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Friday, February 20, 2009

Australian Navy to spend $15bn on subs

Collins class submarineThe Federal Government will spend $15 billion on a new Australian-built fleet of submarines under a 15 to 20 year project.

The project codenamed SEA 100 will replace the Royal Australian Navy's fleet of six Collins-class subs based at Garden Island near Perth, the West Australian reports.

The submarines will be built in Adelaide, be non-nuclear and use a combination of Australian, European and US technology.

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6 comments:

  1. Alex20/2/09 19:42

    thanks for the link to the picks, I hate it when they are massive chunks of just text, and thankyo for becoming considering my blog good enough to follow. oh and thankyou very much for being the first to comment! anyway my comment on this is do you know if they will maintain the Australian government are going to sell of the collins class immediately on commission of the new class, or are they going to maintain them with the aim of keeping a higher submarine capability?

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  2. Unknown20/2/09 20:10

    Hi Alex,
    You should ask Pete, he is more in the (Australian) submarines than I am.
    You'll like his blog as well
    http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/

    For Pete: have a look at Alex's blog
    http://amphibiousnecessity.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pete24/2/09 01:56

    Kobus - thanks for the referral.

    Hi Alex

    I'm now a follower of your blog and will soon comment on your posts there.

    The Collins are boats intentionally built for long range missions. Highly specialised for Australian conditions. Countries that ordinarily seek long range subs (the 5 official nuclear powers and India) solve it by building nuclear powered subs.

    Furthermore the Collins (launched 1993 to 2001) will be fairly worn out by the period the new Australian subs will likely come in (2025 onwards and slipping due to overal defence budget cuts).

    Hence they would bad candidates for export. They will be worn out, requiring high maintenance, highly optimised for Australian conditions rather than export.

    Their lack of air independent propulsion also puts them behind boats already being exported.

    Pete

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  4. Alex24/2/09 09:51

    Pete

    thanks for clearing that up, I have also started following your blog; I will say this I can more understand Australia building such Highly focused/specialised Subs for its situation, than I can the Royal Navy build AAD which don't carry anti ship or cruise missiles - speaking of which I heard a rumor that the collins can fire tomahawks is that true?

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  5. Unknown24/2/09 10:30

    The Australian Navy investigated the possibility of deploying Tomahawk cruise missiles on the Collins class. While this was physically possible, computer overload was found to cause additional command system problems.

    Source: http://www.forecastinternational.com/archive/ws/ws1055.doc

    ReplyDelete
  6. Alex24/2/09 12:35

    thanks for clearing that up, as a person who has worked their way through uni as an IT Technician I would advise this - more RAM is needed!

    ReplyDelete

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