Interesting to see that they are going to de-commission the HMAS Newcastle on 30.6.2019. Interesting as Poland was talking about buying Australian frigates in 2017. The price was in the vicinity of $700 million per vessel..... That was only two years ago. Don't know what happened to that potential sale. Maybe our incompetent politicians didn't have the brains to sell the vessels then, and instead thought that we didn't really need $700 million per vessel...we'll just scuttle them instead.... $700 million would have helped us buy the 72 F35s that we bought from the US (that need painting after every flight, and cant fly in a storm).....maybe we could have used the $700 million to help buy our subs that are being built in France....also costing us billions.... Maybe the vessel is being scuttled because …….well maybe it just needs a new paint job and we just cant afford the paint....then again maybe we cant keep the vessel afloat as we haven't got enough crew members to crew it...… https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2017/03/29/poland-eyes-frigates-from-australia-new-submarines/
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019...-american-pilots-severe-dogfight-disadvantage And how many F35s did our incompetent government buy..... And someone please tell me why we bought so many...for what purpose exactly....
https://rmx.news/poland/buy-or-build-frigates This link is only ten months old in comparison to the OP link, which is two years old. I cant find anything conclusive regarding the sale.....I can only assume it fell through, as the plans for scuttling HMAS Newcastle are proceeding... Personally, I feel that our entire Defence budget needs investigating...the purchase of a huge number of warplanes which need constant upgrading and maintenance, together with the submarines being built in France is costing the Australian government billions upon billions of dollars... But who are we to question government competence....pft…. One only needs to google F35 to discover what goes wrong with the planes... And of course if we google Australian submarines we also uncover controversial reports from retired Navy personnel which call the government into questioning... Maybe we need a RC into government defence spending...after all we have RC's these days at the drop of a hat, even though the government hinders such RC's by narrowing the terms of reference to protect themselves... And of course we are conned into thinking we live in a democracy.... But I digress....
Quite a battle lady in her day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Newcastle_(FFG_06) HMAS Newcastle in 2010 History Australia Namesake: City of Newcastle Builder: Australian Marine Engineering Consolidated Laid down: 21 July 1989 Launched: 21 February 1992 Commissioned: 11 December 1993 Decommissioned: 30 June 2019[1] Identification: MMSI number: 503108000 Motto: Enterprise Honours and awards: Battle honours: East Timor 1999–2000 Persian Gulf 2002–03 Status: Active as of 2017 Badge: General characteristics Class and type: Adelaide-class guided missile frigate Displacement: 4,100 tons Length: 138.1 m (453 ft) overall Beam: 13.7 m (45 ft) Draught: 4.5 m (15 ft) Propulsion: 2 × General Electric LM2500 gas turbines, 41,000 horsepower (31,000 kW), 1 shaft 2 × 650-horsepower (480 kW) auxiliary propulsors Speed: 29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph) Range: 4,500 nautical miles (8,300 km; 5,200 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) Complement: 184 (including 15 officers, not including aircrew) Sensors and processing systems: AN/SPS-49 air search radar AN/SPS-55 surface search and navigation radar SPG-60 fire control radar (Mark 92 fire control system) AN/SQS-56 hull-mounted sonar Armament: 1 × Mark 13 Missile Launcher for Harpoon and Standard missiles 1 × 8-cell Mark 41 VLS with Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles 2 × Mark 32 torpedo tubes 1 × OTO Melara 76 mm naval gun 1 × 20 mm Phalanx CIWS Up to 6 x 12.7-millimetre (0.50 in) machine guns 2 × M2HB .50 calibre Mini Typhoons(fitted as required) Aircraft carried: 2 helicopters
Commander Sellick said the ship was still in good condition, and she hoped it could be sold, "so that it can continue its life, albeit with another nation." Perhaps I was being premature stating that they were going to scuttle it... Perhaps it had to be decommissioned before being sold... Perhaps our illustrious media could follow this up..... Does the possible sale price of $700 million go up with inflation....or down with age... Who knows, with $700 million we could buy a few more F35 lemmings.... Or maybe even pour the money into another payrise rise for our politicians.....
