Australian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

Yesterday at 9:49 PM

... and here's more:
Surprise Sea 1180 OPV tender prompts further questions

24 November 2017

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Malcolm Turnbull says shipbuilder Lürssen will be designer and prime contractor for the $3.6bn project in SA and WA

The Australian government has chosen German shipbuilder Lürssen to build 12 offshore patrol vessels in South Australia and

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.

At a press conference in Canberra on Friday the prime minister,

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, said the “international shipbuilder of great renown” was selected as the designer and prime contractor for the $3.6bn project.

Turnbull said the 12 offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) would be “a vital part of our navy” and will “be built in Australia by Australians, with Australian steel”.

The first two OPVs will be built by the Australian Submarine Corporation in Adelaide from the second half of 2018, with the remaining 10 built from 2020 in Henderson, Western Australia by Austal and Civmec.

Lürssen beat shortlisted rivals Damen of the Netherlands and Fassmer of Germany.

The defence minister,

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, said the government was “delivering on our plans to create a sovereign continuous naval shipbuilding industry”.

Payne said the OPVs were a “significant capability leap forward” from the current Armidale class. She noted they were larger and able to embark unmanned aerial, underwater and surface vehicles and “operate larger sea boats which are essential for boarding operations”.

“They will conduct enhanced patrol and intelligence and surveillance missions, search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and border protection missions.”

The defence industry minister, Christopher Pyne, said the OPV project would create 400 jobs in Adelaide and then Henderson, adding that it would “fill in Labor’s valley of death” which had

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.

“Rather than simply picking a design and saying we don’t care where you build it, we want it off the shelf, at best value, and highest capability. We are saying that we want the highest capability, but we do care about growing our sovereign Australian shipbuilding industry,” Pyne said.

Turnbull described supporting the Australian industry as “a great national enterprise”.

In total the Australian government is spending $89bn on 21 Pacific patrol boats, 12 OPVs, nine future frigates and 12 submarines.

In a statement the Nick Xenophon Team senator Rex Patrick expressed “cynicism” on promises of an Australian build, accusing the government of presiding over a slippage of local content on the $50bn future submarine project from the target of 90% to 60%.

“Every percentage point slippage on OPV local content could cost ... up to $160m of local jobs and economic benefit,” he said.

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angellily said:

Hello everyone
i am from uk. but i like indian defence forces.indian army is very strong and powerful.
best regards
angellily
Professional writer at online

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uk.

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When it comes to information warfare, don’t expect the Aussies to sit back and play nice.

Australia was subjected to 47,000 deliberate cyber attacks last year, a 15% increase over 2015. Of those, 672 were serious enough for the Australian Signals Directorate, Canberra’s version of the U.S. National Security Agency, to intervene.

Going forward, the Australian government wants potential adversaries to know that it can, and will, employ information-related weapons both defensively and offensively as needed.

In an era when every personal computer or smartphone is a potential weapon, the Australian Defense Force (ADF) is stepping up its efforts in this “warfighting” domain. In July, it stood up the multiservice Information Warfare Division, located at ADF headquarters in Canberra and headed by Maj. Gen. Marcus Thompson.

At the annual Association of Old Crows symposium on Nov. 28, Australia’s military representative in Washington, Air Vice-Marshal Alan Clements, highlighted the new organization and said the ADF “will fight and win” in the information environment. This includes generating cognitive or psychological effects, or doing material harm to an adversary through kinetic effects.

Over the past few years, the Islamic State has used the internet to spread its ideology and recruit foreign fighters. Last year, Russia used social media platforms to try to sway the U.S. election process on a grand scale. China has directed massive cyber hacks against military and commercial institutions around the globe, seeking valuable or classified information.

Clements says Australia has all of these capabilities and will also develop new tools to do it better.

“Australia has the capability to conduct offensive cyber operations against legitimate and designated targets,” he says. “It’s done in an authorized, controlled and approved manner, in the same way we would do any target.”

He says the ADF doesn’t propose “entangling the minds of the Australian population or our allies” through mass digital propaganda, and deception is not the primary objective of all information warfare campaigns. Australia won’t act alone, either, he says, but will work with allies and coalition partners.

The Information Warfare Division’s mission is to consolidate information and cyber tools that already exist; identify capability gaps and develop new tools to fill those gaps; and work with allies and key partners as part of a broader coalition strategy.

Clements says information and cyber warfare capabilities will be “vital” to how the ADF fights in future conflicts, from gathering targeting information to creating cognitive or kinetic effects in the battlespace. “We hope to steal the stage from other strategic actors,” he says.

Australia is no slouch in the electromagnetic spectrum either. The

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is introducing a fleet of 12

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Growler airborne electronic attack aircraft. And in November, Canberra signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. for co-development of

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’s ALQ-249 Next Generation Jammer Mid-band. Based at RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland, the Growler fleet will help protect Australia’s

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Super Hornet and

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Lighting II strike aircraft by helping suppress and destroy enemy air defenses and blocking enemy communications.

