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Update on previous story – Australia’s Canberra Class ships aren’t in very good shape

Yesterday I posted a story about the Canberra Class Landing Helicopter Dock Ships and today I have some more news to share with you – and depending on which side of the fence you sit on when it comes to these Spanish Built ships constructed in conjunction with BAE Systems-Maritime and German manufacturer Siemens you will either cringe, laugh or feel bad for the Royal Australian Navy.

Yesterday I reported that the HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide were currently in dry-dock due to issues that were identified with their propulsion system; now today the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) today conceded that the LHD’s may have design flaw with the engine systems.

In the mean time, Engineers are still trying to identify what is causing problems with the “azimuth” propulsion system on board the more than a billion dollar a piece ships which have been found to have metal fragments in the engine lubricant.

RAN has now confirmed HMAS Adelaide will no longer participate in next month’s planned Talisman Sabre exercises with the United States, and says it is too early to say whether HMAS Canberra will also be able to take part however it is speculated that it will not take part in the exercise as well – the exercises would be the time for Australia to show off it more recent improvements in amphibious warfare.

For Navantia, this comes at a really bad time. They are bidding on nine new anti-submarine-submarine frigates that RAN will be ordering and the controversy surrounding the sale of the same ships by Navantia to the Saudi Arabian government which an expert on arms sales for Amnesty International described as potentially illegal.

Gianpaulo is based in Australia and is a student of Counterterrorism, Intelligence and Security. Interested in everything related to National Security. 24 News Enthusiast, political junkie and working on his first book 'Hitchhikers Guide to National Security'.
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David Stone
David Stone
6 years ago

Blimey, bad news for the Aussies. Expensive tubs too.

Why have they got ski ramps? They don’t operate harriers and only F35A planned as far as I can see

Steve
Steve
6 years ago
Reply to  David Stone

I was thinking the same in regards to the ski ramp. I guess they designed it to be flexible, should a need for operating F35B’s or similar arises.

Julian
Julian
6 years ago
Reply to  Steve

They are based on the Spanish Juan Carlos class (not surprisingly given the Navantia connection). According to Wikipedia the Australians had planned to remove the ski ramp as part of adapting the JC design to their requirements (they decided they didn’t need the ramp) but it turned out to be more expensive to remove it from the design than to leave it in place so they left it in place. There has been some discussion of adding F-35B to the mix but the last I read that it was decided not to. I wonder whether it could be done right… Read more »

Jack
6 years ago
Reply to  Steve

This is a link to an article why Australia didn’t go down the F35b route.
Putting F35b’s on a carrier isn’t without it’s challenges, which is why not many countries are capable of achieving it.
https://www.defensetech.org/2015/07/10/australian-navy-cancels-order-for-the-f-35b-joint-strike-fighter/?mobile=1

clive
clive
6 years ago

Regarding the ski ramps, they are a legacy from the ship design upon which the class is based and the RAN discovered that it would cost more for a design without a ski ramp so left it in.

Metal fragments in the engine lube doesn’t sound too good. It must be worrying and I really hope that it can be sorted.

clive
clive
6 years ago

I am not sure if the Canberras are using the same engine machinery as the Juan Carlos. I have not heard of problems with Juan Carlos so maybe it is using different machinery. Another thing I noticed about the Canberras is that at the moment they lack a last ditch CIWS for taking out anti-ship missiles. I believe Vulcan Phalanx systems are to be fitted but since commissioning they have sailed with only standard 25mm gun mounts, incapable of stopping missiles as far as I am aware.

clive
clive
6 years ago

Just noticed Turkey is currently building a ship based on Juan Carlos, so I would think they are keeping a very close eye on what is going on in Australia. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the Turkish Navy is planning to operate F-35Bs from their ship, so it must be getting a full thermal treatment for the deck.

Steve
Steve
6 years ago

With the skii jump we can put some of the 100 odd F35b’s we are meant to be getting on it. They are made of cardboard, so don’t need any heat resistant material.

