As a country ‘girt by sea’, Australia must enunciate a clear maritime strategy that recognises the scale of its maritime territory and responsibilities, its dependence on trade for its prosperity and the increasing value of activity in the maritime environment.

In a highly interconnected world, we face fundamental vulnerabilities from the realities of our geostrategic situation, and we must be able to defend our national interests. In my ASPI report, An Australian maritime strategy: resourcing the Royal Australian Navy, released today, I argue that the Royal Australian Navy lacks the resources to adequately protect Australia’s vast maritime interests.

This isn’t unique to our time: maritime strategists have long lamented that, despite being uniquely an island, a continent and a nation, Australia struggles to understand the central importance of a maritime strategy to our defence and security. The underappreciation of Australia’s dependence on the maritime domain and its significance for our prosperity and security has consistently produced a RAN that’s overlooked and under-resourced.

Some argue that the AUKUS agreement shows that capability is driving strategy. But to develop a coherent force structure, strategy must drive capability. It’s important that the RAN’s structure and capabilities are driven by a strategy that’s clear and responsive to the circumstances outlined in the 2023 defence strategic review. Many of our partners, including the US, the UK and India, have recognised that and published public maritime strategies, but Australia’s maritime strategy is less clear, and the term itself is conspicuously absent from public strategic documents. A maritime strategy isn’t simply another domain strategy: the defence of our national interests is inherently maritime in nature.

To ensure maritime security, the RAN relies on a backbone of 11–12 major surface combatants.  The major surface-combatant fleet consists of eight Anzac-class frigates and three Hobart-class destroyers. All have capabilities in anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-air warfare (AAW) and anti-surface warfare (ASuW).

The structure has remained relatively constant for more than 50 years, despite recommendations from multiple reviews that the fleet should have 16–20 ships. While the methodology behind recommendations for an expanded fleet isn’t clear, the context is relevant. Reviews in the 1970s and 1980s were conducted during the Cold War when the possibility of a ‘hot war’ was real. Throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, many policymakers believed that the era of state-on-state conflict was over. However, in the past 20 years, the power balance in the Indo-Pacific region has changed dramatically, and since 2022 Europe has faced the possibility of a major war.

By 2020, China’s military modernisation and its coercive and aggressive behaviour in the region, along with dramatic advances in technology, prompted the Australian government to abandon the assumption that it would have 10 years’ warning of a major conflict to strengthen the Australian Defence Force. But this significant change in strategic thinking, reinforced by the 2023 review, hasn’t brought relevant changes to the RAN’s structure, specifically to the major surface-combatant fleet. A review has been undertaken but its results aren’t yet public.

While Australia’s planned acquisition of eight nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS to replace our six conventional submarines is important, it doesn’t represent a major structural change or significant expansion of the RAN. The program will significantly increase the capabilities of the RAN’s submarines, but not the overall capability of the fleet designed over 50 years ago.

In my report, I examine whether the bipartisan thesis of a structural change in Australia’s strategic circumstances, articulated in the 2023 review, also requires a structural change in and an expansion of the RAN. I argue that both a larger and balanced surface-combatant fleet and a review of the RAN’s structure are needed. The review should consider bold changes, including reconsideration of a fleet auxiliary, a coastguard or forward basing of assets to support the workforce requirements of an expanded fleet.

The report looks mainly at the structure of the surface-combatant fleet. As the government examines the recently completed surface fleet review, I make eight recommendations for its consideration.

I argue that the status quo of 11–12 major surface combatants is insufficient for Australia. That was the case even when the force was structured around the concept of 10 years’ warning time. The problem has become more acute given the strategic competition and the capability and size of potential adversaries, particularly China, as recognised in the 2023 review. I agree with past reviewers’ recommendations that 16–20 major surface combatants are needed.

The increased number must provide a range of operational effects in a balanced fleet. In this missile era, the planned number of ASW-oriented, multi-purpose Hunter-class frigates should be reduced. I argue that having nine would result in even an expanded fleet being biased towards ASW, with limited ability to field an adequate number of missiles per tonne across the fleet. That would have impact on its ASuW and AAW capabilities.

The scope and length of the report don’t permit consideration of Australia’s naval shipbuilding enterprise or the industry policy of continuous naval shipbuilding, although both must be considered in the expansion of the surface-combatant fleet. I don’t suggest what additional vessels should be acquired, but options include increasing the number of Hobart-class destroyers, modifying the Hunter class, or aligning with the US future frigate (Constellation class) or future destroyer program (DDG(X)). These possibilities all come with their own benefits and unique challenges.

