The Australian government has reaffirmed its commitment to continuous naval shipbuilding and sustainment delivered by an Australian workforce and anchored by sovereign supply chains, through the release of the 2024 Naval Shipbuilding and Sustainment Plan.
The 2024 Naval Shipbuilding and Sustainment Plan outlines the government’s record investment of up to $159 billion over the next decade through the Integrated Investment Program that will see a significant boost to Australia’s maritime capabilities. This includes 55 newly announced vessels compared to the plan under the former coalition government.
The plan articulates a 30-year pipeline of construction and sustainment projects, largely across South Australia and Western Australia, including conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines, an enhanced lethality surface combatant fleet and landing craft for the Australian Army.
These decisions will create an intergenerational pipeline of naval construction projects that will support around 8,500 jobs in shipbuilding and sustainment by 2030, plus an additional 20,000 jobs over the next 30 years in support of Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine program. The government is already taking decisive steps to grow this workforce, including through:
- $1.5 billion to provide 500,000 Free TAFE and vocational education training places;
- $250 million to attract, train and retain the nuclear-powered submarine workforce, including 4,000 Commonwealth supported STEM university places across Australia;
- The implementation of the South Australia Defence Industry Workforce and Skills Report and Action Plans in partnership with the South Australian Government.
The coordinated growth of this workforce will be overseen by the newly established Maritime Workforce and Skills Council in close collaboration with partners from federal, state and territory governments, industry, trade unions and academia.
The government is also progressing detailed design and enabling works to deliver multi-billion-dollar infrastructure upgrades for Australia’s maritime industrial base, including for the new Defence Precinct at Henderson in Western Australia and the Submarine Construction Yard at Osborne in South Australia. To ensure the government’s approach to shipbuilding keeps pace with the changing strategic environment, the plan will be updated on a biennial basis, with the next iteration scheduled for release in 2026.
A copy of the 2024 Naval Shipbuilding and Sustainment Plan can be found here: https://www.defence.gov.au/about/strategic-planning/2024-naval-shipbuilding-sustainment-plan.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said: “The long-term investment laid out in the 2024 Naval Shipbuilding and Sustainment Plan represents the Albanese government’s vision for continuous naval shipbuilding and sustainment, a future made in Australia and our commitment to keeping Australians safe. Through the most significant investment in maritime capability in Australia’s history, we will see generations of naval construction projects happen right here, with plans to construct and upgrade over 70 vessels across South Australia and Western Australia.”
Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery Pat Conroy: “Under this plan, the Albanese government is building world class shipyards and creating tens of thousands of well-paid jobs for decades to come, providing financial security for Australians and a future made in Australia. The government’s record investment in the maritime domain will deliver a much bigger and more lethal navy and an army that’s appropriate to our strategic environment. This will make Australia safer.”
It’s the ALP, come on! Look at what they actually do when it comes to naval defence spending rather than what they announce in media puff pieces. The ALP history in this area is diabolical. The Rudd government announced plenty in the naval defence area yet didn’t actually let a single naval building contract during their government tenure. So far this government is identical. Plenty of announcements no actual building of naval assets.
Rob I 💯 agree if anything if our navy could sink ships with spin this labour government would be a tornado 🌪️.we talk big but it’s a government who pass the bill forward to successive coalition Government defence budgets and then sit back and claim the vision.!
The facts are falling recruiting cutting Arafura class opv to half, cutting the fighting vehicles in half,cutting the new air awful frigates by a third.
Cancelled critical optical and middle upgrades to Collins Lote project. Halfing the Hanwa artillery contract. Allowing our legacy ANZAC class to slip to 6 from 8 ships and not implementing the full terms of upgrades there.
We have a weaker RAN with only one available Collins class operating after all the effort the previous government did to bring maximum availability.
W
I can add a few things to that list: cancelled SEA 1905, diminishing vital MCM capability; very quiet retirement of 1 of 2 hydrographic ships; cancelled JP 9102 strategic SATCOMM. Money is being siphoned off to support AUKUS Pillar One.
Again with the Grand Announcements with 10year time lines. Promises of phantom jobs sometime in the distant future, guarantees of advanced capability sometime next decade. All of which is centred on W.A and S.A. neither of which (for various reasons) have done anything that engenders confidence in their ability to achieve the tasks in the allotted time. Defence Minister , sorry , Deputy Prime Minister Marles can make all the promises he likes about the future of the R.A.N. But the facts are, Hunter Class will be a disaster, Sea 3000 will be an orphan and the AUKUS Boat will never see the water. The upshot is the R.A.N will only have 3 Hobarts,all due for refits, 6, possibly 4, Anzacs and about 9 or 10 ECCPB, only armed with machine Guns, 2 support ships, currently under repair, 2 Canberra class LHD , no MCMW capabillity until the new ships arrive in about 2030, the first 2 ( or 3 depending on media outlet) will be fine , they’re being built overseas and the DoD interference will be Minimal , after that is anybody’s guess. Unfortunately the entire Continuous Ship Building Project has been mismanaged so badly nobody can fix the mess without starting all over.