No, that link was not for a blanket purchase but a purchase of 2 vessels. assuming because this vessel is to be scuttled is not support for anything. In actual fact the article you posted would support the fact a sale was agreed and thus if had fallen through would be bigger news than internal Polish politics. BUT that is an assumption... Unlike your premise... I think there has to be serious investigation into military spending as well. BUT I don’t complain the enormous cost of procurement as it matters not what you buy it will be expensive. Complaining the cost of buying and building overseas is a consideration except you have to decide just what cost your sacrificing. The building and purchasing from cheaper markets such as France does not stand as over spending in comparison to home grown as it has proven in the past to be cheaper and faster to purchase rather than build. ALSO by purchasing you will be buying up to date technology while being assured of reliability and upgrades. When we talk submarines nobody needs to look past the Collins class that is still to this day being upgraded to meet the stated specifications at the time of building and it is coming up fast to time to upgraded to meet today’s naval needs… I concur with the F35 on cost and inadequacies, considering there is better cheaper platforms out there. However, a considerable amount of money has already been invested into development of the platform which cannot be disregarded. I do believe it is failure of all the respective governments within the agreement to sit with a platform which appears in face to be limited in comparison to the market but it is the complaint of money that is being complained about. It would be far greater cost to pull out and turn to another… You have to remember, small countries with small military have to be at the cutting edge. If you consider the battles of the past few decades you see the winners are the people who can either flood the battle with ordinance and soldiers, AS the US does, or the best equipped tactically advance military. Australia is a small nation that cannot afford to put 5m troops on the ground with trillions of dollars of weaponry, so it is important to be militarily competent and outfitted for the job at hand. Royal commissions do nothing but bring together information that is already out there. True they are dime a dozen these days, because basically people now ignore action that 1. Do not directly affect them 2. Make them money while stealing from others , and 3. Appears to make their life easier. Common decency is lost due to expediency of the position of the people who can disassociate themselves from reality while still holding their idealistic feel good belief…
It is only the hull that will be scuttled, all this other stuff will be recoveres and reused on existing platforms.
The cost in ‘future dollars’ for twelve submarines was estimated at $55 billion, including the US sourced combat system. The first submarine would not be delivered until 2033, with the full fleet of twelve new submarines being available by 2050....that's 30 years..... www.submarinesforaustralia.com.au/ Our deal to purchase 72 F35s is costing us $17 billion https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/australia-raises-their-f-35-commitment-023629/ Someone please explain to me why we need a dozen subs and 72 F35s...why so many..... You said...... "The building and purchasing from cheaper markets such as France does not stand as over spending in comparison to home grown as it has proven in the past to be cheaper and faster to purchase rather than build. ALSO by purchasing you will be buying up to date technology while being assured of reliability and upgrades." Gotta disagree with you there....read the report.... "Australia cannot afford the luxury of a custom-designed submarine. Why? Because there is NO TIME to do this. By their public statements, Defence Dept have admitted that the design (even if they manage to fit a diesel piston engine to a nuclear sub) will take 15 years at least including testing and evaluation By the best estimate the deeply flawed Collins class submarines will be worn out completely by 2025. They may not even last that long. A decision by our Defence Dept to build a custom designed Future Submarine should have been made about 15 years ago. This would have been right in the middle of the SeaSprite custom helicopter fiasco and politically difficult. So they sat on their hands for 15 years. This is woefully delinquent. We will now have a situation where, if the Defence Dept and their cronies have their way we will be without a front line submarine fleet for at least 15 years. That’s like owning a house in a dodgy neighbourhood without a front door." Well isn't that typical of our incompetent governments.... I know the thread is about the HMAS Newcastle, and I am digressing into Defence spending... But I do tend to digress.....
And??? Oh, do you expect to be able to go down to the store and buy off the top shelf. Just pointless dribble there. What do you expect from your defence force??? Don’t you expect them to be able to protect the boarders or do you think you can buy one or two and that is enough. I am reminded of Russia during the war where they sent 2 men with one rifle… Err… again irrelevant to what was said. Australia has to buy at the pointy end of the market, does not mean they buy custom, or the best. It simply means they have to get the best bang for the buck… I have already pointed out the failure of the Collins which is still being retrofitted to make it fit for purpose. But the fact remains, there are questions to be answered on defence spending, I am not 100% satisfied with the answers at the moment but I am only 1 person. I do consider there should have been better choices made in procurement, but I also accept the purchase, build and supply take time. I don’t accept the political point scoring on who did what, made by who… There is considerable incompetence being committed on this issue, but there is action being taken to bring the Australian military back to forefront of expertise. That is a start in itself.
My "pointless dribble" is a quote from a retired Navy Commander...I think he'd know more than you.... You really don't like being criticized, do you...perhaps the very reason why this sub forum is as dead as a morgue...everyone is sick of arguing with you....
It is pointless due to the fact it has nothing to do with what was said. I could point out that your building a strawman or what is called a logical fallacy but I think that would have been lost on you. Thank you for the compliment of being the key feature of the forum, but unfortunately that is far from the truth. As being criticized, IT is YOUR thread you’re trying to defend, clearly your desperate now and just tossing dispersion. One would think it is from the very point this post has… This section of the forum is dead because people simply toss insult when they are unable to support their own argument, just as this post does. So far you haven’t criticised my points, you simply create in your mind what I was saying and criticised the points you think you can…
