In this initial Defence industry chat, we discuss Navantia Australia’s Technical Partner Network.

As Jamie Gibbs explains, Navantia Australia is creating a network of local suppliers that will improve sovereign capability across the naval support domain. That’s a view shared by two of their partners, Rubicon Associates and Marenav, with both companies enthusiastic about the concept.

As John Robertson and Adam Smith (not the famous 18th century economist) describe, this approach greatly benefits strategic self reliance.

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• The SEA 3000 General Purpose Frigate shortlist has been confirmed and unsurprisingly the leaked information is correct – it’s Germany and Japan. But obviously it couldn’t be that simple, so two designs from Thyssenkrupp will be evaluated and one from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. However, the MHI ship the Mogami FFM has not yet been built, with the first to be delivered in 2027. This would seem to indicate it is already in breach of Defence guidelines,, which are for an existing design. But it’s even worse, with Chief of Navy telling Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy that the RAN is happy to take any combat system, throwing 30 years of work standardising around the Saab 9LV CMS into the bin. Then another sad story of an exceptional Australian company DroneShield selling its leading edge counter drone technology all around the world – just not in Australia. Instead, for a perimeter security requirement the RAAF recently awarded a $30 million contract to Anduril, the US company funded by tech billionaires. It’s enough to make one scream, along with a few other topics.

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• In this episode we have some truly stunning – and worrying – information that the rate of US nuclear powered submarine construction is slowing down, not speeding up. The information is on the public record and comes from the CEO of Electric Boat, Phebe Novakovic in a briefing for shareholders. The problem is with the supply chain – companies manufacturing critical components cannot keep up with the required rate and as a consequence both the Columbia class SSBNs and Virginia SSNs will be delayed. This must be worrying news for the RAN – and it seems astounding that there has been no reporting of note in Australia about a development that could completely derail AUKUS Pillar One. The US also seems to be counting on Australia lifting Defence expenditure so that it can afford these submarines without cutting other capabilities – but that is exactly what has already started to happen. Finally, Defence officials have once again managed to get their way and have hounded German shipbuilding company Luerssen out of Australia.

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• Last week saw a bit of extra good news for Ukraine with the announcement that Australia will donate 49 M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks that are being retired from service. An extra 10 Abrams will be available for spare parts, or they could be returned to a usable condition. No matter how you look at this, it’s a significant contribution because while the tanks are a bit long in the tooth they are still a formidable capability, particularly against the ageing junk that Russia is now forced to field. Also last week saw a bit of coverage of the latest US Congressional Research Service report into AUKUS Pillar One – and it identifies a number of failures in the Australian process. Related to this, we are spending billions of dollars in WA getting ready for the deployment of US and possibly UK nuclear-powered submarines with no one doing the analysis of whether we should simply increase the size of that force for the defence of Australia. Finally some words about the company Austal – how come they are all of a sudden in such a privileged position?

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There are 5 ship designers in the running for the SEA 3000 General Purpose Frigate contract – and 2 of them are from South Korea. In this episode we discuss Hanwha Ocean, based on a visit to their extremely impressive facility at Okpo near Busan on the south coast of the country. However, we could not discuss their Australian bid because the government has banned companies from speaking with the media under threat that if they do so their participation in the competition will be instantly cancelled. This is to prevent any information about how badly this project is being bungled by the RAN ever reaching the Australian public. Even with that restriction there was still plenty to talk about, including Hanwha Ocean frigates for the Korean and Thai navies. Then a few words about industry policy, where the government of South Korea is doing the Australian government’s job for it. As promised, a few words about UK nuclear submarine projects – and they are struggling so badly with their own programs it is hard to see how they will ever manage to design and build SSN AUKUS.

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