Australia is the only other nation besides the U.S. with Growlers. The U.S. Navy intends to field 160 of them.

“If we don’t win that fight in the electronic spectrum, there’s no way we can actually win the future fight,” Clements says. “The Growler is one of the cornerstone pieces we’ll have for [controlling and dominating] the electronic environment.”

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Jura said:

Saturday at 4:05 PM
and now I read what The Guardian had to say:
German company to build 12 offshore patrol vessels for Australian navy
source:

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The Government has announced (Nov 2017) that Australia’s 12 Offshore Patrol Vessels will be designed and built under prime contractor Lürssen. The Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) project, which is worth up to $4 billion, will be delivered by Australian workers, in Australian shipyards using Australian steel.

The OPVs will have an important role protecting our borders and will provide greater range and endurance than the existing patrol boat fleet.

The investment in new naval capabilities such as the OPVs is a key part of the Turnbull Government’s commitment to a safe and secure Australia.

As detailed in the 2016 Defence White Paper, the Government is undergoing its largest regeneration of naval capability since the Second World War.

The OPVs will allow the Navy to undertake more extensive operations and protect resources over greater distances and in more complex maritime environments.

The announcement is the next stage in Australia’s National Shipbuilding Plan and will directly employ up to 1000 Australian workers – 400 direct and a further 600 in the supply chain.

The Navy’s OPVs will be the Lürssen design utilising ASC Shipbuilding in Adelaide for the construction of the first two ships.

The project will then transfer to the Henderson Maritime Precinct in WA where Lürssen will use the capabilities of Austal and Civmec to build ten OPVs, subject to the conclusion of commercial negotiations.

The first of the 12 OPVs will commence production in the fourth quarter of 2018.

The announcement represents a significant step in the implementation of the Turnbull Government’s vision for a continuous, innovative and sovereign Australian naval shipbuilding industry as outlined in the Naval Shipbuilding Plan.

The Turnbull Government’s investment in continuous shipbuilding will guarantee our maritime capabilities will be more flexible and versatile than ever.

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Whish-Wilson says operation was planned rather than occurring ‘opportunistically’ as Marise Payne has described

A controversial Australian naval exercise conducted with Saudi Arabia’s navy in the midst of the blockade of

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may be the beginning of more joint exercises between the two militaries, the Greens have warned.

Documents relating to a joint training exercise conducted on 14 August linked to Operation Manitou, a longstanding joint military operation in the Middle East, show the exercise was planned rather than occurring “opportunistically”, as Australia’s defence minister had claimed, the Greens say.

The Royal Australian Navy held training exercises with its Saudi Arabian counterpart near where a Saudi-led coalition is enforcing a naval blockade of Yemen –

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and other aid groups.

With the

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, world leaders, including the US president, Donald Trump,

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.

The United Nations has described the closure of aid channels as “catastrophic”.

Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has said the Turnbull government is “deeply concerned” about the deteriorating conditions in Yemen, and has called “on all sides to allow unimpeded humanitarian access” to the country.

Asked about the joint exercises, Australia’s defence minister,

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, said Australia’s contribution to maritime security in the Middle East did not include any enforcement of the blockade on Yemen.

“We are in no way involved in that process,” Payne told the Senate. She said naval cooperation in mid-August with Saudi Arabia happened “opportunistically”.

But the Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson said the material obtained under an order of production for documents showed that the “defence minister was being way too cute with the truth about the Australian navy conducting an operation with the Saudi navy on an opportunity basis”.

“The minister made it out as if these were two ships who passed in the night and decided to have a sleepover, rather than a carefully considered and prepared plan to undertake a joint military exercise,” he said.

He said the exercise should not have happened. “It beggars belief the navy didn’t think this would have any negative public relations blowback given the UN statements on the Saudi naval blockade, and global concern over potentially the worst humanitarian crisis since 1945.”

The documents are heavily redacted, but the small non-redacted sections suggest Saudi Arabia and Australia are interested in further naval cooperation, including embedding staff.

The documents confirm that on 14 August the guided-missile frigate HMAS Newcastle conducted a joint exercise with HMS Boraida of the Royal Saudi Navy off the Saudi port of Jeddah in the Red Sea.

The exercise consisted of “a boarding serial, some basic officer of the watch manoeuvres and replenishment approaches before both ships departed and proceeded independently”.

The material says both units were “keen for the interaction” and indications from Saudi Arabia were that the navy would be keen for further exercises “should units be passing through the region in the future”.

One of the briefing notes suggests a Saudi commander “repeatedly voiced his interest in more cooperation with Australian naval vessels in the area” and Australia suggested it could provide embedded staff.

Whish-Wilson said Australia needed to step back, given the growing international condemnation of the Yemen blockade. “The Greens certainly hope the decision to opportunistically engage doesn’t symbolise any greater government plan to use this exercise to build and strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia, including defence export sales.

“Saudi Arabia is undertaking a brutal assault on Yemen including bombing of civilian facilities and a blockade that is preventing food, medicine and fuel from entering the country putting millions of lives at risk,” he said.

