Australian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

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here is How a French firm beat out Japanese companies in Australia’s submarine tender
A lack of Australian confidence in Japan’s defense industry sank an offer from Tokyo in the AUD$50 billion (U.S. $38 billion) tender for attack submarines, while greater stealth and advanced propulsion technology buoyed a rival French bid, said Sam Bateman, a research fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security.

Australia’s selection was based on a “commercial and strategic decision,” Bateman told the annual seminar of the Observatory for Southeast Asia on Nov. 17.

The seminar, held at the French War College, was organized by Asia Centre, a think tank of Inalco, a French foreign language institute, and was backed by the Institute for Strategic Research and General Directorate for International Relations and Strategy. The latter two are part of the French Armed Forces Ministry.

Japan enjoyed a strategic advantage, as there was “some U.S. pressure” on Australia to pick a Japanese submarine, Bateman said. But after an exhaustive study, there was “some uncertainty about Japanese ability to deliver,” he added. The lack of confidence stemmed from Japan’s little experience in defense sales in the wake of Australia’s multibillion dollar program.

“France is greatly involved in military sales,” Bateman said, adding that there was an offer for a better submarine in terms of stealth and a forced jet propulsion rather than a conventional propeller.

Bateman is a former Australian Navy senior officer and held senior posts in strategic policy and force development in the Australian Department of Defence.

Tokyo’s failure to win the Australian tender showed “Japan is … the new kid on the block when it comes to international arms sales,” said John Nilsson-Wright, senior lecturer at Cambridge University and senior research fellow at Chatham House.

That lack of experience reflected Japanese restrictions on arms exports after World War II, but now there are “many reflections of the great appetite on the part of defense industry in Japan,” he said. The defense industry is small in the Japanese national economy, “but the appetite is there,” he added.

A more active Japanese military role can be seen in the 2+2 meeting and in discussions between the U.K. and Japan, with defense technology part of those talks, Nilsson-Wright said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis met Japanese counterparts Taro Kono and Itsunori Onodera at a meeting of the bilateral Security Consultative Committee, or 2+2, in August.

France and Japan have also forged stronger defense technology links in recent years.

Japan displayed its
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at the
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, which closed Nov. 16, while the
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went on exhibition for the first time at the Paris Air Show in June.

Australia picked Naval Group in 2016 over the Japanese offer from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Shipbuilding, and a German bid from ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. The Australian Future Submarine Program seeks to build 12 ocean-going, diesel-electric submarines in Australia. Lockheed Martin will supply the combat management system.

Japan reversed in 2014 an arms export ban and embarked on a cautious sales drive, observing United Nations arms embargoes and avoiding offers to states mired in conflicts.
source is DefenseNews
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according to Jane's (dated 23 November 2017) Australia reasserts confidence in US lead in Asia Pacific, but with an eye on China
Australia’s first foreign policy White Paper in 14 years has confirmed Canberra’s belief that the United States will for the foreseeable future retain its significant global lead in military and soft power, but warns of China’s increasing capabilities and influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

“In parts of the Indo-Pacific, including in Southeast Asia, China’s power and influence are growing to match, and in some cases to exceed, that of the United States,” states the document, which was released on 23 November.

While recognising that there has been a debate and uncertainty in the United States about the costs and benefits of its international leadership, “we believe that the United States’ engagement to support a rules-based order is in its own interests and in the interests of wider international stability and prosperity”, said the government in Canberra.

...
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related to the post right above is Australia Calls for More US Engagement in Region
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Australia warned Thursday against American disengagement from Asia at a time of rising Chinese power, as traditional U.S. allies grow nervous about President Donald Trump's isolationist tilt.

In a major Foreign Policy White Paper -- the first to be issued by the Australian government in 13 years -- Canberra outlined its approach to the "Indo-Pacific" region amid "changing power balances".

"The United States has been the dominant power in our region throughout Australia's post-Second World War history. Today, China is challenging America's position," the 136-page document said.

"Navigating the decade ahead will be hard because, as China's power grows, our region is changing in ways without precedent in Australia's modern history."

The report said Australia was "committed to strong and constructive ties with China", while strongly supporting the global leadership role of the US, a key ally.

"We believe that the United States' engagement to support a rules-based order is in its own interests and in the interests of wider international stability and prosperity," it said.

"Without sustained U.S. support, the effectiveness and liberal character of the rules-based order will decline."

Trump was a lone protectionist voice at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam earlier this month, where he dished out more of his trademark "America First" rhetoric.

His withdrawal from American-led moves to open up global trade has seen China seeking to fill the gap.

Canberra cast itself as a middleman between the two superpowers, saying Australia would "encourage the United States and China to ensure economic tension between them does not fuel strategic rivalry or damage the multilateral trading system."

