1. Russia, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Israel, Taiwan, South Africa, maybe France, Beazil (If they can get their act together), Chile and any nation that expects to power project and sea deny with a D/E boat.
2. At the end of this long post, I will do a systems and situation analysis. Bear in mind, that I am not privy to the Australian government's data or intent, but I hope to avoid the Air Power Australia pratfalls (I hate that guy, because he gives analysis a BAD name.), that come from superficial understanding of the problems, the available means and the necessary compromises one has to make in a central strategic program like this one.
3. The long transit times are a direct consequence of harbor and operating sea depths up north and terrible tidal conditions. The geography and infrastructure problems have not changed since WWII either. This is well known to me as I have researched the reasons why the Americans operated from where they did and why. There are sustainment and sea hazard reasons to want DEEP water and shallow tides for sub bases.
4. Submarines are not frigates. I would be leery of Whyalla for example, which was kind of old fashioned. To build a modern sub, is a barrel and internal hoops process, with the more advanced sub builders, building the boats in modules. DCN and Electric Boat built that way.
Going to nuclear subs.
5. What
@gatordad699 references is submarine powerplant training ASHORE. There are marine reactor plants that duplicate US submarine systems currently in use. Like telescopes and observation of targets time, the time in those "schools" is metered by training slots down to the exact students and exact minutes. If Australia buys into the US program, that means one of two things; Australia has to buy the scarce time slots and expert instruction or Australia has to BUILD her own school marine reactor power plant ashore and both nations will then have to share it, because such a school in Australia would have excess slots for a small fleet. Otherwise Australia does what Russia does, designate a training school boat and accepts the inevitable low standards of operator expertise and casualties both mechanical and human.
6. I do not see the parallel with Scotland and the British Labour party and those two giant LPHs the British crown government built, but I do understand the Australian PTBs, both left and right, trying to generally sabotage the labor movement and existent industry as a matter of social policy knifing the other fellow every other election. Kind of shooting one-self in the face with a shotgun loaded with jello, but that is socialist me. MOO. YMMV. How does a communist support the Collins program? That one I do not get at all. Not unless Australia goes Non-aligned and decides for nationalist reasons to assert local MEEZ zones and play the offshore MAHAN card. (Which she should do anyway, but I'll get to that one in the analysis.).
7.
https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0207/020745.html
The only thing that comes to mind, is that Fraser knew as much about submarines as Hawke knew about moon rockets (zero), but both were governance technicians of a high order in that they knew their constituencies and how to gin an elections. Beyond that observation, I think industrial policy by both was kited into the wrong direction during that period of inflation and severe unemployment. Think from my PoV of Jimmy Carter as an example and his style and lack of substance or governance expertise, when it came to economics and political compromise and or realism. Knew he, how to get elected one-time, but once in there, clueless as to what the polity needed in the macro or in the specifics of a coherent defense policy.
8. I would think that the failure to invest in a fast breeder reactor (Israel), would be the decision killer as the Australian option is a practical bottleneck more than an ideological one.
9. But not hydrographic sense.
10. One commercial complex of at least 100 mW output and a fast breeder for HEU and plutonium. Problem? Austrailia has just joined the H-bomb club. Plus the HEU paths will need to be robust enough to provide the fuel cores for 10 reactors.
11. About enough for three boats.
12. See 1,2,3,4,5,7,9, and 10..
13. The Upholders were competent but high maintenance designs. They were not easy to build and if one got the piping or welds wrong in the builds, as the British DID , it would be VERY expensive to fix these mistakes as the Canadians discovered.
14. The Walrus boats based on a mix of French and American technology had a tortured design and construction industry, mainly due to the electrical systems and possibly poor industrial practices by the builders,
Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij. Whether ASC could have done a better job with the Dutch design, is open to others to decide. I think the Dutch design was sounder than the Upholder to build, but QCA was very substandard.
15. I tend to agree. But I object to Kockums, and I will explain why in a moment.
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16. The rest of the critique is not relevant to my objections. If one is going to design a submarine to customer blue water specifications, then one BETTER NOT SCALE UP a coast defense submarine. Somebody tried it, and found it did not work. (Mackerels). See Next.
Barbel Class drawings | Submarines, Blueprints, Nuclear ...
From Wiki.
General characteristics | |
---|
Class and type: | Barbel-class diesel-electric submarine |
Displacement: |
- 1,744 tons (1,778 t) light[1]
- 2,146 tons (2,180 t) full
- 2,637 tons (2,679 t) submerged[1]
- 402 tons (408 t) dead
|
Length: | 219 ft 6 in (66.90 m) overall[1] |
Beam: | 29 ft (8.8 m)[1] |
Draft: | 25 ft (7.6 m) max[1] |
Propulsion: | |
Speed: |
- 12 knots (22 km/h) surfaced
- 25 knots (46 km/h) submerged[1]
|
Endurance: |
- 30 minutes at full speed
- 102 hours at 3 knots
|
Test depth: |
- 712 ft (217 m) operating
- 1,050 ft (320 m) collapse
|
Complement: | 10 officers, 69 men |
Armament: | 6 × 21 inch (533 mm)[1] bow torpedo tubes, 18 torpedoes |
17. Somebody had the blueprints and the experience. (^^^) Since they had fought in Australian waters and knew the conditions and BUILT to them, themselves,
why were they not asked? That is the question that has always perplexed me. Only one outfit has ever fought a successful submarine campaign in the Pacific Ocean and it could be argued anywhere, period. That campaign was in the very waters the RAN would operate.
