Another article emphasizing technological change and making assertions on operational conditions in submarine warfare, that is unfortunately deeply problematic regarding basic research into the topic it features. A quick thread.

foreignpolicy.com/2024/12/16/sub… Submarines do not feature significant signature optimisation against radar, because radar doesnt work underwater. The writer overstates the limited utility on masts used at periscope depth. Hull shaping in recent years emerged as a response to minimising returns on active sonar.

One aspect that has surfaced in the Australian submarine debate, which I find somewhat irritating, is the assertion that larger submarines (in this context SSNs) are easier to detect. They're really not. Quite the contrary. 1/7 Generally speaking the first thing engineers want to have more of when incorporating signature reduction measures (in submarines these are mostly acoustic, both for radiating noise and signal returns via active sonar) is real estate, ie size. 2/7

"China now is demanding that it pay only Russia's heavily subsidized domestic price for the natural gas, and China will not commit to buying a substantial quantity of such gas every year."

File this under how to gauge the supposedly improving relationship.jdsupra.com/legalnews/chin… As I mentioned previously: China is in it mostly for China. Russia remains extremely wary of its "partner" for myriads of reasons (economic, military etc). The "partnership" is really not that, and IMO the forces working against developing it into one will persist.

Australian government just axed substantial parts of the LOTE (life extension) efforts for Collins submarines, while going ahead with the overall program. A few thoughts on the matter. Official statement here. 1/9
minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases…
Key aspects:
1) Government received advice from Defence in consultation with US that adding Tomahawk to Collins is not viable and does not represent money for value.

No details. But torpedo tube launched Tomahawk is currently out of production. 2/9

A few thoughts on the issue of China's new corvette/light frigate sized combatant and what its point is, may be, and pertinently, has been stated to be, going off this article in TWZ.

twz.com/sea/chinas-mys… We do have one image from the yard giving this design an official purpose. Text declares the celebration of the launch of a project for a "comprehensive test platform". The design is partially visible in the graphic (minor differences but its clearly intended to be the same ship)

Thankfully the actual report by the German audit office is free to read, so I just looked at that instead. Link can be found here (pdf). Bullet points follow, as a comedy in eight acts: 1/
bundesrechnungshof.de/SharedDocs/Dow…

https://twitter.com/AlexLuck9/status/1732769420475347409

Effort to replace MCM capability by 2027 dates back to 2014. A standing commitment to NATO is to provide 11 boats with improved capability by 2031. Navy estimated original funding requirement at 2.7 bln Euros. 2/

"According to the US Congressional Research Service, the US navy has 9,000 missile vertical launch tubes to deliver long-range cruise missiles, compared with China’s 1,000."

This is false. Greg Austin's claim of this as a CRS-estimate is also misleading.
theconversation.com/the-us-navy-is… Actual source for these 1,000 cells for PLAN is Nick Childs, of IISS, himself cited in a CNN piece linked here. It is not immediately clear from that piece how Childs arrives at his claim, but it demonstrably wrong, unless "or so" is doing a lot of work. edition.cnn.com/2021/03/05/chi…

Mal ein🧵auf Deutsch, weil es nun wild durch die lokale Diskussion geht bzgl "neuer" Eroeffnungen, angeblicher oder tatsaechlicher Skandale zum Thema F-35, Triebwerkproblemen, Block 4-Modernisierung. Was sind die Fakten?

gao.gov/products/gao-2… Teil 1 - Die Bloecke: F-35 ist ein Programm, das, wie viele vorherigen Entwicklungen in Evolutionen stattfindet. Strukturelles Kern-Element hier sind die "Blocks", die neue Faehigkeiten integrieren. Das ist nicht unaehnlich zu Eurofighter mit seinen "Tranchen", siehe EF T1 vs T4.

Rheinmetall announces they will in collaboration with Ukroboronprom start to refurbish Fuchs APC for delivery to Ukrainian forces. Related joint venture will commence work by July. In second step full local production is intended.
esut.de/2023/06/meldun… Rheinmetall & Ukroboronprom previously announced signing strategic cooperation agreement for local manufacture of defence materiel. While observers (and CEO Papperger) named MBT, assembly of Fuchs may be more logical first step. UA said to have "four to five digit"-requirement.

Still not a fan of "MBT are outdated."-take on Russian tank losses.

Yes, the Russian Army lost a metric shit ton of them.
Because they threw a dramatic amount of materiel, clearly without coherent operational plans, into a grinding war of attrition. Not because tanks dont work. Problem with such analysis tends to be that people fixate on "popular" weapon systems vs all the other stuff the Russians also lost immense amounts of.

Quite similar to the eternal "aircraft carriers are obsolete"-takes in naval discussions. Far less often a case for IFV or DDG.