The report said Beijing and Washington have a mutual interest in managing the strategic tensions between them, "but this by itself is not a guarantee of stability."

It added: "Compounding divergent strategic interests as China's power grows, tensions could also flare between them over trade and other economic issues."

China is Australia's largest trading partner, with Beijing's hunger for commodities helping the resource-rich country avoid a recession for 26 years.

The U.S. has long been a close ally of Australia, with Canberra sending soldiers to support U.S. missions in Afghanistan and the Middle East, while Darwin has played host to
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who use the northern region of the country for training.
 
Sunday at 11:18 AM
here is November 18, 2017
Australia’s deteriorating strategic outlook

By Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smithsource:
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and here's a reaction (dated November 23, 2017)
Strategic risk in the new era: response to Dibb and Brabin-Smith

By Hugh White
Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith have written a significant
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that may well mark a turning point in Australia’s efforts to adapt to the new strategic circumstances we confront in Asia.

That policymakers of their status and experience now acknowledge that China’s rise requires big changes in Australia’s defence policy suggests that we are indeed, and at last, making progress towards a serious debate about our strategic future.

Dibb and Brabin-Smith analyse our situation using the concepts of ‘warning time’ and ‘expansion base’ which were most fully elaborated in the 1987 Defence White Paper. They argue that only recent events—even since the 2016 White Paper—have given grounds for deciding that we’re now in warning time as it was then conceived. But in fact the indicators and warnings go back much further than that. They were clear at the time of the 2009 White Paper, as that deeply flawed but perceptive document half-acknowledged, and plain enough even a decade before that.

But more importantly, I’m not sure that the 1987 conceptual framework is very relevant today. Warning time ceased to play a major role in defence policy in the 1990s, and was explicitly repudiated in the 2000 White Paper (paragraphs 6.36–6.38). We would have to venture deep into the airless crypts of defence-planning theology to explain in full detail why that happened, but the key reason was that by 2000 we had stepped quietly away from the ‘defence of Australia’ focus within which the warning time/expansion base had evolved.

As we have given higher priority to operations beyond the defence of Australia, we have slid back to depending on America for the defence of Australia itself, especially as it became less unthinkable that we might face a threat from a major Asian power more formidable than Indonesia. The concept of self-reliance faded away, until it almost disappeared completely from the 2016 White Paper. The more our defence policy has focused on China, the further we have stepped away from self-reliance.

So the defence policy we have today is much further from the policy of 1987 than Dibb and Brabin-Smith suggest. It is indeed much closer to the ‘forward defence’ policy of the pre-Vietnam era.

Plainly the credibility of this policy depends on our confidence that America will always be there for us. Dibb and Brabin-Smith barely touch on that question, but it is absolutely central to our current defence-policy predicament.

Despite China’s increasing power and ambition, our current policy would be quite workable if we could be sure that America was going to remain in Asia as the region’s leading strategic power and Australia’s protector. That’s because it would both reduce the chances of a Chinese attack on Australia and reduce the demands on the ADF in dealing with such an attack if it nonetheless occurred.

That’s why our political leaders are so eager to assure us that this is the case. But the evidence is now inescapably clear that they’re wrong. America’s position in Asia is collapsing fast, and not just because of Donald Trump.

The big question is therefore whether, and if so how, Australia can prepare to defend itself and its vital strategic interests from China without America’s support. Our problem isn’t just that we have run into warning time, but that we have run out of allies.

So what should we do? If, as Dibb and Brabin-Smith imply, we should reinstate self-reliance and aim to build forces that can defend us against China independently, just as we aimed to do against Indonesia in the old days, then we have a very big task ahead. They acknowledge that much needs to be done, but they make the task look less intimidating by suggesting that we can still rely on the concept of warning time to defer major investments.

I’m not sure that’s true. Warning time made perfect sense in relation to Indonesia in the strategic circumstances of the 1980s, but in relation to China today that is less clear. There’s no reason to assume that we would get anything like the warning they assume of an emerging threat.

If we decide that Australia should be able independently to resist a direct attack from a major Asian power like China, then we need to start building the forces to do that right now, not wait for some further warning sign. That’s especially true because it’s now abundantly clear that China’s capability development cycle is a lot shorter than ours.

But before we can do that we need a much clearer idea of what forces we need for this very demanding task. We must think much more seriously about the operations that could most cost-effectively achieve this strategic objective, and about the capabilities that could most cost-effectively undertake them.

