Missiles & aircraft instead of vulnerable crewed warships
In an asymmetric fight with huge navies, Australia’s few surface combatants cannot survive. We will never match the shipbuilding capability of the superpowers – especially of China.
Australia should counter these huge navies with land and air launched anti-ship missiles and longer range air forces, not a handful of floating war graves.
| Superpowers – and Australia | Warships and submarines | Approx. Vertical Launch Silos (VLS) |
|---|---|---|
| PRC | 754 | 4,300 |
| USA | 470 | 8,400 |
| Russia | 419 | ~180 major combatants, unknown number of VLS |
| India | 135 | 1,100 |
| Australia – 2025 | 11 | 208 |
| Australia – 2043 (???) | 26 | 880 |
We would not buy any more surface warships, they would be quickly destroyed in any conflict with a superpower.
Australia should seek to modify our agreement with Japan to buy Mogami class frigates and instead buy Japanese Taigei class submarines. Both the Mogami frigate and the Taigei submarine are manufactured by MHI in Japan.
Warships in the way
It will be much simpler to program missiles, mines and torpedoes to attack anything that looks like a warship without having to worry about not hitting a few Australian warships.
Crewing and maintaining warships diverts resources from more capable defensive measures.
Wars we don’t want to fight
Fundamentally warships are to fight wars somewhere else.
This does not fit into the Echidna Strategy.
Superpowers can sink anything we can float
See also new DF-100 missile range.
Uncrewed Surface Vessels
USV’s are a real option.
The 11 meter Leidos USV (for example) can carry a variety of packages including a 32-cell missile launcher. This can be hidden in a standard shipping container and even air-lifted elsewhere if needed.
They can also be mass-produced in Australia.
Optionally-crewed surface vessel
The idea of these ships is that they have all the facilities that a crew would need but the ships could also sail with no crew at all.
The problem is that all the facilities needed for a crew would fill up half the boat. Having fully uncrewed ships may be a better idea.
Planned warships we would cancel
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| Warship program | Quantity | Commenced | Cost (A$ Billion) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mogami frigates | 11 | 0 | 20 |
| Hunter class frigates | 6 | 1 | 40 |
| Additional Hobart class destroyers | 3 | 0 | 10? |
| Australian large optionally-crewed surface vessel | 6 | 0 | ? |
| TOTAL CANCELLED | 26 | 80? |
Alternative defence spending:
- Advanced non-nuclear submarines (probably about 10 Japanese Taigei Class replacing the Mogami frigates)
- Maritime strike aircraft (50 to 100 for the cost of 1 Hunter Class frigate)
- Thousands of anti-ship missiles
A cost saving of many billions would be expected.
