Australia Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

[Lethe]

Australia sends equipment to military exercises Super Garuda Shield 2023. For the first time since the Vietnam War, Australia sent tanks and armored vehicles abroad to the joint military exercises Super Garuda Shield 2023 with the United States in Indonesia. As reported, the equipment will be involved in the exercises next week. The exercises in Indonesia will be held from 31 August to 13 September. They will be attended by 125 troops from Australia, M1A1 tanks, armored personnel carriers, trucks and tow trucks. The exercise will allow the Australian armed forces to conduct training and work out interaction with partner countries to effectively deploy significant ground forces, including armored vehicles, across the Indo-Pacific region.

Australia is

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at coordinating with the Indonesian military.

 

[RobertC]

Michelle Fahy reports

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The Defence Department’s $46 billion (and rising) acquisition from BAE Systems of nine [Hunter-class frigates] has been referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

The referral follows our exclusive

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into Australia’s second largest naval procurement.

Greens’ defence spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge made the referral. ‘The Greens referred this issue to the NACC because it shows that the culture Coalition and Labor governments have fostered in Defence is not serving the interests of the community,’

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.

In May lych470 linked to the Australian Auditor General conducted a review into the Hunter class frigate procurement

 

[Lethe]

The review on the RAN's surface combatant plans has been handed to government and the broad shape of recommendations are emerging:

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Sources briefed on the findings of a review of the navy’s surface fleet, which was delivered to Defence Minister Richard Marles last week, said it had recommended slashing the planned number of Hunter-class frigates from nine to six, as current shipbuilding projects face cost overruns of up to $20 billion.

The Hunter-class frigates have blown out in size and cost since the program was announced in 2018, with critics saying the ships’ lack of missile cells would leave them seriously under-gunned in any conflict.

The surface fleet review, led by retired US vice-admiral William Hilarides, is said to call for the final three frigates to be replaced by air warfare destroyers, which could carry up to five times as many missiles as the Hunter-class ships.

“Hilarides definitely backed a further destroyer-type capability,” a source briefed on the contents of the review but not authorised to speak publicly said.

These ships could be made at Adelaide’s Osborne shipyards using the same hull as the Hunter-class frigates under a proposal to be submitted by BAE Systems, the British defence firm that designed the Hunter-class ships.

The review is also said to recommend acquiring three to six corvette-style ships, in line with the defence strategic review’s recommendation that the national fleet should have a mix of larger and smaller navy combatants.

The total cost of the additional ships would be an estimated $25 billion to $30 billion over 20 years, a difficult request as Treasurer Jim Chalmers looks for budget savings and the government prepares to spend up to $368 billion over 30 years on the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines.

The Australian defence bureaucracy continues to lead the world in its ability to dispose of vast sums of money with little to show for it. Going back a decade, what we should've done is continued the Hobart AWD destroyer program and procured 6-8 ships (at much better economies of scale than the 3 we actually bought), then moved on to a further ~8 modest frigates e.g. Mogami, FTI, new MEKO 200 variant, etc. Control risk, control cost, take advantage of economies of scale, deliver relevant capabilities in relevant timeframes. Instead...

 

[Lethe]

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The Defence Department has conceded it had a "poorly executed" process for selecting a British company to build Australia's $45 billion future frigates, where "sufficient attention" was not given to risks associated with choosing an immature design.

In 2018 the Turnbull government announced BAE Systems had beaten rival bids from Spain and Italy for the lucrative project to build up to nine high-tech, anti-submarine warships in Adelaide.

Department secretary Greg Moriarty has now outlined numerous shortcomings by defence during the competitive evaluation process between 2014 and 2018 where officials reported that "successive government ministers were closely involved as the process developed and iterative advice was provided".

The secretary also observed that his department "did not use all information available out of the tender process to undertake a comparative assessment in a manner consistent with defence procurement policy".

"In failing to do this defence did not fulfil the requirements of the Commonwealth Procurement Rules in relation to achieving value for money," the Secretary writes in a submission dated November 10.

"The focus on achieving capability requirements displaced sufficient attention to the risks as well as the consideration of the tenders against other criteria which information was assessed and documented as part of the process."

Depending on one's perspective, it becomes either more or less amusing when one considers that the clown car government that delivered us the Hunter-class frigate program is the same government that committed us first to the Attack-class submarine program and then to AUKUS. Risk? Never heard of it.

 

[lych470]

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Defence has confirmed that an undisclosed number of the Royal Australian Air Force’s ten Leonardo C-27J Spartan airlifters have been grounded after fatigue cracking was found in their empennages.​

The aircraft were inspected following an Alert Service Bulletin issued by Leonardo, the Italian manufacturers of the airframe that warned about fatigue cracks which have been detected around the fin and horizontal stabiliser attach points.

 

[redion]

The Eurotorp MU90 torpedoes have been selected for the first batch of the three new Hunter class frigates of the RAN.

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[redion]

End now one of those crazy examples that only the Australian Department of Defence is know for making.
(Truly what a waste)

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[Atomicfrog]

Well, it look good for AUKUS :

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[B777LR]

End now one of those crazy examples that only the Australian Department of Defence is know for making.
(Truly what a waste)

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Of course they are getting rid of all evidence. The retirement and replacement was a sham, based on Australian incompetence and a wish to ingratiate themselves with the Americans, and they blamed the aircraft and manufacturer for it all. Had they been sold on to a new user, they would have worked just fine.

They pulled the same trick on the Tigre attack helicopter and Attack-class submarine, and have just started complaining about the C-27J.

 

[mankyle]

Maybe, just maybe, in this case it IS the manufacturer's fault...

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Regarding the Taipans, Norway wants to ditch theirs, the availability of the German ones is not good and only the Spanish ones (that have GE engines, not the RTM 322) and the italian ones have shown good availability figures.
Nevertheless, it is a quite exigent machine in terms of maintenance and I know that there have been corrosion problems with the composites that have supposedly been solved.