Mike
Mike
6 years ago

Ouch, that sounds extremely serious, time will tell. I am aware why the Canberra’s maintained the ski ramp and that they were built without fixed wing capability envisaged, the cost to modify them was an obvious issue when a relatively recent Australian government driven evaluation rejected the possibility; at least for the time being. That said if the RAN had one ship modified to act as a light carrier, when needed, operating a squadron of F35B’s the capability increase would not be inconsiderable; combined with the second in the LHD role the power projection delivered most nations would envy. In… Read more »

Colin
Colin
6 years ago
Reply to  Mike

even if they are refitted the wait for f35b will take a long time for the aircraft themselves,yes when they decommissioned HMAS Melbourne our navy lost a lot of capability

Julian
Julian
6 years ago
Reply to  Mike

I’m not an expert but was eavesdropping recently on discussions on another forum where many of the participants did at least appear to be experts. A widely held opinion there, maybe even the consensus, was that although vessels such as a Canberra Class could in theory embark some F-35B they were too small to really maintain any sort of intensity in terms of sortie rate for much longer than a day or two and that the real difference in strike capability between the QE carriers and this sort of LHD is far more marked than might be thought from basic… Read more »

Steve
Steve
6 years ago
Reply to  Julian

It still seems a bit short sighted of Australia to buy some B’s, especially considering the country is huge and full of improvised landing strip potentials where the B’s could excel.

The class might be not be ideal for operating as a carrier, but it would give options, even if it was just providing basic air coverage to the landing force / allies.

Julian
Julian
6 years ago
Reply to  Steve

I agree. It would also help the UK since F-35B has higher UK content than the other variants and to have as many allies as possible operating that variant for us to share experience and expertise with can only help our use of the aircraft. I was just wanting to point out that sometimes here in the UK we bemoan the price that we’re paying for our new carriers (particularly the effect they are having on starving other bits of the RN e.g. escort budget) and forget just what a massive step-change in power projection they are going to be… Read more »

Steve
Steve
6 years ago
Reply to  Julian

The last part of your statement is ultimately the problem with the carriers. If we had gone down the route of something smaller, there would have been money available for more jets and escorts.

No question that carriers have the potential to be a great step up in power projection, but so would have been a smaller platform like the old invisible class.

Only time will tell just how stretched the navy/airforce will forced to be, to make sure they have enough assets to make use of the carriers.

Julian
Julian
6 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Yup. Time will tell. Ultimately I’m not optimistic though. The only real hope I see is getting some money from the aid budget. There was that flurry of rumours a few weeks ago that the Tories were considering merging the two budgets. I do genuinely believe that would have resulted in more going to defence. With so much public concern about the level of the aid budget already can anyone really see a merge as being an excuse to increase it even more? Just maybe there is no smoke without fire and something might still happen regarding merging budgets. It’s… Read more »

Adrian
Adrian
6 years ago

Canberra class its different to BAM Juan Carlos I, The ship is equipped with two SIEMENS azimuth thrusters and two bow thrusters.

Steve
Steve
6 years ago

AIS tracking shows HMAS Canberra has been back at sea 2 days ago. Informal word is that it may have been leaking seals on the azipod which have now been replaced and this recent sailing has been a test run.

Arkroyal
Arkroyal
6 years ago

Is it too late for the RAN to buy some sea Harriers from the USMC?

Oscar Zulu
Oscar Zulu
6 years ago

There has been a degree of media hysteria, wild speculation and inaccurate reporting here in Australia on the LHDs. Rumours of ‘oil and propulsion’ problems led the media to simplistically equate the problem with a family car and mischievously implied the Navy had incompetently bungled a routine engine ’oil change’. The problems have since been confirmed to be with the azipods and their seals and lubricants and given the azipods are electrically powered there is no mechanical connection to the engines with the probability of an engine problem close to zero. The azipods are clearly still functional, as demonstrated by… Read more »