Dibb and Brabin-Smith nod in that direction when they talk of developing an anti-access and area denial posture, but that’s where a lot more real work is needed, especially because so much of the investments we’re now committing to—for example, in massive warship programs—make no sense in that kind of posture. The ADF that could defend Australia independently from China would be very different from the ADF today, and the country and economy that could sustain such a force on protracted operations would be very different too —as Dibb and Brabin-Smith acknowledge in relation to things like fuel supplies.

So we still have a long way to go to understand what’s happening to us and what we can do about it. But it makes a big difference that Dibb and Brabin-Smith have now joined the discussion in such a forthright way.
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BAE Systems highlights proposed Future Frigate knowledge transfer
November 23, 2017
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"More than 5,000 ‘work years’ of technical design worth $1.5 billion would be transferred to Australia, BAE Systems stated."

oh really?
 

Lethe

Captain
There's a lot of talk about 'could' and 'should' in relation to Australian policy, but little of what will happen. Of course the folks who are in a position to influence policy are naturally going to try to do just that, but I'm more than a little cynical about the enterprise. Of course free will exists, and policies can be made or altered in fashions both wise and unwise. However I'm basically a materialist, which is to say that I think that the decisions that are made will not depend upon clever or silly ideas advanced by wise or foolish persons, but rather upon the political configurations of power that obtain at the time and the interests that are thereby represented, operating under more-or-less universal laws of human psychology in a particular sociopolitical context and institutional decision-making framework.

All of that is a roundabout way of saying that I expect the evolution of Australia's strategic posture to be both gradual and to lag behind the times. In particular, I expect our borderline incestuous relationship with the United States will persist long after it has ceased to serve the national interest (if it has not done so already). More radical revisions of policy as proposed and critiqued above are highly unlikely in the absence of a disruptive event that upends the intellectual-institutional status quo and all the inertia it carries with it.

To put it even more bluntly and succinctly, I expect that Australia will fail to read and respond adequately to the changing strategic environment, such that we could be caught as flat-footed and unprepared in the 2030s/40s as we were in the 1930s/40s. One hopes that world events play out in a more benign way than they did back then, such that our sloth in adjusting to the times is merely a source of frustration and amusement rather than the kind of catastrophic error that makes it into future high school textbooks, but certainly I have zero confidence in the ability of Australia's politico-strategic class to navigate our nation through choppy waters if they eventuate.
 
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asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Aussies picked French over Japan from the simple reason that they thought that Japan is unable to established a transfer of technology to another country

French have been doing TOT for years DCNS is a top teir Naval sellers that have a track record in clinching deals routinely beating the Americans and Russians at it

UK in comparison is shocking in naval assets sales DCNS is very tough company to beat if they are pitching

Having said all that I think RAN should have picked the Japanese SSK
 
Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri has revealed that it will seek to build three cruise ship hull blocks in Australia as it prepares for the Future Frigate program, being delivered under Sea 5000.
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post it this way as I noticed it's an ad
 
I'm new to this, so "a surprise twist" below couldn't surprise me LOL!
Austal, ASC and Civmec to build Luerssen Offshore Patrol Vessels under $3.6b Sea 1180 tender
24 November 2017
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In a surprise twist, the Commonwealth has selected West Australian shipbuilders Austal and Civmec/Forgacs to build 10 of the 12 Offshore Patrol Vessels under the Sea 1180 tender, but with the OPV80 design of German shipbuilder Luerssen, not Fassmer, with which Austal was partnered.
In an annoucement made in Canberra this morning, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, accompanied by Defence and Defence Industry Ministers Marise Payne and Christopher Pyne and senior ADF leadership said the $3.6 billion program would utilise the building expertise of ASC in Adelaide for the first two vessels, with both Austal and Civmec/Forgacs to share construction of the further 10 vessels at Henderson. The share of the work between Austal and Civmec/Forgacs was subject to negotiation according to Minister Pyne.

ADM Editor Katherine Ziesing visited the Luerssen yards and head office in Germany earlier this year, along with time at the Fassmer yard, on the same river in Bremen. Her coverage of the OPV program to date can be found
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.

Company spokesperson Detlef Schlichting confirmed at that time the company was offering a number of options for armament, fit out and various systems to the Commonwealth; he was evasive on the exact design being offered for Sea 1180 although their 80m design was highlighted.

The company had teamed in
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, allowing them access to mature facilities in both states.

Austal had
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for the build, and given the limited time before steel cut is scheduled in 2018, will be under pressure to adjust to the Luerssen design.

The Fassmer design was well suited to the Australian requirement, with a far superior range to the other offerings (12,000 nautical miles as opposed to 6-8,000 nautical miles), an ice rating, more space for containerised mission modules (3 vs. 2) and a design that was proven in service with Chile and Colombia and required few modifications for Sea 1180 purposes.

ADM will provide further updates to this story as more information comes to hand.
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and now the vid:
 
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