It’s been a big week in South Korea with the Presidents of the US and China meeting on the fringes of APEC. Another related development was the US agreeing to help South Korea develop nuclear powered submarines. The Australian reaction has been predictably snarky and ill-tempered as people to start to realise we aren’t as special as we have been telling everyone we are. While it’s early days, it looks like South Korea will be building new submarines for themselves, not buying second-hand clunkers from the US that we have fallen for. Finally, the Trump-Xi meeting looks like it has been a major win for China. No surprise there.
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Kim, have you heard anything of the stories about Birdon being removed as Design Lead for the Landing Craft Medium?
Austal announced yesterday that it has been appointed the design authority.
For a Birdon designed vessel?
Would that be considered normal?
Nothing about this project is normal. Austal originally teamed with Raytheon and BMT.
Completely agree with your views on reaching out to the South Korean government wrt to the proposed Nuclear submarine program. I read a little while back that they already have a boat design in place.
Also believe that we should be joining in on the KF-21 program as a second tier fighter option.
As for the rest of the dog and pony show it is business as usual.
Re the Landing Craft Medium Project. Select the Birdon design, Designate Austal to build it ( whose bid with BMT failed) and appoint Austal as design authority. Why didn’t they just select Austal in the 1st place because that’s what they’ll end up getting. I think it would be easier to just forget anything resembling a tender and selection process and just accept what ever the Political Climate at the time demands.
The government and Defence appear to be losing all interest in anything resembling objective process.