HMAS Anzac future
Posted: 21 Sep 2023 20:55
Staff at the Henderson facility in Western Australia have been briefed that HMAS Anzac will pay off in either December this year, or slightly more likely, quarter 1 of next year.
This will save the Government $$ which would have been spent on the TransCAP upgrade that all of the Anzacs are supposed to go through, which includes replacing the Harpoons with Naval Strike Missiles, replacing the SRBOC chaff launchers with the new MASS decoy system and a range of other less obvious upgrades.
Paying her off will free up crew for deployment to other ships.
It also makes a mockery of the Federal Government's supposed 'short, sharp' future fleet review, which was supposed to deliver its finding by September or October, but which has been further delayed until sometime around March new year.
It appears likely that the RAN will not only not get any new warships before 2030 (the Arafura's don't count, being basically larger patrol boats), but in fact the surface fleet will shrink even further. Don't forget that at least 6 more Armidale's are destined to leave the fleet in the next year or so, and they won't be replaced by Arafura's at anything like the same rate.
There are also persistent rumours that the long term future of the Arafura's is to swap Navy grey for Australian Border Force blue in the next decade.
We shall see.
Mike
This will save the Government $$ which would have been spent on the TransCAP upgrade that all of the Anzacs are supposed to go through, which includes replacing the Harpoons with Naval Strike Missiles, replacing the SRBOC chaff launchers with the new MASS decoy system and a range of other less obvious upgrades.
Paying her off will free up crew for deployment to other ships.
It also makes a mockery of the Federal Government's supposed 'short, sharp' future fleet review, which was supposed to deliver its finding by September or October, but which has been further delayed until sometime around March new year.
It appears likely that the RAN will not only not get any new warships before 2030 (the Arafura's don't count, being basically larger patrol boats), but in fact the surface fleet will shrink even further. Don't forget that at least 6 more Armidale's are destined to leave the fleet in the next year or so, and they won't be replaced by Arafura's at anything like the same rate.
There are also persistent rumours that the long term future of the Arafura's is to swap Navy grey for Australian Border Force blue in the next decade.
We shall see.
Mike
no words