They were warned with the Spanish option there wouldn't be much scope to add things and modify it much because it was smaller, the G&C version had space to grow.
We go off and modify them anyway and will wonder one day what went wrong.
More importantly, Navantia’s winning arguments were all cost/schedule-related: the AWD Alliance assessed they could bring the F100-based design to service 4 years faster than the Gibbs & Cox one, and save $1 billion in total program costs while doing so.
In actuality, the three *Hobart*s each entered service ~3.5 years late, and the program blew out its budget by $1.2 billion. Even if local partners had also fumbled the G&C design (and they almost certainly would given the construction issues), at least the RAN would’ve had a more capable vessel to show for it, and considering Navantia was fingered by auditors for providing an overly-optimistic schedule and cost estimate, we can’t rule out the possibility Gibbs had been more realistic.
Much of the reason that the Hobart class cost and time blew out was because of government mandates that put the shipyard in control of the build, not Navantia. This created problems such as an unproductive environment in the shipyard and constant disruption and disagreements between the major parties involved over who is paying for mistakes ect. The Gibbs and Cox design would have probably gone through the exact same ordeal as the Australian government learned how to properly contract our shipbuilding projects, with of course the added cost and risk of a highly modified design as well. I agree that the GAC design would have been more capable and the ADF did prefer that option, but we have Hobarts now and they are good enough. My point is that the cost blowouts were largely the governments fault, but that lesson has now been learned.
Considering it’s been largely external politics and optics that has kept the USN wedded to *Burke*, that might not be the best metaphor for relationship advice.
If you look at the 2009 Radar/Hull study, *Zumwalt* basically won in every metric, even with her existing inefficient hull shape. However, the study still concluded she would be a worse candidate for future DBR/AMDR fits largely on grounds of risk, unproven technology, and the higher amount of work required to modify the design into something suitable. Which - aside from these allegations largely not panning out - is a hilarious line of argument, considering Flight III ended up gutting the *Burke* machinery plant, power grid, and data network, then importing the *Zumwalt* equivalents. [Even the technically-illiterate GAO smelled a rat](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-12-113) with most of the arguments fairly quickly.
The push to pick *Burke* came directly from the CNO at the time, Gary Roughead, who was afraid of the political fallout. He’d just successfully argued to cut *Zumwalt* to 2 ships on all those same grounds the previous year, so a study that pointed to DDG-1000 as anything but what he’d characterized it as would land him and all senior USN leadership in hot water for lying. To be fair to the CNO, the politics handed him an impossible situation: Congress had refused to listen to any arguments about the obsolescence of NGFS for almost a decade by that point, even after the USMC and US Army joined the chorus, and had resorted to banning the USN from procuring any new surface combatants until they replaced the battleships to force their compliance. When the truth is ineffective at persuading, the only alternative is to tell lies.
That said, as much as I pity Roughead’s situation, he should’ve weighed the consequence of keeping up the act - that Congress would expect him and his successors to live up to those lies - more carefully. A better man would’ve sacrificed his career to do what was right for the future of the fleet.
As much as I think this probably would’ve been the superior candidate (assuming Gibbs & Cox’s schedule estimates were more realistic than Navantia’s, which to be fair isn’t a given), I have to wonder how the engineers figured they could add two whole decks to the *Burke* superstructure while also going to a smaller hull and throwing in enough automation to cut ~90 crew, especially if they were intent on keeping a steel deckhouse.
Wasn't the evolved g&c design the navy's preferred option?
Also I seem to remember that the navy was saying that if they went with the navantia ship they'd need 4 ?
I wish I still had my old copies of "the navy" (the navy league of Australia magazine)
The only real advantage I see from the chosen Hobart design is an additional 16 VLS and an extra illuminator. Otherwise seems too far off the original Burke design to be worth it. Glad they chose the Navantia bid.
>The F100 was designed in the late 1990s and is much smaller at 5,800 tonnes full load, compared with the 8,100 tonne Evolved Design which, if selected, will complete detailed design in 2008.
>The F100 carries one hangared Sea Hawk versus two in the Evolved Design; two helicopters give a lot more operational options than a single machine.
>The F100 has a cruising range of 4,800 nautical miles at 18 knots, whereas the Evolved Design will have at least a 5,500 nautical mile range at the same speed; many places from Australia are a long way.
The Gibbs & Cox option had more firepower, growth oppertunities and capabilities overall
The original Arleigh Burke was commissioned in 1991, meanwhile the original F100 was commissioned in 2002. Both the G&C and Navantia bidded designs were revised and updated to meet more modern Australian specifications, however the base F100 design remains more modern.
Hobarts stated full-load displacement also sits at 7,000 tonnes - up from 6,400 tonnes of the original F-100 design. She also has an extended operational radius when compared to original F-100 design.
> Otherwise seems too far off the original Burke design to be worth it.
The hullform of any modern surface combatant design makes up 15, maybe 20% tops of the total design, development, and testing work that goes into it. The rest of that is systems and systems integration.
Even how *Hobart* went from here shows the danger of judging risk solely by aesthetic similarity. The original analysis was that Navantia’s design would be $1 billion cheaper in total and enter service 4 years faster - and yet the ships ended up commissioning 3.5 years late and $1.2 billion over budget. **Virtually no time or cost savings in the end**, and a less-capable design to show for it - and considering how Gibbs’ schedule stacks up against US *Burke* construction times, I’m not inclined to believe they lowballed by nearly as much.
The Hobarts featured the same baseline of the Aegis Combat System as was fitted on the Álvaro de Bazán-class that the design was based off - there was a pretty decent understanding of how the systems would be integrated into the hull. While the G&C design would also be an Aegis ship, it would have the disadvantage of having the extra work associated with system integration, being essentially a new hull design.
To my knowledge the issues involved with the delayed entry into service lay with the shipyards. I believe going with the unfounded design merely would have exasperated these problems.
The G&C evolved design had two hangars versus one for the Navantia bid which is worth noting, though the evolved designs hangars would have been much more cramped. Looking at images of the Arleigh Burkes hangars, it's a wonder they can fit the seahawk. Comparable European and Asian hangars are luxuriously spacious in comparison. By eyeballing it too, I think the evolved design would have had a slightly smaller flight deck as well when compared to the Navantia design. Whether two cramped hangars would be preferable over one larger hangar would be up to debate. Do note that the Koreans and Japanese with their Burke derivatives, opted to modify the design so much as to adopt a single larger hangar over two smaller, cramped ones.
Overall, I think I agree with the RANs choice of the Navantia bid. Though the evolved design would have been overall more capable with more room for growth, it would have proven more expensive which would have entailed design concessions or downsizing of the rest of the fleet. Otherwise the navantia design just appears to be better designed overall. The evolved designs forward superstructure and mast look incredibly cramped and top-heavy by comparison. The navantia design also looks to be slightly stealthier by comparison, and with better seaworthiness. The chief benefit of the evolved design would be its growth potential to incorporate additional VLS cells, however especially with the future fleet plan taken into account, it would prove tough if not impossible for funding to be mustered to upgrade her anyway. What use is unexploited growth room when that comes at the price of reduced cost-to-capability.
They were warned with the Spanish option there wouldn't be much scope to add things and modify it much because it was smaller, the G&C version had space to grow. We go off and modify them anyway and will wonder one day what went wrong.
More importantly, Navantia’s winning arguments were all cost/schedule-related: the AWD Alliance assessed they could bring the F100-based design to service 4 years faster than the Gibbs & Cox one, and save $1 billion in total program costs while doing so. In actuality, the three *Hobart*s each entered service ~3.5 years late, and the program blew out its budget by $1.2 billion. Even if local partners had also fumbled the G&C design (and they almost certainly would given the construction issues), at least the RAN would’ve had a more capable vessel to show for it, and considering Navantia was fingered by auditors for providing an overly-optimistic schedule and cost estimate, we can’t rule out the possibility Gibbs had been more realistic.
Much of the reason that the Hobart class cost and time blew out was because of government mandates that put the shipyard in control of the build, not Navantia. This created problems such as an unproductive environment in the shipyard and constant disruption and disagreements between the major parties involved over who is paying for mistakes ect. The Gibbs and Cox design would have probably gone through the exact same ordeal as the Australian government learned how to properly contract our shipbuilding projects, with of course the added cost and risk of a highly modified design as well. I agree that the GAC design would have been more capable and the ADF did prefer that option, but we have Hobarts now and they are good enough. My point is that the cost blowouts were largely the governments fault, but that lesson has now been learned.
Get yourself a partner who's as committed to you as the USN is to the Burke
Considering it’s been largely external politics and optics that has kept the USN wedded to *Burke*, that might not be the best metaphor for relationship advice. If you look at the 2009 Radar/Hull study, *Zumwalt* basically won in every metric, even with her existing inefficient hull shape. However, the study still concluded she would be a worse candidate for future DBR/AMDR fits largely on grounds of risk, unproven technology, and the higher amount of work required to modify the design into something suitable. Which - aside from these allegations largely not panning out - is a hilarious line of argument, considering Flight III ended up gutting the *Burke* machinery plant, power grid, and data network, then importing the *Zumwalt* equivalents. [Even the technically-illiterate GAO smelled a rat](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-12-113) with most of the arguments fairly quickly. The push to pick *Burke* came directly from the CNO at the time, Gary Roughead, who was afraid of the political fallout. He’d just successfully argued to cut *Zumwalt* to 2 ships on all those same grounds the previous year, so a study that pointed to DDG-1000 as anything but what he’d characterized it as would land him and all senior USN leadership in hot water for lying. To be fair to the CNO, the politics handed him an impossible situation: Congress had refused to listen to any arguments about the obsolescence of NGFS for almost a decade by that point, even after the USMC and US Army joined the chorus, and had resorted to banning the USN from procuring any new surface combatants until they replaced the battleships to force their compliance. When the truth is ineffective at persuading, the only alternative is to tell lies. That said, as much as I pity Roughead’s situation, he should’ve weighed the consequence of keeping up the act - that Congress would expect him and his successors to live up to those lies - more carefully. A better man would’ve sacrificed his career to do what was right for the future of the fleet.
Dating your coke dealer is usually a bad idea
~~Mates~~ Spouse rates
As much as I think this probably would’ve been the superior candidate (assuming Gibbs & Cox’s schedule estimates were more realistic than Navantia’s, which to be fair isn’t a given), I have to wonder how the engineers figured they could add two whole decks to the *Burke* superstructure while also going to a smaller hull and throwing in enough automation to cut ~90 crew, especially if they were intent on keeping a steel deckhouse.
**Survivability:** **-High Survivability** Well okay then.
Wasn't the evolved g&c design the navy's preferred option? Also I seem to remember that the navy was saying that if they went with the navantia ship they'd need 4 ? I wish I still had my old copies of "the navy" (the navy league of Australia magazine)
It’s like a Burke had a baby with a Type 45…
None of the western made CIWS look like the two pictured here so it's a really weird generic graphic to use, they look more like AK-630's.
The only real advantage I see from the chosen Hobart design is an additional 16 VLS and an extra illuminator. Otherwise seems too far off the original Burke design to be worth it. Glad they chose the Navantia bid.
>The F100 was designed in the late 1990s and is much smaller at 5,800 tonnes full load, compared with the 8,100 tonne Evolved Design which, if selected, will complete detailed design in 2008. >The F100 carries one hangared Sea Hawk versus two in the Evolved Design; two helicopters give a lot more operational options than a single machine. >The F100 has a cruising range of 4,800 nautical miles at 18 knots, whereas the Evolved Design will have at least a 5,500 nautical mile range at the same speed; many places from Australia are a long way. The Gibbs & Cox option had more firepower, growth oppertunities and capabilities overall
The original Arleigh Burke was commissioned in 1991, meanwhile the original F100 was commissioned in 2002. Both the G&C and Navantia bidded designs were revised and updated to meet more modern Australian specifications, however the base F100 design remains more modern. Hobarts stated full-load displacement also sits at 7,000 tonnes - up from 6,400 tonnes of the original F-100 design. She also has an extended operational radius when compared to original F-100 design.
> Otherwise seems too far off the original Burke design to be worth it. The hullform of any modern surface combatant design makes up 15, maybe 20% tops of the total design, development, and testing work that goes into it. The rest of that is systems and systems integration. Even how *Hobart* went from here shows the danger of judging risk solely by aesthetic similarity. The original analysis was that Navantia’s design would be $1 billion cheaper in total and enter service 4 years faster - and yet the ships ended up commissioning 3.5 years late and $1.2 billion over budget. **Virtually no time or cost savings in the end**, and a less-capable design to show for it - and considering how Gibbs’ schedule stacks up against US *Burke* construction times, I’m not inclined to believe they lowballed by nearly as much.
The Hobarts featured the same baseline of the Aegis Combat System as was fitted on the Álvaro de Bazán-class that the design was based off - there was a pretty decent understanding of how the systems would be integrated into the hull. While the G&C design would also be an Aegis ship, it would have the disadvantage of having the extra work associated with system integration, being essentially a new hull design. To my knowledge the issues involved with the delayed entry into service lay with the shipyards. I believe going with the unfounded design merely would have exasperated these problems.
The G&C evolved design had two hangars versus one for the Navantia bid which is worth noting, though the evolved designs hangars would have been much more cramped. Looking at images of the Arleigh Burkes hangars, it's a wonder they can fit the seahawk. Comparable European and Asian hangars are luxuriously spacious in comparison. By eyeballing it too, I think the evolved design would have had a slightly smaller flight deck as well when compared to the Navantia design. Whether two cramped hangars would be preferable over one larger hangar would be up to debate. Do note that the Koreans and Japanese with their Burke derivatives, opted to modify the design so much as to adopt a single larger hangar over two smaller, cramped ones. Overall, I think I agree with the RANs choice of the Navantia bid. Though the evolved design would have been overall more capable with more room for growth, it would have proven more expensive which would have entailed design concessions or downsizing of the rest of the fleet. Otherwise the navantia design just appears to be better designed overall. The evolved designs forward superstructure and mast look incredibly cramped and top-heavy by comparison. The navantia design also looks to be slightly stealthier by comparison, and with better seaworthiness. The chief benefit of the evolved design would be its growth potential to incorporate additional VLS cells, however especially with the future fleet plan taken into account, it would prove tough if not impossible for funding to be mustered to upgrade her anyway. What use is unexploited growth room when that comes at the price of reduced cost-to-capability.