By the time the last AWD is commissioned the first will need to go into refit to get upgraded to either Baseline 9.x or 10 (whatever is available).
All said and done, we should have bought Flight IIA Arleigh Burke's straight from the US production line. We could have bought twice as many ships, better ships, and benefit from a large and established engineering and logistic supply chain.
“Being an old Army guy I know literally nothing about Western navies (*any* navies for that matter) but it seems to me that countries like Australia can’t be expected to always have cutting edge technology in their Armed Forces.Australia,for one thing,is a small country whose economy is,unless I’m mistaken,currently having noteworthy difficulties. “
Small countries with small economies should concentrate on smaller vessels and drones and build lots more of them. It does not take a huge, multi-billion dollar ship to launch cruise missiles or super-fast anti-ship missiles. Sure they can’t carry as many but chances are they won’t fire many either. This isn’t world war two with dumb weapons where you have to fill the sky with flack. Smaller and more numerous means your capability is spread over a wider area and is harder to find and hit.
America builds huge ships because it can. But they are also huge targets. An enemy will not attack until they have an advantage. The Japanese, for example, had long range torpedoes that they used to huge effect, neutralizing a lot of ships that were, on other scales more effective. If the Chinese Mach 10 antiship missiles turn out to be effective, then we can say goodbye to the era of large ships. We won’t know until the next Pearl Harbor.