That’s an accurate summary of the situation. Profoundly depressing. And the ex-USN Admirals who are at least partially responsible for this unholy mess continue to pocket enormous fees and are believed by everyone from Marles downward. Mind you, many of our own people are no better.
A few more Labour failures being:
Did not get OPV back on track, solution, cut the buy in half and drive Luerssen out of Australia. (perhaps the Kiwi’s should be offered them as I suspect they will not consider replacing their two ANZAC’s).
Interfered in the partnering for LCM in order to be seen as promoting a 100% Aussie content. Instead of awarding the contract to one of the established bidding groups who had been working together, they decide to force Birdon and Austal together. Result of this “arranged marriage” being delay upon delay and several early visits to the Councellor. I notice that it’s not been reported that the first prototype hull funded by Birdon and built by their original builder partner yard ((Echo) has been effectively dumped. The two partly constructed hull modules as well as the Bridge structure were removed from the Echo shed some weeks ago. They now languish in a vacant Henderson block waiting for either a Buyer or scrapping.
Having selected the Damen design for LCH (a good choice by the looks of it), they then go for the 100 metre version instead of the 120 metre. The 20 metre plug being of simplistic construction but bringing so much more capability in the form of additional embarked troop capacity, extra cargo/vehicle load-out and potentially greater range via increase tankage. A missed opportunity that would have produced a very useful increase in mission result/duration for a modest increase in cost.
Regarding the GP Frigate. Whilst I’ve no doubt that both the Japanese and German offerings will be very capable and the overall designs will be of high quality (it remains to be seen if that quality can be replicated in an Australian Yard by Australian workers), in my opinion they are both woefully too small. The current engagements between the US Navy and the Houthis, not to mention events in the Black Sea, clearly show that the use of relatively low cost missiles and drones (both aerial and water-borne) is in the ascendancy. The Allied Warships have been expending large numbers of missiles in countering these threats. Using a multi-million dollar SM-2 (or similar) missile to down an aerial threat potentially costing a few hundred dollars is both ridiculous and unsustainable. But it does show us that the future for CIWS against low-speed targets is likely to be Directed Energy Weapons, leaving the high-end area-defence AAW for high-end threats such as Supersonic Missiles.
To meet this current and future threat, we should be building these Frigates to at least the size of, for example, the Type 31 currently under construction for the RN. Hull space is critical, with a MK41 VLS capacity of 128 Cells as the bare minimum. Laser weapons of the future will increase in both range and energy requiring large power generation/storage, both requiring large internal volume.
If we select either of the two designs under consideration, we will find ourselves in the not too distant future trying to retrofit large bulky equipment into hulls without sufficient room…….think ANZAC 2.0 here.
Just remember, “Steel is cheap, and the air it surrounds is free”, so go big or (literally) go home.
Thanks for your thoughts – that’s a lot of very useful information. I’m still completely bent out of shape about the way Luerssen were treated – if we had just stuck with the parent design for Brunei we would have ships with a 57mm main gun, 4 x SSMs (presumably NSM); and the opportunity to put anything on the large rear deck, such as Lockheed Martin’s Mk 70 launcher. Oh – and it would be possible to operate a Sea Hawk from them.
I disagree with the idea that bigger vessels are needed, what we need is quite the opposite in my opinion.
Smaller vessels networked with missiles and medium calibre self defence guns such as an upgraded Brunei dar es Salaam /Arafura 2 type vessel, up to 24 of them would be better in my view than say 6 Hunter class.
The sinking of the Moskva and the attacks in Sevastopol harbour highlight the vulnerability of large vessels and infrastructure to modern weapons and asymmetric attack.
More ships that are cheaper, lighter and providing distributed sensor and shooter networks provide the same or better offence with better resilience to inevitable battle space losses.
As outlined by the latest article on the Mogami class, the Japanese appear to be thinking along the same lines.
Modern weapons are too dangerous, you will loose vessels, no matter how big they are, so making cheaper vessels and distributing and diversifying your sensors and shooters makes sense.
The latest Mogami’s are just the next step in this realisation
The only real advantage to Australia of large vessels is in sea keeping and range.
Loosing an 8 Billion dollar Hunter class in Sydney harbour to a glorified jetski is a huge loss, this is already happening around the world
Bigger is not always better
My 2 cents.
Couldn’t agree more.
In a perfect World Kevin, we’d have a mix of both large and small vessels, but cost and crew numbers make that problematic. But you’ve perfectly stated the over-riding case for Australia to go big with your statement, “The only real advantage to Australia of large vessels is in sea keeping and range”. These attributes alone allow a fighting vessel to remain at Sea doing what it is designed for as opposed to transiting backwards and forwards to either rearm or refuel. Reducing the time spent in restricted waters and therefore the threat from a glorified jetski, as you put it.