18. Keep It Simple, Stephen. The Albacore was barrel and hoop and modular construction with internal ballast. The Barbel built off her, was basically a D/E designed to be a sea-fighter like the WWI US boats, but with the performance and endurance of a US WWII fleet boat. The planform was evolved with GUPPY lessons and best USN practice. Nothing fancy was involved. It was a simple effective design. Modern Japanese and RoK boats trace their heritage to Barbel, not Europe. There is a reason for that.
19. US Air Farce politics abounded. The service's fighter mafia wanted a dogfighter instead of a signal emissions controlled missile ambush bird that could also BIM in Deep Battle as Northrop thought it should . Well, the FM bozos got neither a dogfighter, nor BIM bird. They bought a Turkey and the next bird, the F-35? Is a signal emissions controlled missile ambush bird and a limited BIM deep battle platform. Sheesh, the USAF was stupid.
20. How does that apply to the Collins class? Australia wanted to build her subs, herself, and wanted as close to top of the line performance as she could afford. Reading the specs, she wanted a non-nuclear Sturgeon (and still does.). Kockums promised that performance. Did they deliver? Current 33% deployment availability and no land attack capability, I would suggest "maybe".
21. Well, building a submarine without experience indicates 2 ways of doing it.
a. Invite a company who builds subs to come in and venture capital and stand up an Australian subsidiary. Management and technical experience would be foreign until a domestic management and workforce was trained up. Neither Fraser or Hawke is going to invite in RDM or VSEL (politics) and Ixnay on the Electric Boat-ay.
22. Do a foreign technology transfer and cross train with the host company that designed the boat and learn by trial by error the HARD WAY.
That teaches from day one, deep knowledge, but it is expensive and unless the hard earned experience is kept current, the institutional lessons learned will be forgotten. Sub-building is a perishable skill. One needs to be building one continuously to keep the welders trained and to keep the spare parts contractors in business.
23. YMMV. Should have hired Electric Boat, from day 1. They DID hire Electric Boat... eventually. Choose option a.. and build off a proven blueprint. Sure the costs would have been frontloaded, but American combat system, American weapons, American methods, and American fixes, and crew training, so why not an AMERICAN design from the start?
24. See 16-23..
25. Actually, this is a good argument if one wants a limited out of area deployment capability. Patrol time on station (subs today can refuel and replenish at sea) in the South and East China Seas or into the Indian Ocean means a bigger boat.
26. See MAP for the battlespace conditions.
Abb4_Pacific Ocean Floor Map_Detail | Die bemerkenswerte Karte
Map - 1969 - Pacific Ocean Floor | Unique maps
27. Note that the shallow basins are < 200 meters?
That includes the shelf waters between Australia and Indonesia off East China and around Japan. There are submarine lanes well known to the USN PACFLT, an example is the Exmouth Plateau boundary that S curves past Cebu and twists through the Palawan Passage into the South China Sea.
That is why Fremantle was selected. Good route to evade ASW forces.
28. We will have to see if they can transfer the Rubis over to their Barracuda proposal. I have my (severe) doubts.
29. No politics involved. One must build the navy to function in the battlespace within the tech limits, budgets and human resources available or allocated to the purpose the leadership defines.
30. A navy exists to use and deny the sea (MAHAN). Anything political that corrupts that naval purpose for Australia, is contra-indicated.
31. One can build or expropriate a resort for the morale reasons needed. Hotels and a Cocoa beach type community is CHEAP.^1 The real reason for no northern basing is Hydrography and infrastructure and human factors.
^1 NASA built a town on Florida deserted beach for the Astronaut Corps, Walt Disney showed up shortly thereafter.
32. Politics and sea-power only mix well when in collusion and not conflict. Ever since Corbett corrupted HMG and the RN, the British navy has gone downhill via rocket-sled. When one sticks to MAHAN, one does it right. A navy is a COMMERCIAL tool. It is there to regulate the use of the sea for oneself and to make sure no-one else dictates that use to oneself.
33. See 28-31..
34. See 7.
35. Nationalize and knock heads together.
36. Inadequate population skill sets, infrastructure and wrong geography. Then one gets into regional politics. If one knows anything about how regional politics can screw up naval procurement and the "military" and economic systems logics, then wonder why an American Georgia peanut farmer and a !@# !@#$ submarine base parked in a Russian sub kill lane are congruous.
37.
USGS OFR01-154: Introduction
Kings Bay Base, Georgia (GA) ~ population data, races ...
I will have more to write later.