Navy a 'basket case': Opposition

[mcnamg]

Jim Goose the articles you are copying and pasting from ancient history also fail to mention the fact that the submarines combat system has since been updated with a COTS system from the US and is the same as what the US Navy uses and is so successful that in exercises in recent years Colins class boats have been able to sneak up on US Aircraft carriers and then slink away undetected.

Yes the government is looking to replace the Collins class but the new boats will be unlikely to enter service for at least another 10 to 15 years which would make the Early subs almost 30 years old which is at the end of their servicable life.

[Mesa]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

Why do they sink old ships? Why not recycle them for materials or convert it for other purposes like a floating military museum or something.

It'd cost more to strip them down, salvage and recycle than it does to tow them out and use them for 'live' practice. Compared to the practices used by third world counties who such do things, we'd have to pay minimum wage and the OH&S compliance would cost a fortune alone.

[SteveJH]

Originally Posted by shedcoupe

Dunno much about the Collins subs but at the time I wonder why we purchased subs from Ikea when the other choice was a German sub.
I seem to recall my dad mentioning that the Chermans had built one or two previously and that he'd been a bit scared of them for some reason .......

The German subs werent big enough. And none of the European nations had any recent design experience with large conventional submarines, though the UK had built a large number of large Nuclear ones.

The tender went out and the Swedes won the tender. They then scaled up one of their designs which didn't exactly work out to plan.

They also built part of one of the subs over in sweden and messed it up bad enough that it had to be redone here.

The original Combat System for the collins was basically well beyond the capabilties at the time and then as computing progressed the design stayed the same and was obsolete on entry to service. That system has now been upgraded to the ones used on the Virginia class (and Astute??).

The design messups (including propellers I think) were later fixed with US involvement.

Remember, these were the first full sized submarines EVER build in Australia, considering that, things could have been much worse. And now at the end of it, we have 1st or 2nd most advanced conventional submarine class in the world in the hands of the RAN.

Note: The information from this came from google and Defense Talk. Look deeper then the newspaper articles, remember, their aim is to sell newspapers, not to tell "The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"

[SteveJH]

Originally Posted by BluFGXR6

It'd cost more to strip them down, salvage and recycle than it does to tow them out and use them for 'live' practice. Compared to the practices used by third world counties who such do things, we'd have to pay minimum wage and the OH&S compliance would cost a fortune alone.

If Wiki is to be believed, it was a test of the combat system during trials for HMAS Farncomb.

Plus its good training and PR. No different to the RAAF dropping a LGB on the Pong Su rather then selling her or scrapping her.

[THE4RD]

Was the noisy Collins the one with the Windsor or the Cleveland?

[SteveJH]

Originally Posted by THE4RD

Was the noisy Collins the one with the Windsor or the Cleveland?

It was the one with the wrong propeller design.

Silly Swedes.