Cheers Bruce (B2)
![Nuke :nuke:](./images/smilies/set1_b/nuke.gif)
![Nuke :nuke:](./images/smilies/set1_b/nuke.gif)
Kim - all new sub programs cost mega bucks. Study the GOA (Govt Accounting Office) reports in the US, and even the home of the most advanced nuclear navy has massive cost overruns from one class of boat to the next - EVEN - when the same hull was used. If the US who build scores of subs at a time and blow the budget it was odds on we'd do the same.kimwhite wrote:Hi Bruce,
when you talk to your mate you ought to qualify "fit for service" by saying the subs are really only just adequate now, having had many many tens of millions of dollars spent on them over and above their "original" price, simply to get them to work at all.
Not true - sure there have been heaps of problems the No.1 problem we touched on however is man power or lack there of. The issues your describing Kim are typically normal for any new sub class.kimwhite wrote:
Most of them have NOT been operational for all their service life due to inbuilt design inadequacies; they have been noisy (poor hull design resulting in turbulence instead of laminar water flow, incorrectly designed propellers, a combat system that simply did not work, and even - as proved by Dechaineux - a mystery failure of a water pipe which almost caused catastrophic flooding and loss of the boat. The cause of the latter incident cannot even be discovered so the maximum diving depth of all the Collins boats has been reduced as a safety measure.
Well for what they do Kim they are the best. There also the largest diesel boats in the world. Why? Because the patrol sectors the RAN employs have longer ranges than any other nation on Earth with a non nuclear fleet, which is why Kim an off the shelf boat in 1996 was simply not up to the job. Subs cost lots of money to maintain.kimwhite wrote: While some people will tell you that Collins are the best SSKs in the world, you have to ask yourself why a class of submarines, the first of which was commissioned in 1996 - fifteen years ago - is STILL having big money poured into them to get them to a standard fit to enter combat today.
The sheer cost over the last 15 years is staggering and the money wasted could have been better spent on surface patrol boats or cheap diesel-powered frigates.
Also not true, even if we forget that an Upholder won't have the range of Collins, and forget all the spec differences, the RCN has spent almost as much on the Upholders putting them right as we have on the Collins. Its interesting Kim that of the lamenting I see people here doing over Collins the Canadians and their press voice pretty much the same complaints about those "so called bargain" Upholders. I guess sub drivers will always be at odds with taxpayers, and quite rightly so! Kilos shorter range again, incompatibility with weps we use, and no way politically to practically acquire themkimwhite wrote: We would have been better off buying the Type 2400 Upholder which, while it did have some design faults that needed attention, was actually a real boat at the time of the Collins purchase and not an "on paper" design. The Type 2400 would have done what we wanted, all of them would have been in the water six years before the first Collins, and would have been substantially cheaper initially AND would not have needed the mega-millions of dollars we have wasted on our Swedish-designed rubbish.
I think even a Kilo class would be better.
Yes get the idea mate, - least the dislike is entertaining.kimwhite wrote: Do you get the idea I absolutely loath the Collins subs and everything to do with them? It was inevitable, really, if you knew what "Smiley" Collins was like as a person. My father served with him during WW2 and has some interesting stories about Collins that take the gloss off his reputation, to say the least!
Well, that's my broadside fired. Salvos!!
Kim