The booster still creates a giant IR signature (and we Americans are working on a HGV detection system. I wouldn't be surprised if China was too)
How not to build a submarine. The Collins Class.
- Thread starter McPherson
- Start date
My understanding is that there are two medical/research reactors at Lucas Heights. There were originally plans for a power reactor at Jervis Bay as well but they were canned in the 1970s. I could be wrong.
The DPRK is a sideshow from an Australian perspective. We are not America. America is and always has been concerned with being the world's policeman. We are not. America and Americans need to pull their heads in. Australia has been too long forgetting what it's concerns and subsiding them in America's. Canberra needs to let go the apron strings and grow up.
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Riain
Banned
Not anymore, but there was for about 35 years: HIFAR and Moata. OPAL is all we have now.
Jervus Bay power reactor got as far as site preparation and levelling before being cancelled.
McPherson
Banned
Any challenge to sea, air, space usage anywhere is a challenge to sea, air, space usage EVERYWHERE. The mediums are "global". This is why Mahan beats Mackinder.
Has the British program not been run down and up repeatedly at extra cost, as well as deliberately slowed at extra cost to maintain a very slow build rate due to low numbers needed? Did the 7 Astutes not actually as much as 8 Astutes would have done at a faster build rate with hindsight? So as long as AUS is willing to simply buy some boats or at least large parts from UK then they could easily be done in far less than 20 years at reasonable costs (ie probably GB selling at the RN price and pocketing the saving from higher build rate as its profit)?
Is that really also just a matter of larger numbers and active & aggressive training of USN subs? Also, the not detected might very well be simply not wanting to admit your capabilities in peacetime so detecting the sub and then not changing what the CV/TF was doing so that the sub can't tell when and at what range or sound level it was detected? Only a very small number of the CV/TFs crew would actually be in the loop about such decision-making, and they would not be talking......?
McPherson
Banned
1. Covered this. The problem is non-correctable sound shorts in shaft drives, sail, and screws. These not only give away the submarine's presence, but interfere with its own ability to listen.
2. Ocean areas surveilled =s minimum number of platforms.
3. Targets that need to die before they can launch =s minimum number of platforms added to 1. .
4. See 1.? Can't hear? Can't determine the signal threshold detection danger levels going out or coming in.
5. A fighting navy trains hard and has accidents, a LOT of accidents. This is why despite the list of Russian submarine disasters, that navy's submarine service was held to be a severe threat. If you are getting banged up in a bump and scrape war, you are doing it "right". You "know" where the enemy is and can engage him. See 3.?
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and how did you discover this? It is far more detail than what has been published downunder. Was it in some Boys Own Annual?
mial42
Gone Fishin'
You can say that again. The USN losing the Bonhomme Richard to a fire at port and needing to be bailed out by the local firemen is both embarrassing and (as an American) concerning. The USN's greatest moments include a laundry list of heavily damaged (by the enemy, not by spurned arsonists) ships saved from disaster and fire in the middle of the Pacific; being unable to even put out the fire on the Bonhomme Richard, let alone save the ship, at port, is a massive loss in capabilities compared to its peak. And that's not to mention all the collisions and procurement disasters of the past couple decades. Not sure what the "model navy" today is for a country trying to build up; the USN has been so utterly dominant for so long that there's not a lot of other options. Maybe China, but the PLAN is totally untested (and hopefully remains that way).
The problem was the ship in port had limited crew and limited time to control the fire before it reached a critical size and intensity. Fire while having major life extension and repair is sadly common. I can recall a French SSN having to be repaired following a major fire.
My own personal opinion baked by some friends who served is that the lack of crew made it possible for the fire to reach the intensity it did. Instead of having 900 sailors and officers the complement on hand was minimal. So the reaction time is dismal. The same fire while the ship was underway would be extinguished in minutes.
Riain
Banned
The latest snippets of information is that Australia will build the front half of the SSN and the rear half will be built overseas giving us some 40% local content and presumably the means to conduct the full cycle docking as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Additionally it has been said that we will use an existing, mature design. However from there sources say both the US and UK designs are front runners, so who knows.
USN ships that are capable of going to sea have to have enough crew onboard to get underway 24/7/365. As you noted this was not the BHR. They would have had a very small duty section onboard. USN ships also do damage control different then us sub guys. They have teams that fight fires and aren’t all as trained as we are. The small teams might not have been used to working together. Add in the shipyard environment, perp doing some damage to DC equipment, and just confusion, I’m sure it was hell. Remember the USS Miami was taken out of service when a shipyard worker started a fire on it that took a long time to put out. Fire during overhaul completely different than fire with crew onboard. I could get woken up, run to crews mess, don a complete fire fighting outfit with Scott Air Pack, and be in engine room in 2 minutes. Not going to happen in a shipyard.
As for Embarrassing the USN I don't think anyone around the world thought it embarrassing because every single maritime group knows the single biggest danger to a ship is fire and in the last two decades 7 submarines have had fires according to WIKI. In addition multiple other ships have caught fire and the Argentinians even had a Destroyer capsize in port.
Another thing I think few people focus on is that when a ship catches fire in a dockyard you dont only have to worry about the saving the ship, but also keeping the dockyard from spreading to other areas of the dockside. If you loose the dock where you build and repair ships, but save the ship from burning have you really won?
USS Bonefish (SS-582) - Wikipedia
This is the one that terrified us. It became uninhabitable in about 3 minutes. I toured it after. Everything above about 30” was just melted.
Riain
Banned
Scomo has laid out a bit of detail on the RAN SSN story the other day.
I'm not concerned about the details of telling the French, but it appears the timeline is Australians started looking into nuclear subs early last year and from other things I've heard it was in response to China being arseholes with our trade as covid started. Once we'd sorted out the details at our end we approached the UK and US at the level below that of political leaders, but we didn't go political until Biden was well and truly inaugurated.
I'm not concerned about the details of telling the French, but it appears the timeline is Australians started looking into nuclear subs early last year and from other things I've heard it was in response to China being arseholes with our trade as covid started. Once we'd sorted out the details at our end we approached the UK and US at the level below that of political leaders, but we didn't go political until Biden was well and truly inaugurated.