Well, that was certainly cheaper but do all the instruction have to be in Japanese?
Posted on 09/08/2014 10:02:02 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
BUILDING a new fleet of submarines in Australia would be too risky and too expensive, the Abbott government has concluded.
Instead, the government is considering buying “off-the-shelf” options from Japan and Germany, with Japan’s Soryu- class boat the frontrunner.
As well as the risk and cost of building the submarines on home soil, such a project would require big infrastructure spending, whereas Japan has an established production line.
Defence sources have told The Australian it would cost between $50 billion and $80bn to design and build the submarines in Australia. This compares with previous estimates that the submarines were likely to cost between $36bn and $40bn to build.
It is understood that if the deal goes ahead as many as 12 Japanese submarines could be bought for about $25bn.
The German company TKMS offered to build 12 subs for $20bn.
Sources said the previous government’s view that the submarines could be designed and built in time to replace the Collins-Class vessels was “wildly optimistic”.
The Collins will be decommissioned from 2026-27 and the new submarines could not be ready until 2032, leaving Australia with a serious capability gap. The government plans to order at least eight submarines and possibly 12.
Opposition trade and investment spokeswoman Penny Wong said that in opposition the Coalition had made a clear commitment to build the new submarines in Adelaide and now it was walking away from it.
“This is another Tony Abbott lie,” Senator Wong said.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...
How much to refit the Collins class subs to get another decade out of them?
What can I say?
I’m cheap.
The Collins class boats *still* have serious unresolved problems, not least of which being that nobody wants to serve aboard them. They will be in the fleet until 2028, but already they’re having problems with parts - since they insisted on so much native design, they’ve had both design and production issues and a lot of the replacement parts have the same problems as the originals. Not to mention a lot of the parts makers went out of business under Labour.
Or, to put it another way - the Collins class might as well have been made by the Australian branch of Lucas Electrics. Massive fundamental problems. One issue - the first sub came with French generators which turned out to be infinitely more reliable than the ‘All-Aussie’ generators fitted to the following ships. They’re noisier than the subs they replace by an order of magnitude. They’re not any more capable than the Oberons, either, and in some respects they are reportedly worse.
It’s hard to know who to believe - I was talking to someone from Australian Sub Corp last night and their take on it was that they did have real and major initial design problems but that they were fixed and that now it is an extremely reliable unit. I would actually love to hear from somebody who served on them.
Mel
Didn’t serve on them - know a number of people who did quite well.
The Collins class boats have wound up very capable - after lot of teething problems - that seems to be the general assessment of those who served on them.
The reasons behind going overseas really seem to me to relate to other issues - one big one being that an industry that assumed it was almost guaranteed to get this type of work simply by being Australian has not bothered to develop efficiency or reliability standards this type of work needs.
All things being equal I’d always prefer these major projects for the ADF were as Australian as possible - but not at the expense of capability, efficiency or safety. We have a duty to put our men and women to sea in the best vessels possible - wherever they come from. And defence procurement should never become just another jobs program.
Have to agree that it should not just be a jobs program -I’m not sure that ASC would agree with the assessment that it has not developed the efficiency or reliability standards after learning so much on the Collins and putting in lots of fixes into a design which was full of faults from the outset. Still I don’t build subs so I am only taking other people’s words for it!
Mel
I‘m sure Electric boat or Newport News Ship Building would love to get a contract to build those subs.
So, I guess I should give up on that submarine I'm building in my back yard and should go back to building birdhouses. Too risky.
If you want nuke boats, you’d be hard pressed to find a better source than Newport News or Electric Boat.
The Aussies want diesel boats.
If you want good diesel boats, you need to look somewhere else. Germany and Japan come to mind ...
And the Collins have been nothing but problems. So, it's probably in their best interest to get a proven design and build process for half the money.
That way they can actually man and maintain the new fleet.
Electric Boat has a lot of experience building diesal subs.
Everyone of the subs we built during WWII was a diesal sub.Well actualy a diesal electric sub.
With the improvements in technology today,I’m sure that they could build very capable diesal boats.
What sort of submarines does Electric Boat build in Groton TODAY?
I have no doubt that we could build quality diesel boats in Groton, or Newport News, or maybe even Pascagoula ... but we'd have to start from a blank CAD file. We'd be starting to do what the Germans and Japanese are currently doing.
Kockums AB in Malmo, Sweden make EXCELLENT submarines, as well as German shipyards in Kiel.
Enter screen door joke here __________.
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