Australian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

mankyle said:

Interesting video that shows how the building of the AWDs is proceeding!!!

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Jeff Head said:

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These Australian AEGIS Anti-Air Warfare Destroyers (AWD) will be very similar to the Spanish Bazan AEGIS frigates, but displace more, have more powerful engines, and some other upgrades and differences.
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• the engines on the Hobart according to wiki: the GE turbines 2*23,500 hp, and the Caterpillar diesels 2*7,580 hp; 62160 hp in total
• analogous, but weaker, engines on the F100:

  Total Combined Power: 47,500 shp

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  according to
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​

Naval Today said:

Australian Navy’s HMAS Diamantina, Huon Class Mine Hunter, recently had a successful six day port visit to Dili, East Timor, to provide training to the local Naval component.

Two Falantil-Forcas Defensa Timor Leste officers, Sub Lieutenants Santos and Nascimento, embarked on a two day sea ride for the transit back to Darwin where Diamantina resumed her duties in support of Operation RESOLUTE.

The aim of the exercise was to give the two officers exposure to the command and control of a warship at sea and on operations, exposing them to multiple exercises including man overboard and damage control exercises, launching and recovering ship’s boats and engineering casualty control drills.

The visitors also experienced the day-to-day and around the clock operations of a Navy vessel undertaking Border Protection duties.

Both officers relished the opportunity to observe all operations from different positions in the ship.

Both officers have completed their initial training with either the Royal Australian Navy or Royal New Zealand Navy and progressed on those exchanges to their phase three Maritime Warfare Officer training.

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London
Source: Flightglobal.com - 5 hours ago

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has conducted live firing tests of the BAE Systems Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) from its

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Helicopters Tiger rotorcraft.

Testing with the Australian Army’s 16 Aviation Brigade’s Tigers included using APKWS to convert a Forges de Zeebrugge (FZ) unguided rocket into a laser precision-guided weapon, and marked the first time airborne testing for both the Tiger and the FZ was conducted with APKWS.

The weapon scored 10 hits out of 10 during the live trials, which took place in the country’s Northern Territory near

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in November 2014, BAE announced on 13 April. This followed ground testing of the system at Australia’s Woomera test range in August 2014, during which APKWS hit seven for seven.

The 10 test shots were conducted in “extreme heat conditions” at ranges of 1,500-4,500m (4,920-14,800ft), at altitudes of 200-1,500ft and at speeds of up to 140kt (259km/h). All 10 shots hit the target within 1m of the laser spot, BAE says.

“We’re very excited about the results – to go 10-for-10 is magnificent,” Dave Harrold, precision guidance solutions product line director at BAE says. “We showed up, never having utilised that warhead and motor before, and we went 10-for-10.”

[...]

Demonstrations have also been carried out on fixed-wing types. Under US Central Command-funded testing, the US Air Force’s Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt and Lockheed Martin F-16, as well as the USMC’s

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AV-8B Harrier II, have already been tested with APKWS modified for fixed-wing aircraft. ...

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Meanwhile, a

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has shown that building naval ships in Australia is up to 40% more expensive than procuring from overseas. This will likely form an important consideration for defense planners, particularly regarding the future

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ahead of the Australian Government’s Defence

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, due for release later this year.

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Bernard said:

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Government-commissioned report highlights concerns about gaps in demand between defence acquisitions, when demand for shipbuilders ‘could fall to zero’

Building naval warships in Australia costs 30% to 40% more than it does in comparable overseas shipyards, a government-commissioned review has found.

The government asked the US-based military research thinktank Rand Corporation to review Australia’s shipbuilding capabilities and the costs and benefits of government investment in the industry.

In a report to be released on Thursday, the company noted the Department of Defence was in the early stages of its “ambitious” effort to procure up to 50 naval surface warships and submarines over the next two decades. Up to 15 of these vessels would be large surface ships such as air warfare destroyers, landing helicopter docks and future frigates.

The report’s executive summary – which has been distributed to media in advance – said 7,950 people were working in shipbuilding and submarine and ship repair last financial year. About half of those were employed by the government-owned shipbuilder ASC.

The report examined the issue of gaps in production – sometimes referred to as the “valley of death” – that would occur as companies reached the end of their work on the air warfare destroyer and landing helicopter docks.

The timing of planned acquisitions of future frigates, offshore patrol vessels and new submarines “is likely to produce short-term and long-term gaps in demand for shipyard production, facilities, services and workers”, it said.

“Because construction of the future frigate will not start until 2020 ... there is the potential that demand for workers could fall to zero, with reverberations that may last three to five years after future frigate production ramps up,” the executive summary said.

“Without some way to lessen the gap between the end of the [air warfare destroyer] program and the start of the building of the future frigate, the industrial base will have to ramp up its workforce from an almost negligible level to 2,700 skilled personnel in approximately eight years.”

The report examined options such as beginning construction of the future frigates before 2020, building a fourth air warfare destroyer, or building patrol boats and offshore patrol vehicles in the major shipyards to bridge the gap.

But it notes “there is no stated requirement” for Australia to have a fourth air warfare destroyer.

The report said it may be difficult for Australia to sustain more than one domestic shipbuilder of large warships in the short term “but if the national decision is to have two shipbuilders, adequate productive work must be assigned in the workforce demand gap”.

The document suggested Australian naval shipbuilding tended to be more expensive than in Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, the UK and the US.

Production in Australia “involves a 30% to 40% price premium over the cost of comparable production at shipyards overseas”, it said.

But it noted such a comparison “can be significantly influenced by foreign exchange rates” and “this premium could drop over time, however, with steady production drumbeats and mature designs”.

Apart from the cost comparison, the executive summary made three other findings:

• The economic benefits of a domestic naval shipbuilding industry were “unclear and depend on broader economic conditions” but the industry “could potentially employ more than 2,000 people in long-term positions”.
• Controlling critical production offered wider strategic benefits and flexibility, avoiding dependence on foreign sources, enabling ship alterations and modernisation and supporting local suppliers.
• Sustaining a naval shipbuilding industry would require “a continuous build strategy” and matching the industry base structure to demand.

The Rand report is expected to inform the Abbott government’s defence white paper.

It will also fuel public debate about domestic production at a time when the government is considering how to acquire the next fleet of submarines.

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