chicken_lipsforme wrote on Feb 3
rd, 2012 at 7:08am:
And despite the Navy's attempts to attract personnel either from surface ships, directly from civvie street or from the RN in a variety of ways including massive pay rises, all has been in vain.
Did they try the Army? Regular civvies might be reluctant to live under the sea, but my guess is anyone who joins the army expects to be used as cannon fodder at some point.
Of course it may take a while to train these guys to live in a navy environment, but eventually ..... they'll get there.
BigOl64 wrote on Feb 1
st, 2012 at 6:23am:
Probably the ONLY time I will ever agree with you two. Australia does not have the capacity to build anything high tech, we gave that up in the 70's and I doubt we could ever get back to a technologically capable nation.
Educate me! What did Australia have that it lost in the 70s? I wasn't alive back then.
Sir lastnail wrote on Feb 1
st, 2012 at 10:36am:
Maybe they should pay Holden and Ford to build the subs so they can create even more jobs
LOL
I think Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin would be more like it, except that they're aerospace engineering companies. They should convince the Americans to form a submarine R&D division down here. Say, "you need us to have 12 submarines, so please help yourself by helping us." After all, isn't Australia like some distant outpost to them in the Southern Hemisphere?
Bobby. wrote on Feb 1
st, 2012 at 2:56pm:
I now think it's a good idea because engineering people like you & I can jump on the bandwagon & make lots of money from such a large Govt. project. Forget about taxpayers - we'll just pocket the money.
Couldn't you go further than that? You could use that money to kick-start a new engineering company so you wouldn't be relying entirely on taxpayer's money. Find a market, sell products to that market, make a profit and do R&D for your submarine in your spare time. Set up a laboratory, run simulations and contact potential contractors. In the meantime, it might actually bring the manufacturing sector back.
At the very least, there should be at least one Australian engineering company involved in the project, one that will oversee design, implementation and production and periodically report back to the Feds.
It_is_the_Darkness wrote on Feb 10
th, 2012 at 8:54pm:
They would be faster and more manouverable. Sure they won't have as much ammunition, but chances are they wouldn't need so much after a successful first volley.
So for a 'real' Australian 'military' navy - we need a mass fleet of Mini-Subs that could be stationed conveniently around the continent at nearly every seaside town. Something the size of the Collins could work like an Aircraft Carrier and transport the mini-subs to a greater range for a more effective attack.
Underwater, there is now threat of rough seas, etc. So while some battle-ship is in the throws of a storm and trying to kick off depth charges that may or may not be neat the vicinity of the mini-sub. It quietly slips around underwater and sets off a few torpedos from range.
The main problem with having lots of little minisubs is communication. Radio waves and microwaves don't propagate well under water, so you have to use sound. I think they do their job best as lone warriors rather than members of a fleet. That makes it hard to coordinate an attack.
The other thing is how often do these minisubs need to surface? Can you fit a nuclear reactor in there? If not, they won't be able to stay underwater for very long before needing to refuel.
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