“I am deeply concerned that it appears that we are planning to embed Australian military personnel with the Saudis at a time when this atrocity is being carried out.

“Australia needs to cut all bilateral military cooperation with Saudi Arabia immediately and condemn the blockade of Yemen that still hasn’t been fully lifted.”

A spokesman for Payne directed Guardian Australia to comments she had made on naval cooperation in the Middle East in late November.

Payne said the

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had been part of joint activity in the Middle East for “many years”.

“HMAS Newcastle has just departed, HMAS Warramunga has just gone to the area for a nine-month deployment,” the defence minister said.

Payne said “from time to time, as opportunity presents itself, we will work with counterpart navies to ensure that we are able, for example, in the event of an accident or in the event of a crisis on one ship or another, we’re able to support each other and engage and help each other”.

“It’s in fact sensible engagement, it’s engagement that ensures that we minimise the likelihood of accident and we minimise the likelihood of injury and damage out of anything like that.”

She repeated that Australia was not “involved or engaged in any of the activities that Saudi Arabia might be pursuing in terms of its blockade in the Gulf”.

“We are also not involved in any way in the conflict in Yemen; there are no ADF personnel in Yemen, we are not engaged in Yemeni airspace or in the seas around Yemen in that regard.”

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Naval Group (formerly DCNS) has issued a raft of tender notices in support of efforts to identify Australian companies that can support its SEA 1000 programme to build 12 next-generation submarines for Royal Australian Navy (RAN).

In request for information (RFI) documents calling for responses by January 2018, Naval Group said it is looking for local firms that can support the submarine programme by producing and offering a range of systems and components.

These include steel and titanium bars, steel forged parts, copper alloy parts, steel castings, titanium castings, regulators, anti-vibration mounts, valves, static converters, frequency invertors, hydraulic accumulators, and hydraulic power plants.

...

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HMAS Darwin decommissioned

The Royal Australian Navy has decommissioned the Adelaide class FFG frigate, HMAS Darwin at a ceremony in Sydney on December 9.

Commissioned in 1984, Darwin has steamed more than one million nautical miles and has made port visits in more than 50 countries. The vessel has undertaken operations in the Middle East, Timor Leste, and the Solomon Islands.

“The ship and her successive companies have served Australia with distinction, being awarded battle honours three times for successful maritime security operations,” Chief of Navy, VADM Tim Barrett said. “It was the hard work and dedication of the crews who have called Darwin home that made this frigate so effective over such a long career.”

Darwin’s Commanding Officer, CMDR Phillip Henry, said lowering the Australian White Ensign for the final time closes a significant chapter in Navy’s history. “The 5,000 men and women who have served in Darwin will always carry fond memories of this ship,” he said.

“She is a good ship and we take great pride in our considerable achievements. We share this pride with many of Darwin’s past crew members who joined us to pay a final tribute to this Navy workhorse.”

After Darwin’s decommissioning, two FFGs remain in service and are scheduled to be replaced by the Hobart class DDGs in the next two years.

But Darwin may yet sail on, with reports that Poland has expressed interest in acquiring two of the RAN’s former FFGs to bolster its fleet of two ex-US Navy Perry class FFGs.

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With the luck of timing, Hugh White's new Quarterly Essay,

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, was released last month at almost exactly the same time as the launch of the Foreign Policy White Paper. It was a striking moment: just when the foreign-policy orthodoxy seemed to be catching up with him, White was upending it again.

White put himself at the centre of the national debate about the rise of China seven years ago with his previous Quarterly Essay,

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, following up in 2012 with

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. Nobody debating the China question in this country did so without either implicitly or explicitly wrestling with White's thesis. It was a remarkable achievement but also unusual in that, despite White's ubiquity in the national conversation about China and America, he gained almost no allies.

We have not seen the rise of a 'White-ian School' among Australia's foreign-policy commentators. Yes, there is admiration among his academic peers, but most of them want to debate him. There is also a group of commentators among whom White's work excites only animosity bordering on malice. Nor did our major political parties shift much in the direction recommended by White over the last seven years. Yes, a few retired political leaders expressed support, notably former prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. So too did Bob Carr and Malcolm Turnbull, though tellingly, when they later gained power - Carr as foreign minister and then Turnbull as prime minister - both of them pivoted to conventional positions on Australian foreign policy and the US alliance starkly at odds with White's iconoclasm.

So, when the

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acknowledged that China's growing strength would shift the regional power balance and hinted that Washington was becoming a less reliable regional leader, White might have been forgiven for some quiet self-congratulation.

Instead, he begins Without America with the claim that 'My critics and I were both wrong'. Seven years ago White argued that America needed to give up its strategic leadership in Asia and instead share power with a rising China. But White says he underestimated China's strength and overestimated America's resolve. He goes further, to argue we can now stop talking about power sharing because, in their contest for regional supremacy, 'America will lose, and China will win'.

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