The surface-combatant fleet can’t be viewed independently of broader maritime capabilities, including sealift, mine warfare and civil maritime trade operations, all of which will need to be enveloped in a clear and coherent maritime strategy. Although those capabilities aren’t considered in this report, their interrelated nature highlights why maritime strategy should be driving maritime capability.

Australia’s security and prosperity are intimately linked to the maritime domain, and yet our defence strategy—current and past—doesn’t clearly articulate a maritime strategy. Articulation, production and understanding of Australia’s maritime strategy are essential to deter conflict in the region, and an expanded fleet is required in case deterrence fails.

There’s bipartisan understanding and acceptance that our strategic circumstances will continue to change. That requires structural change of the RAN, not only acquiring a small number of nuclear-powered submarines—with opportunity and substantial risk—but bolstering the surface combatants which are the backbone of any force for achieving sea control and power projection.

This will be challenging and will require sweeping reviews of the wider RAN structure to crew and support that capability, hence the suggested consideration of a coastguard, a naval auxiliary or task groups at different readiness levels. This can’t be delayed. Tinkering around the edges of the ADF and RAN structures will provide neither the necessary deterrent effect nor the capability to defend Australia’s interests should deterrence fail. The dramatically reduced strategic warning time is itself a warning that we must act.

India and Australia have an interest in addressing subsurface challenges in their shared maritime domain. As they and other countries in the region grow their submarine fleets, there’s a critical need to develop underwater search and rescue capabilities and considerable scope to work together.

In the coming years, there will likely be a significant increase in underwater activities in the Indian Ocean, including a major increase in the deployment of military submarines by littoral and non-littoral states. Currently, nearly 15 countries operate submarines in the region. India and Australia are the longest-running operators among Indian Ocean states.

As a consequence, underwater search and rescue will increasingly become an important public good. In 2021, India and Australia quickly mobilised naval assets, aircraft, and underwater search and recovery equipment to help Indonesia find the disabled submarine KRI Nanggala. China also made a high-profile contribution to search efforts. The tragic loss of the Indonesian submarine and its 53 crew underlined the critical need to develop underwater search and rescue capabilities in the Indian Ocean region.

We should also expect a significant increase in commercial activities involving underwater vehicles, crewed and uncrewed. This includes installing and maintaining subsea infrastructure such as communications, power cables and pipelines.

A significant growth in seabed mining may involve submersibles. The International Seabed Authority has already awarded contracts to India, China, Germany and South Korea to mine in the Central Indian Ocean and more contracts are expected.

Conventional maritime search and rescue employs vessels, aircraft and space-based assets to search and respond to incidents across vast areas of ocean. Underwater search and rescue is generally far more difficult and complex, requiring highly specialised skills and capabilities to detect, recover and salvage disabled underwater vehicles and high-value objects like aircraft’s black boxes.

The location and recovery of submarines present challenges due to the environment and the nature of the vessels involved. Specialised vehicles and equipment are often in short supply. The tropical waters of the Indian Ocean also pose unique challenges for underwater sensing. This can lead to significant delays in fixing the location of a disabled submarine for rescue operations to commence.

Building interoperability and coordination between India and Australia could increase the likelihood of successful search and recovery efforts for their and their partners’ submarines.

Both countries are planning significant expansions of their submarine fleets. The Indian Navy currently has several classes of conventional and nuclear-powered submarines. One is in operation, with a second to be commissioned by 2024. Australia, which currently operates Collins-class submarines, plans to acquire or build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines over several decades as part of the AUKUS arrangement.

While they both possess some submarine rescue capabilities, the further development of a sovereign rescue capability is a key priority for both navies. The Indian Navy now has a third-generation deep submergence rescue vehicle (DSRV) that can reach a disabled submarine at up to 650 meters. In 2018, the Indian Navy demonstrated its rescue capability by ‘mating’ its DSRV with a submarine on the sea floor 100 meters down. The navy has two DSRV systems, providing submarine rescue coverage on India’s east and west coasts.

Australia’s submarine rescue capability is limited. The Royal Australian Navy contracts a private company to maintain, operate and upgrade the LR5 escape and rescue system that provides limited capability and is due to be retired in 2024. Nuclear-powered submarines will likely require more advanced capabilities.

There have been delays in procuring a new deployable submarine escape system following the termination of a contract with a US company. Nevertheless, the RAN and its industry partner conduct regular exercises to ensure they meet the appropriate requirements and are ready to carry out a rescue at short notice.

International cooperation is vital for submarine rescue. There are several ways that India and Australia could collaborate to improve their capabilities through joint rescue exercises, training and capacity-building programs.

In the multilateral space, India could participate in the triennial exercise Pacific Reach sponsored by the Asian Pacific Submarine Conference to enhance rescue skills. India participated in the Australian-hosted 2019 exercise as an observer.

Australia and India are also members of the International Submarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office (ISMERLO), a NATO-sponsored group that helps coordinate search and rescue operations. The Indian and Australian navies already participate in joint exercises and training programs with other member nations to develop interoperability and share best practices. India and Australia could consider working within ISMERLO to establish a joint coordinated submarine rescue center to share information during emergencies.

Cooperative arrangements could potentially include regional partners like Singapore, which already has agreements for submarine rescue support and cooperation with India and Australia.

The Quad is another forum where Australia and India could discuss with Japan and the US building a regional underwater search and rescue system.

India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology and Australia’s CSIRO could develop innovative solutions such as underwater robotics or deep-sea autonomous vessels to aid in submarine rescues.

As underwater activity increases, so too will the reasons and opportunities for Australia and India to join forces to develop underwater search and rescue capabilities.

This article was written as part of the Australia India Institute’s defence program undertaken with support from the Department of Defence. All views expressed in this article are those of the author only.

Defence Minister Richard Marles will soon receive a report from Admiral William Hilarides on the future of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface fleet. The additional analysis was initiated by the authors of the defence strategic review. They recommended that the future surface combatant force be split into tiers, with Tier 2 comprising a larger number of smaller vessels than those in Tier 1. ‘Tiers’ defines nothing; it simply compares one to another in relative terms. Navies don’t fight in tiers; they fight in task groups where the combined capabilities of different ships and systems are integrated into a mutually supporting combat force.

As Rowan Moffitt has noted, Paul Dibb’s 1986 Review of Australia’s defence capabilities also adopted the tier terminology and our underarmed Anzac-class frigates became our Tier 2 ships. In 1986 terms, the Arafura offshore patrol vessels would have been Tier 3. Moffitt also remarked that our Hobart-class air warfare destroyers and future Hunter-class frigates, which the defence strategic review called Tier 1, would be Tier 2 in comparable regional navies.

Kim Beazley lamented that while he wanted 17 surface combatants in the 1987 defence white paper, the peace dividend intervened and he achieved eight. Peace dividends have long been ephemeral. If we had achieved 17 surface combatants in service, history shows that only four or five would have been on task continuously. Now, the RAN has 11 surface combatants.

We know the as yet unbuilt Hunter frigate program is not in the best of health. There are still important unanswered questions about how a rank outsider became the favoured choice even though the Department of Defence received clear warnings about the risk in the RAND study it contracted. It’s clear that the ship is seriously underarmed and underpowered for its size and therefore poorly suited to operations in our region. The Royal Navy, which owns the original design, may well be satisfied, but that’s not sufficient reason for Australia to persevere in constructing a ship already known to have many shortcomings in how we need to operate them.

There’s no shortage of free advice from those wanting to sell us ships. We’ve seen media commentary on Luerssen’s efforts, and previously Navantia’s. Salespeople help you solve a problem, if you acknowledge and understand what the problem is. Otherwise, you end up where we are now, with a frigate program we don’t really want and a fleet of lightly armed Anzac frigates that will be about 37 years old when they retire. That’s an extraordinary age.

In our part of the world, combat ships are still essential to attack the enemy while defending themselves and protecting the ships carrying the vast quantities of logistics a fight requires. Where we live, combat operations will be largely at sea whether we like it or not. That’s why all other navies in our region are muscling up, while we’re going the other way.

Whatever decision the minister makes will axiomatically provide the RAN with operational advantages or disadvantages, and therefore facilitate or constrain government options in future circumstances we must hedge against, but which are entirely unpredictable in time and scale.

Deciding on Australia going to war, what our strategic objectives are and what a future peace should be are always profound responsibilities held by the government. If Australia’s military lacks flexibility or balance, political options desired by the government may not exist.

