Oh yes, I forgot, I put this diesel problem to my MHR, a minister
and his response; "We have good commercial arrangements for supply."

Duh, during a war ?

Hi Hasbeen

The Navy is partly kept happy by Australian built submarine projects providing a massive retirement scheme for senior officers and middle level engineers in the:
- Aus major builder to be (ASC?)
- Naval Group Australia,
- Lockheed Martin Australia (sub combat system) and
- the 500? or so Australian component suppliers

The 12 Future Subs number has always been a furphy. The industry and Navy are hoping for a 8 subs compromise.

Australia's inability to crew (including Captain) or efficiently maintain 6 conventional submarines points to fewer than 6 replacement, smaller crew, conventional subs being built.

Safe off the shelf options include:

- Naval Group Scorpenes (reliable propulsion, as low as 31 crew, sufficient range) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorp%C3%A8ne-class_submarine and

- TKMS 209s (reliable propulsion, as low as 36 crew, sufficient range) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_209_submarine

Cheers

Pete

Hi Bazz

It took 2 hours till the 4posts in 24 hour meter allowed me to reply to you.

SUBs?

If Australia could afford 12 conventional subs or 4 nuclear subs would that be the main or only factor making oil available for Australian use?

Presumably a Chinese naval blockade or destruction of the Singaporean oil refinery (that supplies Oz) would block oil shipments to Australia.

With 4 nuclear subs, 3 at a stretch would be available for operations. They could not repair Singapore's oil refinery if it was destroyed by Chinese ships, subs, aircraft or ground forces.

Many weapons could sink Chinese ships mounting a blockade, including our P-3 Orions (with Harpoon missiles), P-8 Poseidons, air refueled F-18s or future F-35s. Our destroyers and frigates mounting anti-ship missiles could sink Chinese blockade ships. Any Aus submarines could sink Chinese blockade ships also.

Australia has also been toying with the idea of building a land based missile network probably turn out to be Tomahawk missiles to sink enemy ships. This in addition to the usual sea launched Tomahawks http://www.raytheon.com.au/capabilities/products/tomahawk/ .

If the Chinese are using aircraft to sink Singaporean tankers countermoves get more difficult and submarines are irrelevant.

So, all in all, instead of puzzling whether a $150 Billion 10-25 year Aus nuclear sub program is warranted Australia could construct 2 oil refineries for about $2 Billion each (one in Sydney, the other in Perth) in 2+? years.

Cheers

Pete

Now you are talking plantagenet, we most definitely should be building our own refineries. That does not ensure we could get all the crude we might want, but would make interdicting tankers a hell of a lot more difficult.

Then there is our own oil. At some stage someone will develop the oil around the Keppel/Gladstone area, & it should be us, not new owners of the country. We would need some big prisons to lock up the misguided greenies to do so. Any development there or elsewhere should be government controlled, so it was done in the countries interest, rather than to suit commercial interests of oil industry giants.

My feeling is that any future major war will be fast, furious & decisive. If it starts there will be no time to develop a defence force, & industry, while fighting it. It will be a matter of being ready, or being defeated. With the present organisation, defeat would be unavoidable.

In such a case you can bet all our energy assets, including oil, would be developed pretty damn quickly by the winner.

Plantagenet I have no idea if submarines are necessary or not.
But if you need them seems nuclear despite being noisy is the way to go.
Re refineries, well the government must have decided to let them close
just like they have decided to let power stations close.

In any war in Asia it must be presumed that oil refineries would be
a high priority target.
Singapore and the Korean refineries would be lost.

The government has decided that fuel supplies are not all that risky.
Even an accident in the Singapore refinery could mean economic
collapse in Australia, depending for what other supplies we could
outbid others.
The government has banned preparation of Disaster Planning for fuel shortage.
This attitude was put in place during PM Rudd's time. It is long standing.

It must affect defense planning but surrender looks to be the only option.

The subs and any surface vessels are now useless.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Russia_Has_Underwater_Nuclear_Drones%2C_Leaked_Pentagon_Documents_Reveal/62950/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Russia is in possession of an underwater nuclear drone capable of carrying a 100-megaton nuclear warhead, a recently leaked draft of the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review confirmed.

The weapon, referred to in the document as an “AUV,” or autonomous underwater vehicle, is featured in a chart that lays out Russia's multiple nuclear delivery vehicles.

Pentagon officials warn in the posture review that Russia has actively diversified its nuclear capabilities, a strategic advantage it has over the United States:

In addition to modernizing ‘legacy’ Soviet nuclear systems, Russia is developing and deploying new nuclear warheads and launchers. These efforts include multiple upgrades for every leg of the Russian nuclear triad of strategic bombers, sea-based missiles and land-based missiles. Russia is also developing at least two new intercontinental range systems, a hypersonic glide vehicle and a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo.