The Mess - Military Forum Off Topic Thread!

Dohvolle wrote: »

I'm reminded of the development of the Bradley Armoured Fighting Vehicle in the 70s.
For those of you unfamiliar, watch "The Pentagon Wars". The Problem the UK always faces though is the product must be built in the UK, regardless of their technical ability to actually manufacture what is required.
There were many near identical types already available off the shelf around the world, but they had to re-invent the wheel. Even the vehicle it is based on, ASCOD! Meanwhile the German Puma is demonstrating amazing availability.

Looks like a major realignment for the RAN with reports that the French deal is to be scrapped and a new SSN fleet will be developed with support from the US and U.K….

Nah, the French don’t actually have any parts made, they were still working out how to make a SSN into a SSK, so nothing is left over, just a lot of design hours that someone is going to have to pay for. As for Australia, they are staying with domestic build so those jobs will still be there, at some point, but my god it’s going to be expensive as hell and there’s no way they get the 12 they were going with for the French order, 8 would be the highest I’d imagine and forget schedules, these hulls are going to be late.

And now France has pulled its ambassadors from both the US and Australia over this… Should have been handled far better.

There’s a lot of different factors going on, the Australian justification over costs is BS, the SSNs will easily blow through what was budgeted for the SSKs. As to the UKs involvement, plenty of different options, it gets them another base in the region, it somehow gets connected to their “global Britain” shite (and gets one over on the French), and they hope gets some industrial crossover I’d bet.

The strategic mobility of a SSN has always been the dominate selling point for them no question, as you say whether covering the Australian coastline or ocean operations it will always be able to respond faster than an SSK. However that does come with a hell of a price tag, one that I’m not sure the Australian government has thought through entirely. Even if they manage to avoid the end of life costs of what to do with the reactor the lifetime costs of nukes are massive compared to conventional boats, add in there are only a couple of producers of the reactors (and the US is always going to come first). There is also the numbers game, with fewer SSNs the ability for Australia to lose one is far less than when they planned to have 12 SSKs, even leaving aside any combat damage, we’ve seen the US lose one sub to fire, the French having to do a cut and shut due to fire damage to a SSN, and just recently the USN are now down a Seawolf after it hit “something”. The smaller the unit numbers the more “eggs in one basket” situation.

Also of course there’s the manpower issue, something which the RAN has had issues with in the past with the Collins, but now they have to add in nuclear qualified engineers. I wonder with some RN personnel be changing service( hitting them?), will they be able to sustain what in the US and U.K. navies are high end jobs?

Lastly of course is how long the Collins will now have to stay in service, I saw some comments from an Australian minister that it might be the 2050s, that’s a long time for any sub and will increase risks.