What advice on surface combatants should the minister anticipate from the professionals to help him understand the implications of the choices he must put before government? Here are suggested questions:

• What limitations with our current fleet must be overcome?
• What is the concept for operations for the fleet as part of the joint (and coalition) force, or, in the extreme, on its own—all of the fleet or just some of it?
• What current and future threats must we defeat and how will we be equipped to do that? Hiding at sea is becoming more difficult. We can expect to be found. How will we disrupt an adversary’s surveillance efforts?
• What are our tactics to integrate targeting arrangements for our aircraft and ships for anti-ship and land-attack missile strikes?
• Are the command and control capabilities in each type of ship we have, or might have, able to deal with gigabytes of intelligence and other information?
• Can they be fully networked with our air and surface forces and compatible with coalition partners?
• Can they all conduct cooperative missile engagements in both defence and attack? What is their real endurance—will their crew sizes and onboard supplies let them operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week for weeks on end?
• How will they be replenished with fuel, ammunition and food while on long operations, potentially far from bases and alone?
• Will all our ships be able to operate effectively in the sea states and climatic conditions we encounter? How survivable will they be against missile attack?
• How does the proposed force structure stack up against what we already have in our Hobart-class frigates that we know are among the best? (Although they are not as heavily armed as US, Korean or Japanese ships.)
• It’s a missile game, so why aren’t we looking for ships that carry more of them—for defence and attack?
• Will they all be capable of the standards we currently achieve or better?
• Will all these ships be credible in a potential coalition force conducting high-end operations in our vast area of military interest?
• What operations will not be possible because our ships are not good enough?

Then there’s the people question. People are the critical difference between having a useable navy and something else. For many years, there’s been a pea and thimble trick going on with how many people the RAN needs to keep its ships at sea. Fortunately, for decades many ships have been unavailable while in major upgrade programs that have made the people problem manageable.

In the face of ill-conceived efficiency reviews, the navy has done very well with what it has had to contend with. The defence strategic review recognised current workforce challenges but didn’t see that the RAN had ceased to be sustainable long ago. That’s what happens when accountants treat trained and skilled people as an expense, and not as an asset.

The Hunters will use the Anzac crews, and the OPVs are taking crews from the Armidale patrol boats. The navy’s ships have crews with many different specialisations. They are only produced by the navy and each can only be in one place at a time.

Funding is tight. Having different classes of ships with different equipment is inevitably more expensive. Given that there seems little possibility of building Tier 1 Arleigh Burke destroyers, the most cost-effective solution is to redirect expenditure already planned for the Hunters and standardise on surface combatants already in the navy’s inventory—the Hobart class. The workforce, technical and other risks ought to be manageable, and this can be a basis for crucial continuous shipbuilding. In concert, the navy can start to put in place measures to minimise fleet ownership costs using Australian industry.

Adelaide’s shipbuilder might need assistance to change from the Hunter frigate to a different ship. But this is taxpayers’ money.

The RAN sits in the long shadow of its recent history where, since 1987, serious planning for its future has been missing. This must be fixed. A 30-year plan is necessary with real milestones and real outcomes in building ships appropriate for Australia.

Value for money includes combat power, which ought to be the most important discriminator, and that’s what Australia needs.

The Australian National Audit Office’s recent report on the Hunter-class frigate program contained a number of significant revelations, but one of the most striking was the statement by the surface ships advisory committee that the government ‘clearly understood that they were selecting an approach that was highest in risk … with respect to design maturity (whilst also highest in potential for capability/performance)’.

There have been suggestions that this statement, when combined with other information in the report, indicates that the government made the wrong decision in selecting the Type 26 as the reference design. I am far from certain of that, because we have no indications of the perceived capability advantages and the degree to which they balanced out the costs. This statement does, however, focus our attention on the concept of risk.

The Defence Department’s decision to recommend the option with the greatest potential capability but also the greatest risk shouldn’t come as a surprise. In the 1980s, during the procurement of what became the Collins-class submarine, the Royal Australian Navy was determined to have the most advanced submarine it could persuade the government to buy. In their book, The Collins class submarine story, Peter Yule and Derek Woolner say the RAN wasn’t looking for a conservative, risk-free design, but ‘something at the leading edge of technology—not a production-line Volkswagen but a custom-made Ferrari’.

All the information we have on the decision to adopt the French design for the now-cancelled Attack-class submarine program in 2016 suggests that it was driven by a similar focus on perceived capability over all other factors. The same could be said of Australia’s planned acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS arrangement.

The issue of risk in the Hunter program was the subject of a testy exchange at the Senate estimates committee hearings in February. In the end, Sheryl Lutz, first assistant secretary for major surface combatants and combat systems at Defence, conceded that it is a high-risk project. ‘We are being open with our risks in the major project report,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s being hidden.’ This answer goes to the heart of a problem with the current approach. While Defence has been open with at least some of the risks in this project, the admission that there are risks, and the fact that there’s a list of risks in the ANAO’s major projects report, don’t do much to mitigate them.

