There are five ship designers in the running for the SEA 3000 General Purpose Frigate contract – and two of them are from South Korea. In this episode we discuss Hanwha Ocean, based on a visit to their extremely impressive facility at Okpo near Busan on the south coast of the country. However, we could not discuss their Australian bid because the government has banned companies from speaking with the media under threat that if they do so their participation in the competition will be instantly cancelled. This is to prevent any information about how badly this project is being bungled by the RAN ever reaching the Australian public.
Even with that restriction there was still plenty to talk about, including Hanwha Ocean frigates for the Korean and Thai navies. Then a few words about industry policy, where the government of South Korea is doing the Australian government’s job for it. As promised, a few words about UK nuclear submarine projects – and they are struggling so badly with their own programs it is hard to see how they will ever manage to design and build SSN AUKUS.
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Some excellent points as usual.
Regarding Sea 3000 and related matters.
My personal bugbear is the choice of the Hunter class to replace the ANZAC class. If the Surface fleet review is correct in that we need more smaller vessels does that not make the decision to choose the Hunter class a massive strategic error?
We replaced the 3600 ton ANZAC’s with the 8000+ ton Hunter’s then only 5 years later conducted a review and discovered that yes in fact we needed many vessels in that smaller tonnage range.
Madness or sheer incompetence?
In my view, if for whatever reason, we insist on continuing with the Hunter’s then an even smaller vessel than the proposed Sea 3000 designs, being cheaper and with less crew is a better choice.
2200 ton upgraded Arafura’s comes to mind.
Not withstanding the excellent manufacturing capability of the Japanese and especially the Koreans, we have a contract already for a suitable base design that is being made in Australia courtesy of Lürssen.
Many thanks Kym.
Thanks for the feedback – and I agree that the obvious solution to address the RAN capability shortfall is four or six 2200 tonne corvettes based on the ships Luerssen is delivering for Bulgaria (a NATO country with a history of independence). These could be stretched Arafura class vessels using the existing Australian supply chain. The 9LV combat management system is part of the mix. It seems so obvious.
Thank you for another interesting Podcast. Concerning Sea 3000, it’s a concern that the “ Minimum Viable Capability “ has not been fully explained. Does this mean Anything that Floats or an orphan class incompatible with the rest of the Fleet. Does it mean that everything will be in a Foreign Language.Aside from the Combat Systems and Armament what else does Minimum Viable Capability mean. I find it hard to believe that the R.A.N. is totally in Control or even partially in control of this fiasco. I can accept that they were to blame for the Arafura disaster, they never wanted a basically heavy armed Patrol Boat, but accepting the Sea 3000 Ships as they stand seems suicidal. The sooner the Admirals remember they’re Sailors not Politicians the sooner the R.A.N. Will get what it needs and what we need is Hulls in the water quickly The best way to do that is to get Luerssen to work on their Corvette design.
Thanks – and your analysis is absolutely correct. The current attitude of the RAN – and the government – is completely insane.
Kym
Reports circling that Civmec is buying Luerssen Australia including all of Luerssen Australia’s assets, personnel, and licences.
Subject to due diligence from both parties
Can’t see that being any good for any future swing to a Luerssen Corvette.
Can see it being another disaster in the making
Correct. The RAN has succeeded in hounding Luerssen out of the country.
An absolute travesty.
Can’t blame them for cutting and running.
This disaster just gets better and better. First and foremost is to get a Minister for Defence that has the desire to actually do the job. By all means take advice from the ADF but makes decisions in the Country’s interests not because the Generals, Admirals And Air Marshals want the same toys their mates in the US have. The obsession with complex, complicated and expense solutions to simple problems has degraded the ADF to little more than an toothless tiger. Sometimes I think it would be better to sack the whole bloody lot and start all over again.
Strange decision to leave out the South Korean contenders and include the German A200.
The updated Mogami would have to be a very strong contender now. The German govt being in disarray does not help their cause. I can’t see why they can’t announce the final winner sooner rather than waiting until mid next year.
I’m also a bit puzzled – I thought the HHI case was particularly strong. There are a couple of issues with the Mogami: a) it is likely to be very expensive, and b) MHI doesn’t seem particularly interested in winning the contract – it’s all been pushed by the government of Japan.
Has MHI ever built a ship for export?
Wasn’t there some backlash from the Japanese themselves about issues with the Mogami being over automated?
To my knowledge MHI have only ever built warships for the Japanese market. That’s true about problems with the early Mogamis, though it has also been put to me that they were due to habitability issues rather than the level of automation, which was my initial impression.
If these ships are genuinely going to come on a “no changes” basis any habitability issue might be major.
If it genuinely annoyed Japanese crews it’s not going to go down well with Australian crews
Correct – but the Australian ships will supposedly be an upgraded Mogami with improvements made. However, this is already outside the definition of ‘in-service’ because the first of these won’t be delivered to the JMSDF until 2027 at the earliest.
Seems to me the maths say they will be in service then as we do not get ours until 2029.
Seems to be an issue with basic mathematics then. 2029 for Australia delivery comes after 2027 so they will be already in production and not built specifically for us.
Your maths seems to be correct.