Two reportedly down-selected for RAN’s SEA3000

Australian Defence Magazine has joined The Australian and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in reporting that two contenders – ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries – have been shortlisted to provide the RAN’s eleven planned General-Purpose Frigates, worth up to $11 billion, in Project SEA3000.

There has been no announcement as yet from the Australian Department of Defence.

ADM says the National Security Committee (NSC) of Cabinet has reportedly down-selected TKMS’s MEKO A200 and MHI’s upgraded Mogami 30FFM-class frigate designs. The final victor in the RAN’s General-Purpose Frigate (GPF) program will be selected in 2025; the first three ships in the class will be built at the constructor’s own yard and the first delivery is scheduled for 2029. The remaining four to eight ships (because Defence has not said yet whether the class will consist of seven or eleven ships) will be built by Austal at the Henderson precinct in Western Australia.

The GPF will be capable of operating a helicopter, defending itself against limited air and missile threats, operating a towed array sonar in concert with lightweight torpedos, with the ability to undertake force protection, maritime strike and land strike missions. The independent analysis of the RAN’s surface fleet, published last year, stated the GPFs would have an Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) role.

It’s not clear what sensor, Combat Management System (CMS) and missile fit the winning ship will have. The selection process, and therefore the exact configuration of all of the contenders, has lacked transparency. But it seems possible that the RAN will insist upon the ship being able to operate the Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopter and having the same missiles and ASW torpedoes as its other surface combatants as well as the same CMS in order to maintain commonality across its entire fleet for both logistics and training.

Having gone to considerable lengths to establish a Combat Systems Enterprise intended to ensure the Lockheed Martin Aegis and Saab Australia 9LV Mk3E CMSs are developed in harmony, it’s hard to imagine the RAN accepting an expensive diversion from its long-sought goal of fleet-wide commonality.

Both designs are capable of accommodating the Saab Australia 9LV Mk3E CMS, though neither are currently built with this CMS, and both are fitted with the Mk41 vertical Launch System (VLS) which means they can operate the same surface-air missiles as the rest of the RAN surface fleet. On publicly available data the TKMS design and Mogami 30FFM are both equipped with 32 Mk41 VLS cells; the MEKO A200 may also be capable of carrying the CEAFAR radar which equips all of Australia’s other surface combatants. Both designs can accommodate deck-launched Kongsberg Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) also and both carry hull-mounted sonars and can be fitted with towed sonar arrays.