-Before this boorish American responds, let me preface this by saying I served on Aegis ships.

 

Top of my list would be to go all electric, that is get rid of the gearing and shafts and have the GT's and Diesels functioning solely as generators with propulsion from electric motors.  The Darings use it and the DDX (both of them) as well as the CVF will use it.

-I think you'd be better off fitting a bulbous bow. The purpose behind the all electric is to power energy-based weapons. I think it is over-hyped, IMO. You have a good design with CODAG; we, the US should have such a frigate. Don't mess with it. I certainly wouldn't base my decisions on what DDG-1000 is or has done.

A stretch providing space and weight for an increase in the size of the VLS, possibly a 155mm inplace of the Mk45, definitely a second helo.  Maybe a phased array director to replace the legacy mechanical variety.

-This is a must, IMO. Leave the strike capability to the missiles carried, but extend your sensor range. Surface ships are prisoners of the horizon. They always have been. The best way to "break out" of prison is by airborne sensors.

 

Reprofiling the superstructure for greater stealth.

-The question becomes, how much do you have now, and how much more is needed? Are you using stealth to prevent targeting or are you using it to spoof seekers? Or are you using it to help out NULKA? I think your design does the first and the third very well already. I'm not sure you'll get to the point where you can effectively do the second without going radical, like DDG-1000, again not necessarily the example you want to follow.

 It seems to me that almost everyone has failed to see the full picture here. Apart from one or two comments, no one has really said what is lacking in the Rudd Governments White Paper. But let's not forget that Australia's defence needs have been neglected badly by successive governments over the last 34 years, essentially since the end of the Veitnam War. The first major blunder was  to not replace HMAS Melbourne when she was decommissioned, yes the opportunity was there to purchase one of the British ships, but the Falklands campaign ended that. The list of mistakes goes on and on, Seasprites, inadequate numbers of F18's and so on. But now there is a window of opportunity to balance out those past errors and protect Australia's future. Three AWD's will not suffice; four is the needed requirement at the very least, but six would be ideal. As we are getting two LPH's, the four AWD number is critical. A ro-ro platform is a good idea in essence, but strategically, one could be leased commercially at any time. More importantly for the Australian fleet, is a dedicated fixed wing carrier, of at least 35,000 tonne class; carrying F35b's, Hawkeye's and S70's. The twelve subs is a good number, but the propulsion system needs to be from this century, not the last. Lastly, personel numbers have to raised to at least 16,000 full time members, to reflect an effeciant fleet status, and Australia should have it's own force of Marines as part of the Navy, a minimum requirement would be around five to eight thousand.

 The Army seems to have been given a reasonable deal, but I believe another order of Abrams tank should be placed, as well as additional Tiger choppers.

 The Air Force though is another matter. The extra Herc's and a replacement for the old Caribou is sound, but another four C17's should be ordered to increase battlefield lift capability. The hundred F35's will be, just alright, but as everyone has said, they are not a replacement for the 'Pig'. At the very least, pressure should applied on the U.S to release for foreign sale the F22 Raptor, thirty or so of those would go a reasonable way as a F111 replacement.

 I welcome further comment.

 

Ray. Ex RAN

Many serving members of the RAN have a stated preference for the 64 cells of the losing design to the 48 cells of the F-100. The governments recent anouncement of their desire to deploy SM-6 and a TLCM type on the AWD's in addition to SM-2 and ESSM suggests that a larger VLS would have been useful.

-The problem is one of actually going into battle with it and the cost of modifying an existing design. At what cost would you modify the design. Then you face the challenge of specialized training for the operators and maintainers for what? Less than four hulls? If you're going to go the way of electric propulsion you need to do it in more than one batch of ships. On the other hand, you can get a lot of fuel efficiency by adopting a bulbous bow with none of the disadvantages to training and redesign. 

-Advantages over what? Over a missile that guides itself? Even phased array directors have a limited number of missiles they can control in the terminal phase.  A ship employing an active missile doesn't suffer that disadvantage.  Meanwhile, another phased array radar high up in the superstructure, and it has to be high up to be useful, nets stability disadvantages. 

-I'm going to profess my ignorance. What are SSDS launchers? The Mk29 launcher the USN uses with its SSDS Mk2 ships? For a minute I thought you were referring to the launcher on the ANZACs, but that's a Mk41 Mod 5. So what is an SSDS launcher? 

Thanks.