I’d also point out that an Arafura OPV, even if up-armed, is in absolutely no way comparable to a Type 26, (nor is a Mogami). The Hunters are a high-end Anti-Submarine Vessel, hence the cost (albeit a large chunk of our price is due to the RAN trying to turn it into a high-end Anti-Air Ship). We could have a hundred up-armed OPV’s/Corvettes of the type you mention and they would still not equate to the ASW capability of one Hunter.
Nigel
Thanks Nigel – you write as if the Hunters are already in service. They are about a decade away if all goes to plan – and are shockingly expensive. When finally delivered I’m sure they will be very good ships, but at what cost?
Everything comes at a cost Kym, especially effective Defence against potential foes who might seek to dominate us or take our Freedom away. We could, of course, just not bother and hope for the best or for World peace to break out, that would save us heaps of money……..But ASW is a full-time professional sport requiring the best equipment/people and constant practice before gameday.
The Type 26 has in it’s linage the Type 22 and Type 23 Frigates, I’ve worked on both extensively previously for the best part of twenty years. Top of their league during their respective periods of service, the Type 23 ASW mission systems are top-notch still. (it’s the age of the platform structure that is causing huge sustainment issues) With their primary Cold War NATO ASW mission, the RN (along with the Dutch and the Canadians) led the field by a long shot. All of that experience and more have been fed into the T26 design, that is what will make it a feared adversary for any hostile Submarine. We must have faith in that.
Nigel
Nigel. I would respectfully dispute that range and sea keeping are over-riding parameters for Australian navy ships, of due consideration, well yes, but just one of many factors to consider.
Numbers, capability, crewing and cost all matter and it’s a balancing act at all times.
I would point out that having say 24 upgraded Arafura class vs 6 Hunter class is not as simple an analysis of which ship is better at its task and has more range and time on station.
Numbers matter in many ways.
Firstly: Ships cannot be deployed all the time, the crews need rest, training and the ships maintenance. There is a model of ship deployments being a 4-1 model, that is for 1 ship deployed you have one recovering from deployment, (crew resting, retraining and the ship refueled rearmed and minor maintenance), a 3rd ship is “working up” to a deployment and the 4th is in a deeper level of maintenance. This means your deployments can be maintained for extended periods.
At best you can do a 3-1 model but not for extended periods, deeper maintenance can only be put off for so long. Yes in very short term you might be able to surge all or most ships but that comes with its own difficulties.
So for 6 Hunter class you can have under the 3-1 model, 2 ships deployed at once, whereas with 24 upgraded Arafura you could deploy 8 ships under the same model.
Even if a Hunter class is 6 times better than an upgraded Arafura you are still only covering 2 areas along Australia’s massive coastline and or on a foreign deployment, while the upgraded Arafura’s could cover 8.
Also remember that distributed sensor and shooter networks are huge force multipliers in themselves. 8 vessels deployed is 8 radar pictures, 8 sonar pictures, 8 sets of UAV’s deployed off a deck all feeding ISTAR data into the Australian command network. Then from that data we can work out what to do, either from the vessel itself or from shore based or air based assets either allies or our own. 2 data pictures vs 8.
With the 24 upgraded Arafura class Navy could have a vessel each defending Perth and Sydney naval bases, a further 2 covering the Indonesian archipelago to aid our allies and 4 vessels say in the Philippines on deployment, quite some coverage.
Numbers matter.
You wrote “We could have a hundred up-armed OPV’s/Corvettes of the type you mention and they would still not equate to the ASW capability of one Hunter.”
Lets not go overboard, 100 towed array sonars of the capability of say Captas 2 is a huge area covered ASW wise and is certainly not less than 1% as effective as that on the Hunter, as well as the air picture and surface area covered by the radars and air/surface weapons embarked. Allied commanders I would wager, would love to have that type of area coverage. See my points above.
Lastly I would also dispute the claim as to the effectiveness of the Type 26 class as an anti submarine platform, yes the brochure looks good, but they are not in service as yet. The Type 26 is still in fitting out as I type this and not in service. Just look at the Ajax program of Armoured fighting vehicles in the UK a much simpler program that went horribly wrong and the difference from brochure to reality is quite stark. I will reserve my judgement on the Type 26 when it is in service, and the the Hunter class when it is in service, in 2034, a full 16 years after the design was selected. Need I mention that smaller ships are quicker to build?
I do agree however that ideally we would have a mix of large and small vessels, however, to replace 3600 tonne ANZAC’s with 8-10,000 tonne Hunters is not that idea at all. There are many significant advantages of more numerous smaller vessels, foregoing Luerssen’s Arafura upgrade is a real missed opportunity to take advantage of that.
I would like to add that while I respectfully disagree in some matters I am happy for a thoughtful discussion.
regards
Kevin