deals will be done.

A debt of thanks is owed to the non-profit organizers of the exposition, Maritime Australia Limited. By bringing together buyers and sellers, they help create an efficient market for maritime and naval goods and services. And the taxpayer can rest assured that the Defence will take full advantage of the event—not just by informing itself about the latest in naval technology, but by updating industry on its future acquisition requirements. Read more

The RAN must have a plan to move out of Garden Island

28 August 2013

I disagree with Andrew Davies’ conclusion that there’s no need for a rethink of navy’s basing. The RAN must have a long-term plan to move out of Garden Island. Continuing to have a major naval base within a stone’s throw of the central business district of a large city is frankly ridiculous.

Other navies closed their naval bases in or near large cities years ago. Examples include Mare Island in San Francisco, the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York, and the Chatham and Sheerness Dockyards near London. The reasons why these bases closed are exactly the same as why other large industrial undertakings have been moved out of inner Sydney. It’s an anachronism that Fleet Base East and Garden Island Dockyard are still there. The Fleet Base should have moved years ago.

We need to be clear about what we are talking about. There are two separate facilities at Garden Island – Fleet Base East and Garden Island Dockyard. Read more

Challenges for Mr Rudd’s northern naval posture

27 August 2013

In a speech at the Lowy Institute, the Prime Minister today announced that a re-elected government will

… establish the Future Navy Taskforce that will provide advice to the Government on implementing these recommendations and other recommendations of the Australian Defence Force Posture Review and 2013 Defence White Paper that offer operational advantages, enhance capability sustainment requirements and relieve future pressure on the current location of Fleet Base East in Sydney.

The Taskforce will provide advice on the timing, proportions and implementation of moving some or all of Fleet Base East to Queensland and Perth and developing, upgrading or expanding Darwin and Broome.

At first glance, the argument that Australia’s navy would be better placed to respond to events in the waters to our north—where all of the strategic action is taking place—is reasonable. All other things being equal, forces close to an area of operations will be able to respond more quickly than those further away. Similarly, forward basing can make it easier to sustain operations, and units can familiarise themselves with prospective operating areas through exercising and training in like environments. These considerations underpinned the relocation of ADF units to the north of Australia in the 1980s and 1990s. Read more

Once more around the Cape?

24 June 2013

The first Cape Class Patrol Boat undertaking sea trials off Austal’s Henderson shipyard. The boat was officially named Cape St George at a ceremony on March 15, 2013.

One of the capability announcements made along with the launch of the 2013 Defence White Paper was that ‘the Government will also bring forward the replacement of Australia’s Armidale Class Patrol Boats, with both Australia’s patrol boats and the Pacific Patrol Boats being replaced preferably by proven designs’.

The same day saw the launch of the Future Submarine Industry Skills Plan, which extols the virtues of rolling production programs for reducing overall costs and keeping shipyards working efficiently. There’s no doubt that when the total production run is large enough, rolling production provides economies of scale through the ‘learning effect‘ as the workforce becomes more practised. And as I’ve noted in a previous post, a lot of that has to do with retention of experienced and thus more efficient labourers. Read more

Again? More about submarines? Is it (are they) really necessary?

2 April 2013

It was meant to be merely a rhetorical question. Why, I wondered, do we need a submarine fleet? Before that, like most Australians, I’d just assumed that our government would replace like-for-like. This meant we’d be getting some sort of replacement Collins class type vessel. It would be big, built here, and there’d be plenty of opportunities for journalists (like myself) to write stories about how difficult it was to crew the boats until the Navy finally gave us a trip underwater. At this point we’d become converted to the need for submarines and sing their praises. After all, that’s what good PR is all about.

But, as the government has commissioned a White Paper to investigate exactly what our real defence needs are (and I haven’t been offered a trip beneath the waves) and finally, as the new vessels could eventually swallow up almost two years of our total defence budget, I began to think that perhaps the submarine purchase actually deserved a bit of scrutiny.

An article for The Strategist provoked a vehement response. The backlash was immediate and intense; so passionate, in fact, that I realised I needed to do a lot more research before I ventured to write about submarines again. Further investigations have left me absolutely convinced of the honesty and integrity of those who are pushing for a replacement submarine. This, however, is very different from endorsing their thinking or the strategic case they’re advancing. Read more

The who, what, where, and why of the future submarine

13 March 2013

In my recent post on the workshop that ASPI and the Submarine Institute of Australia held in February, I described the significant points we agreed on. This time around, we’re going to look at the points of contention. Or, more accurately, the single point of contention. Put simply, the key question, as we see it is this:

Does a long-range submarine capability confer sufficient benefit to be worth what appears likely to be an enormous outlay?

It’s not a simple question to answer. Unlike, for example, a financial analysis, the costs and benefits are not generally expressible as dollar values that can be entered into a spreadsheet. That’s not to say that the dollar values don’t matter—we’re talking tens of billions of dollars here, so it wouldn’t be inappropriate to express the costs in terms of, say, numbers of major metropolitan hospitals to make the opportunity costs manifest. And Henry Ergas explained on this blog how the tools of Net Present Value analysis can be used in these sorts of decisions.

But at some stage there’s going to be an element of subjectivity in the judgements that have to be made. We don’t know the likelihood of future conflicts in which submarines would be useful. Nor do we know the likely impact on Australia of those conflicts—even a cursory look at history shows just contingent the course and outcome of conflicts can be. But we have to try to frame some questions that allow us to get at least a qualitative feel for those issues. And that necessarily requires us to talk about the ‘who, what, where and why’ of future wars that Australia’s submarines might be required to fight, or can be used to prevent through deterrence. For the sort of national investment we’re looking at here, talking in generalities isn’t going to get to the core motivators for such a big project. Read more

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