The Australian Adelaide class left service in 2015-17 with SM-2 and ESSM on the former Oliver Hazard Perry ASW frigate. An idea the Turks have also adopted (although with SM-1 MR) on their similar G-class frigate. Indeed the original OHP class was always a pretty decent ASW frigate with robust AAW c...

Note that one article mentioned a possible radar upgrade for the Hobarts at some point. A new build would likely incorporate that upgrade and CEA is now an Australian government owned entity looking to justify its existence. Easy to see the synergies there. And can I wholeheartedly reinforce R686 he...

The Hobart class copped just as much flak at around vessel number one as the Hunter is now. ANAO was just as critical of the process and especially the cost at that time. By vessel number three, however, they were quoting the price as industry standard and the learning curve as internationally compa...

From an old news article back in June 2022: Navantia recently offered to develop a further three destroyers to the RAN by 2030, doubling the size of the fleet to six. The program would cost an estimated $6 billion – $2 billion for each vessel. Navantia Australia managing director Israel Lozano Barr...

From an old news article back in June 2022: Navantia recently offered to develop a further three destroyers to the RAN by 2030, doubling the size of the fleet to six. The program would cost an estimated $6 billion – $2 billion for each vessel. Navantia Australia managing director Israel Lozano Barra...

see also, this article, but with 50% more wankers thrown in:

Floating ‘turkeys’: Is Australia spending $50bn on dud ships?
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal ... 5e94l.html

Interesting speculation here, but still just theory crafting: Ministers face billions in blowouts for new warships https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/ministers-face-billions-in-blowouts-for-new-warships-20231005-p5e9ym The author has good sources though, so I have no doubt that much of this is the...

1 Brigade will have one battalion (5/7RAR) that can only train properly in the dry season. Not a credible formation. The rest will be lucky to maintain a 'ready' battalion battle group, at best. These are placeholder ORBATs until they try to use it and can't, or someone useful comes along. Could be ...

Here is the official blurb:
Major changes to Army announced
https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/ ... -announced

Army restructure announced today. Effectively the loss of one infantry battalion with the gain of more littoral manoeuvre capability. no new money to pay for the boats, of course, so something had to give. Hopefully one day we can grow it back, again. We seem to do this every 10 years or so. https:/...

https://x.com/SR_Planespotter/status/17 ... 03416?s=20

The budget for shipbuilding is inadequate for their ambitions, particularly for Corvettes, and unless they tear up the existing contract for the Hunters, no new money will be found. Most of the future Hunters don't fall within near-term budgets anyway and have no money actually allocated to them so ...

more news on the T26 will come today following the Senate hearings, I'm sure

Major US-Philippines-Australian exercise underway in the Philippines. Among the assets, Australian Armour:

eh. I'd just ask the Spaniards to keep building Hobarts for us. We already have the training system in place (including a sim). While I agree 48 cells is too few in the long run (with all we hope to throw in them), I don't really think anyone was really invested in DDGs as the sole end state cruise ...

Some (re) announcements of various missile purchases today. The ALP just had a national conference where the left of their party tried to overturn the AUKUS strategy. They failed, but I imagine that PR people thought that by re-announcing some of this stuff, the party could appear muscular again. Pe...

yes, but then we are just straight up replacing the T-26. None of this corvette nonsense – just a better frigate. Hobart class, ver 2.0 becomes an option too. Quicker if we let the Spaniards do a couple. Of course, then they'd want to replace AEGIS with CEAFAR on either one of them and we go around ...

https://twitter.com/AndrewBGreene/status/1688253833427009536?s=20 "I wouldn't want to raise expectations around having the Black Hawks in service sooner, we are in the process of transitioning to Black Hawks pretty well as of now," the defence minister told reporters last week. "But i...

USAF unlikely to speed E-7 delivery
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news ... 7-delivery

Don't know if this delivery timetable was always planned or whether some deal was engineered, but here they are:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnation%2Fdefence%2Ffour-aviators-die-as-troubled-mrh60-helicopter-crashes-in-waters-off-whitsundays%2Fnews-story%2F0248661d18d53466c3c7e2a781c913aa&memtype=anonymous&am...