The question I have to raise is, what on earth did Defence Australia select the Type 26 Global Combat Ship when it was in third place among three options? Did Defence Australia receive kickback or grease payment from BAE Systems? Australia is an independent country, not a British colony. Will the British monarch come to Australia’s aid when the United Kingdom abandoned Australia to join the European Union in 1973?
Chronically over-budget, significantly delayed and lacking firepower – that’s the expert assessment of a major warship project they say should be scrapped.
Detailing this truly terrifying state of naval firepower, former Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Retired David Shackleton, explains, “In 1995, the Royal Australian Navy possessed 368 missile cells on its major surface combatants. By 2020, that had reduced to 208, a 43 per cent reduction in firepower. It will take until 2045 for the Navy to get back up to its 1995 capacity. From 2050, it will plateau at 432, a net increase of 64 cells.”
The Hunter Class frigate project is already seven years behind schedule and many billions of dollars more expensive than initially anticipated.
In 2018, British company BAE Systems won a $35 billion tender to build nine frigates, or $3.8 billion each, with the first scheduled to be in service by 2027.
Australia’s next frigates will be based on this British design.
By 2020 the price tag had blown out to $45 billion or $5 billion a piece, and Defence is now estimating it will cost $27 billion to build just frigates, or $9 billion each, with the first to be in service by 2034 – seven years late.
BAE Systems is the company that will build Australia’s AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines.
Strategic Analysis Australia director Michael Shoebridge said the Hunter Class project was the “high point of decadence” in Defence decision-making.
He said Defence adjusted the original BAE British design with a series of add-ons, including different combat and radar systems – which made it massively more expensive.
“That frigate program is beyond scandalous – It’s entered ludicrous mode for a wasteful use of taxpayer money and a very slow, small contribution to Australian military power,” Shoebridge said.
Australia’s next frigates will be based on this British design.
He said the Hunter had just 32 missiles, which was a third of the weaponry of the Chinese cruiser that circumnavigated Australia in March.
“We’re in a very dangerous world and a very dangerous period in the world, and waiting to the mid-2030s and into the 2040s for three frigates for this amount of money, makes no sense.
“We could go to the Japanese or the South Koreans and get a properly armed cruiser much faster than BAE is delivering this program.”
Defence analyst Dr Marcus Hellyer was equally scathing of the Hunter frigate, saying Navy’s adjustments to the design had not only significantly increased its cost, but the frigate’s weight, taking it from 8000 tonnes to more than 10,000 tonnes, making it slower.
“It is monstrously expensive,” Hellyer said. “And I would say, if you’re in a hole, stop digging.
“The government itself has decided it can’t wait for the Hunter Class frigate, so it has kicked off a new frigate program and it is considering a competition between a German design and a Japanese design.
“So the government itself has pretty much said we need to do something different – in a sense, they’re halfway there already.”
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the Hunter frigate project would not be cut despite its problems.
“I wish I had a time machine to go back to 2016 and avoid the mistakes that the Coalition government made, but we’ve moved on,” Conroy said.
“We’ve got the project on track. Steel is being cut right now, we’ve signed the contract, there are about 2500 people working on this project right now.
“The fastest way of delivering new capability for the Royal Australian Navy, is following through on this, building this project, now that we’ve fixed up many of the mistakes the Coalition government made.”
Is Defense Australia corrupt?
Hunter-class frigate is a polarising topic in Australia. It was always anticipated that the Royal Australian Navy could change the specification compared to the British Royal Navy’s Type 26 design, which would add about 500 tonnes to the ship, mainly because of a different radar suite made by Canberra-based CEA and a US Aegis combat management system.
I still don’t understand why the Aegis combat system was chosen for a Hunter-class Frigate when Hobart-class destroyers were meant to have ballistic missile defence (BMD) capability. The Hunter-class frigates were intended to be anti-submarine warfare frigates with surface-to-surface and anti-air capability.
Considering the cost blowout, it is highly likely the government will cut back on the order and contract for between three and six of them.
According to the Defence Capability and Investment Committee, the Italian Fincantieri FREMM and Navantia’s modified F-100 were considered the two most viable designs, and either the BAE System Type 26 or the French FREMM were placed as a third option.
The question I have to raise is, what on earth led BAE Systems to choose the Type 26 Global Combat Ship when it was in third place among three options? Did Defence Australia receive kickback or grease payment from BAE Systems? Australia is an independent country, not a British colony.
Choosing British design over other European designs is indeed a vestige of British colonial mentality; thereby, Australians believe that the former colonial power will come to Australia’s aid. Thinking independently and building technology independently is the best defence against a serious threat like China.
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