The thing that never ceases to surprise me is the number of completely painful to maintain features that make it on to service equipment because someone with the right level of pull thought it looked good or was a good idea.  The operators hate them, the maintainers despise them and the been counters complain about the life cycle cost but the feature gets up again and again because the decision makers think its what the customer wants and needs.  Its quite informative being at a review when a senior officer with first hand operational experience with the feature makes it abundantly and amusingly clear that the feature is rubbish, has never worked properly, is a nightmare to maintain, costs a mint to service / refurbish and actually impairs the availability and effectiveness of the assets it is currently incorporated on.

 

The secret to getting it right is constant and effective communication.  I don't give a stuff what the salesman has in his power point or how many photo opportunities the lead contractor has arranged with militarys, what I care about is the thoughts of the guys who are going to be using the asset and have operationally used its predecessor. 

 

You want to do something new then you prove it through a comprehensive planned DT&E program with the customer then if it is working as planned move on to an initial build (a pilot if you like) and test the living daylights out of it.  When it has passed OT&E put it into service and see what happens in the real world.  Then and only then roll it out in to full operational service. 

 

This is what is being done with the ANZAC upgrade, a tailored CEAFAR system consisting of a single panel was trialled on HMAS PERTH.  Following the successful completion of the trials a production system was ordered to be fitted to HMAS PERTH which will be the prototype for the upgrade.  PERTH will have to successfully complete extensive trials before the upgrade is rolled out for the rest of the class. 

 

This is how it should always be done, it looks expensive up front but is much cheaper than an asset that doesn't work and needs to be replaced, or worse can't be replaced before we need the capability.  Just think had the Collins combat system had to be demonstrated before it was accepted for production, had Collins had to be proven before Farncomb was ordered....time consuming and expensive but the end result would have seen a fully operational capability in service earlier  and at a lower cost than occurred in reality.

Its quite informative being at a review when a senior officer with first hand operational experience with the feature makes it abundantly and amusingly clear that the feature is rubbish, has never worked properly, is a nightmare to maintain, costs a mint to service / refurbish and actually impairs the availability and effectiveness of the assets it is currently incorporated on.

having seen some of the requirements these poor bar stewards inherit, I completely concur.
some of the stuff coming over the fence was just errant nonsense with no appreciation of how people actually use the gear and how they conduct the business of warfighting....

the blame is not one sided, but seriously, there are too many "popeye" moments going on...

I have seen many of your posts gf0012-aust, and you are obviously an expert in a huge variety of matters of Australian defence policy, especially in regards to sensible procurement and asset support. Given your obvious expertise in the field of defence, is there any way to get you appointed to an executive advisory position to the Defence Minister? It might be a sucky job (and I assume far less lucrative than whatever your current occupation is), but having a competent voice in a high-level position would be an enormous boon for all aspects of Australian defence. Do it for your country!

(This post is only semi-serious, as while it seems like it would be a good idea to have somebody competent in the position, you specifically are obviously fully aware of your own career options without input from random posts on the Internet!)

It strikes me that if the ANZAC upgrade turns out as well as is expected then we would have been better off building the proposed eight stretched ANZACs to replace the DDGs and FFGs rather than waiting so long to build only 3 AEGIS ships.

 

These ships could have been equipped with enhanced ANZAC combat systems (as proposed by TENIX for the FFG upgrade) , larger VLS, min 32 maybe as many as 64 cells, split fore and aft, and a second helicopter.  With the extra available space and weight they could have been fitted with the CEAFAR / CEAMOUNT quite easily.

 

Ah what could have been, eight ANZACs and eight stretched ANZACs, no need to bother with OCVs or AWDs.  Greater numbers, greater capability and much less capial outlay, who knows maybe there would be an export market for our Enhanced ANZACs.

It's really a pointless suggestion, the AWD decision was made in 2007 while the ANZAC upgrade isn't yet complete. It is suggesting a course of action with the benefit of information not available when the decision was made.

Besides which, what makes you think that the streched ANZAC concept that you are talking about would be delivered before the AWDs? What makes you think that we would get 8 of those for the price of three AWD's? What makes you think that the significant redesign wouldn't pose technical risks? At least with the AWD's there were ships of the class already in the water when we bought, so we were aware of any problems and could work out how to address them.

Based on an inservice design (platform and combat system) using modular in service systems acquired MOTS, COTS and FMS the first of class could have been handed over to the RAN as early as 2008.  It could have incorporated lessons learnt from the ANZAC project and would have cost as little as $250M per ship.

 

The CEAFAR / CEAMOUNT upgrade would have been intitated in 2010 or so following a successful intergration in HMAS PERTH.  Ships delivered following that date would have incorporated it from the start with the earlier ships upgraded later.

Not when the AWD final decision that you are suggesting that this would replace was only made in 2007.

 

The stretched ANZACs were postulated under Hawke / Keating in the early 90's as replacements for the existing Tier 1 DDGs and FFGs to complement the 8 Tier 2 ANZACs.  The Freos were Tier 3 and were intended to be replaced by the OPV / Corvettes the Sea Sprites were initially intended for.  All of this was long before the 2000 White Paper and identification of the AWD requirements let alone the decision.

 

The FFGUP was initiated due to the failure to procure a replacement for the DDGs and FFGs, the AWDs were identified as a requirement following the failure of the ANZAC WIP (Warfighting Improvement Program) in which they tried to shoehorn AEGIS into an ANZAC, guess what, it didn't fit! 

 

Following that the ex USN KIDD Class DDGs were looked at as were a FMS build of three Flight II Burkes by Northrop Grumman and I remember reading somewhere that a licence build of German F123 or F124s was also looked at at some point.  These were all options to replace the capability (command and control more than air defence) lost with the retirement of the DDG's.  The main stumbling block that was brought up time and time again was to man 3 or 4 new or used destroyers would force the early retirement of two of the soon to be modernised FFGs, well guess what, that happened anyway but not to provide manpower for higher capability ships, it was to cover the fact the FFGUP was over budget and behind schedule, something that would not have been an issue with a proven new ship or the NTU fitted KIDDS.

 

The is a pattern that can be seen going back decades, Liberal governments favour individual capability over numbers and Labor governments favour numbers over individual capability.  Had the Libs been in when the ANZACs were ordered they likely would have been more capable but fewer in number.