Responding to questions at the hearings, Defence officials made much of the processes being put in place to manage risks. However, as the department has acknowledged, a major source of risk has always been the immaturity of the parent design, something that was baked in from the moment the decision was made to go with the BAE Systems option.

Another notable point raised by the ANAO report into the Hunter class was that there were ‘insufficient resources, particularly skills and expertise in the project team’. While it’s unclear whether the significant personnel demands of the nuclear-powered submarine taskforce has affected the Hunter program, it’s apparent that Australia is embarking on an extraordinary range of high-risk and demanding naval construction and maintenance projects. These include the Collins life-of-type-extension and the Anzac transition capability assurance program. They are very significant projects in their own right but have been almost entirely overshadowed by megaprojects such as the Hunters and the AUKUS SSNs.

This suite of programs will be incredibly demanding on very limited human resources, something that’s compounded when risky projects begin to go wrong. The experience of the Hunter program, together with the challenges facing Australian naval construction, point to the need for a careful evaluation of risk not merely within projects, but across the full spectrum of naval procurement and sustainment, from initial conception through to delivery.

This leads us to the independent review of the RAN’s surface combatant program that was announced as part of the defence strategic review. Since that announcement there has been much discussion about the focus of the review and the potential for new platforms such as corvettes to be acquired. The discussion of the scope of the review has centred on the need to increase numbers and lethality and to align the surface fleet with the new SSN capability. The review would also do well to carefully consider the balance of risk within the RAN’s acquisition and sustainment program.

While it may look desirable to acquire as many complex, high-capability platforms as possible given the deteriorating strategic situation, we must acknowledge the compounding factors of Australia’s challenging approach to naval procurement, and the country’s limited capabilities to ensure that all of these projects are successfully managed and executed.

Options for de-risking include continuing existing programs without adding any new projects, limited Australianisation of military-off-the-shelf designs, acceptance of a lower-capability platform, reduced demands for Australian industrial content, and construction overseas. None of these options would necessarily be popular with those desperate to see the RAN and defence industry supported. However, in the world of naval construction the perfect is frequently the enemy of the good. There’s little benefit in having the surface combatant review outline a suite of new capabilities if they will never go beyond the drawing board.

British Admiral John Fisher famously cautioned with regard to shipbuilding, ‘Half a loaf is better than no bread—we strain at the gnat of perfection and swallow the camel of unreadiness!’ The RAN faces a real prospect of suffering exactly such a fate if the issue of risk is not carefully weighed up in the forthcoming decisions by the surface combatant review committee.

Much has been written on the importance of guided weapons and ensuring conflicts aren’t lost through a shortage of ammunition. Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles’s observation about the need for ‘impactful projection’ implies that the Australian Defence Force’s firepower will be increased, and the intent to manufacture advanced guided weapons in Australia is a welcome development.

In 1995, the Royal Australian Navy possessed 368 missile cells on its major surface combatants. By 2020, that had reduced to 208, a 43% reduction in firepower. It will take until 2045 for the navy to get back up to its 1995 capacity. From 2050 it will plateau at 432, a net increase of 64 cells.

How did this happen, and how many is enough?

Figure 1: Number of missile cells on RAN major surface combatants, 1995 to 2060

After World War II, guided missiles progressively became the primary armament of large warships and countering saturation attacks was a priority. From the late 1970s, the US Navy designed ships around the Aegis combat system. The Arleigh Burke–class guided missile destroyer (DDG) reflects current best practice with 96 cells, and Japan and Korea have adopted the same philosophy. China has a slightly larger ship with 128 cells.

The US Navy uses advanced modelling to assess its needs against a changing threat. That has led to it having more advanced combat systems and heavily armed ships with fast missile launch rates. Large warships in the European region are less well armed than their Pacific counterparts. That might be due to generally shorter transit requirements, timelier logistics support lines, and the proximity of land-based air cover. Conditions in the Pacific are much less accommodating and Australia can’t ignore geographic realities.

The RAN was fully aware of this evolution in naval warfare when the air warfare destroyer program was announced in the 2000 defence white paper, producing the Aegis-equipped Hobart class. Plans for a new, larger frigate to replace the Anzac class were incorporated in the 2009 defence white paper, which warned of increased regional security risks, a mantra repeated in the 2013 and 2016 policy papers. The 2018 decision to acquire a British-designed warship requiring a wholesale change of its combat system, sensors and weapons, and fitting it only with 32 missile cells, appears irrational.

