RAN fleet expansion – what DON’T we know?

The announcement that the RAN’s fleet of surface combatants would more than double is welcome; even more so is the news that the Australian defence budget will be increased to pay for them.

It is gratifying that EX² managed to call the strategy, in broad terms, about right and for mostly the right reasons. It’s no surprise that Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) is a key capability justifying construction of six of the planned nine Hunter-class frigates, nor that Aegis is important to the RAN. What came as a real surprise, however, was the ASW focus of the Tier 2 General Purpose Frigates and then the announcement that the RAN would acquire six Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels (LSOV), to be armed with 32 vertical launch silos (presumably the Mk41 VLS) and equipped with the Aegis Baseline 9 Combat system.

The announcement about the expanded surface combatant fleet prompts some questions that the announcements and available material haven’t provided answers for:

• Does the extra money given to the RAN require program cancellations elsewhere to free up the money?
• When will the first Hunter-class frigate be delivered? (We know construction will begin this calendar year)
• How and when will we select the planned general-purpose frigates?
• Which sonars, missiles and combat system will they have?
• When will they be delivered?
• How will we select a prime contractor for the Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessel (LOSV)?
• Will it be related to Austal’s optionally crewed patrol boat Sentinel? If so, how?
• Will we end up building a version of the US Navy’s Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV) and re-brand it as the LOSV?
• When will the LOSV be delivered?

And, most important of all – how will we crew all these ships? How will we recruit and train sailors for these surface ships as well as for the (up to) eight nuclear-powered submarines we plan to buy and then build? And how will we recruit and train sailors for our other undersea warfare priorities?

When I know some of the answers I’ll get back to you.