Guided weapons continue to increase in lethality, speed, range and accuracy. Their evolution follows the classic cycle of matching, neutralising and further enhancing their features. It’s an endless journey. It’s imperative for naval guided weapons to contribute to joint ‘all arms’ warfare. The US Navy’s soon-to-be-introduced hypersonic guided missile is being developed in concert with the US Army.

Standardisation, where sensible, offers considerable operational and other benefits, not least of which are resupply availability and cost.

Notwithstanding the desire for commonality and for a one-size-fits-all solution, that ambition remains out of reach. From announcements in the public domain, the RAN already operates or will acquire:

• the SM-2 (Standard Missile 2) for long-range air and missile defence
• the SM-6 which has a longer range than the SM-2 and can be used for the same role as well as ballistic missile interception. SM-6 might replace SM-2
• the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) for shorter-range air and missile defence
• the Tomahawk cruise missile for long-range land and anti-shipping attack
• the NSM (naval strike missile), a medium-range anti-ship missile with a land-attack capability (replacing the Harpoon missile).

Except for the NSM, which is carried in a deck-mounted cannister launcher, these missiles are stored in a strike-length Mk41 vertical launcher system (VLS) module allowing a ship to use different missiles in unpredictable circumstances. The ESSM is small enough for a cell to carry four, but the others occupy a full cell each. It’s suggested that the US Navy’s future large surface combatant, the DDG(X), which is expected to have 128 cells, might also require a larger cell capable of launching hypersonic land-attack missiles now under development.

By 2006, when the RAN’s final Anzac frigate, HMAS Perth, was commissioned, the class had 64 cells, but the ESSMs they contained were to be used for self-defence. In the interim, two of six older Perry-class ships were decommissioned to provide funds to upgrade the remaining four, including adding eight VLS cells. That gave each ship 48 cells, and an improved capability with the longer-range SM-2. After modernisation, the Perry class went from six ships to four, but the total number of cells went from 240 to 192.

HMAS Hobart, the first of the RAN’s three DDGs, entered service in 2015. Its Aegis combat system was matched to a 48-cell VLS, giving a class capacity of 144 cells. Some cells in a Hobart-class DDG can be used for ESSMs (for example, eight cells could carry 32 missiles). But the 40 remaining cells would limit the SM-2s it could carry to the same number, or fewer, if the ship embarked Tomahawks or SM-6s. Operational judgements, which might be compromises, are necessary.

In 1995, the RAN operated three guided missile destroyers, six guided missile frigates and the first of eight smaller frigates, with 368 missile cells in all, the most it has ever possessed. By 2020, the combined effect of several force structure changes meant that across its fleet of eight Anzac-class and three Hobart-class surface combatants, the RAN could provide only 208 cells.

Australia failed to comprehend the fundamental link between firepower and the number of surface combatants—and that it takes decades to overcome deficiencies.

Changing the RAN’s force structure where its major surface combatants (and submarines) are concerned always has very long-term implications for the nation and for the options available to the  government.

The eight Anzac frigates are to be progressively replaced from around 2032 by nine Hunter frigates, which are expected to have 32 VLS cells accompanied by deck-mounted cannisters for eight surface-to-surface and land-attack missiles. At an estimated 10,000 tonnes, these ships will be about 3,000 tonnes heavier than the Hobart class but have 16 fewer cells. They’ll be slightly larger than the US Navy’s Arleigh Burkes, which have 64 more cells. The Hunters will become the RAN’s most numerous, but least well-armed surface combatants.

If 32 ESSMs are used for self-defence, they would take up eight of the Hunter’s cells. Operational judgements will again have to be made as to which missiles will be loaded into the remaining 24 cells. For instance, two Tomahawks might be needed against some land targets, but how many are to be attacked? And then there’s the question of longer-range air and missile defence, usually requiring two missiles per target for a probable kill.

Even with advanced digital phased-array radars, sophisticated networking and weapon-management capabilities, the RAN’s small number of surface combatants will make the missile shortage more acute when facing a determined opponent.

That the US, Japan and Korea can fit 96 cells into a Hunter-sized ship raises the question of why that’s not being done for the RAN.

The same loss of firepower in the submarine force might become evident if the transition to nuclear-powered boats suffers serious setbacks. The RAN’s primary combat power comes from its surface combatants and its submarines. It’s not a case of choosing one or the other. Australia needs both.