Marles: "The Defence Strategic Review has observed that navies around the world are moving in the direction, to put it kind of crudely, of having a larger number of smaller vessels,"

Not supported by any evidence. In fact combatants are growing in size.

msn.com/en-au/news/aus… Throw a rock in a random direction and it will land in the backyard of a navy building corvettes over 3,000 tonnes, frigates and destroyers blowing past 10,000 tons & shedding small specialist hulls for large multipurpose ones.

Just to put some more context on these issues, as they stand right now (and attract some interest in AU for the desired used Virginia SSN to be bought). There are three principal factors in play over the next few years:

https://twitter.com/ryankakiuchan/status/1641993788037156865

1) There's Virginia Blk I-IV & theres Virginia Blk V aka the one fitted with the Virginia Payload Module. VPM comes with a notable increase in VLS capacity. It also comes with a notable increase in construction hours. One Virginia Blk V equals 1.25 regular Virginia in build time.

Sharing for sake of coherent coverage. Apparently "discussions" continue on recapitalisation of Bundeswehr Tiger-fleet. No decision taken yet on choice of H145M (as per older media claim). Notably all options are still considered. H/t @bttr01438851

behoerden-spiegel.de/2023/03/29/vip… Personally, as I said elsewhere, this smells to me more like usual indecisive attitude in Berlin than serious consideration of available options. Article mentions even Tiger upgrade still considered, which I'm not sure is even feasible anymore, after ESP/F walked away from Mk 3.

German Navy just published a force structure-plan dubbed "Zielbild der Marine ab 2035" (Target posture of Navy from 2035), & it presents quite interesting figures. To call concept aspirational is an understatement. Short thread follows. H/t @naval_gazing
bundeswehr.de/de/organisatio… I will provide a complete summary of all that is written in an actual article for @navalnewscom later this week. For this thread lets just focus on this fascinating graphic outlining new structure from 2035. With the old target for 2031 seen left of the new figures.

Rheinmetall head Papperger says company is negotiating with Kyiv on establishing Panther MBT production in Ukraine. Says talks are promising, hopes for decision in two months. Cost is 200 mln Euro for infrastructure, aims to produce 400 Panther per year. n-tv.de/wirtschaft/Rhe… H/t @Konflikt_Sicher!

As media claims of an imminent resignation by German MinDef Lambrecht are now gaining traction and credibility, let me be the first to buzz kill this particular piece of good news by claiming it will make very little difference. You see, Lambrecht was not the actual root of the problem, which is a dysfunctional administrative apparatus responsible for the misery we call GER defence capability. This of course is not some genius revelation of mine but long term fact. The office is unpopular for a reason.

Launch of the third Lada-class SSK for the Russian Navy "Velikiye Luki" in St Petersburg. The hull had been laid down seven years ago, with work delayed & design revised in part due to multiple severe issues on the first of class "Sankt Petersburg".

Images via Weibo. Lada class introduced several notable changes over preceding Kilo class and variants. Most significantly they are a single hull design. They are also significantly smaller than Kilo, with a much reduced crew. Other changes are sail mounted diving planes & different stern rudders.

New details emerge on the failure of 18 PUMA IFV. Industry estimates fleet can be brought back in time for VJTF duties. More notably however the list of issues suggests factors other than type-related problems are culprit for failures. m.faz.net/aktuell/politi… Two most notable cases relate to damaged turret ring causing failure and a vehicle suffering wiring damage from overheating. In first (according to rumours) case cause is most likely an accidental obstacle collision. In second case rumor is plugs were set incorrectly.

After a gunnery exercise on a firing range in Germany 18 PUMA IFV suffered full system failures, notably in their (uncrewed) turret. While nature of defects was previously known, scale of issue unprecedented according to CO of 10th Panzerdivision. n-tv.de/politik/Komman… CO estimates it will take 3 to 4 months to restore readiness. The unit was scheduled to deploy with VJTF assignment. This means older MARDER IFV will once again have to cover availability gap. "Readiness of vehicles despite sound preparation akin to playing the lottery.".

"(Scholz:) “And I am therefore also extremely pleased that (TKMS) will expand its production in Germany and will also start production at the Wismar site from 2024.”"

Worth noting TKMS does this in anticipation also of more GER orders not yet realised.
navalnews.com/naval-news/202… In initial excitement over "Sondervermoegen" of 100 bln there was also some guessing that Berlin will order additonal Type 212CD to replace their first batch of 212A due for major & costly MLU soon.

But like with everything else statements since have been absent to support this.

The Russian stockpiles in MBT, in regards to condition and ability to bring them back into service, have been somewhat of a contentious talking point long before February. Sure, they will try what they can, but take the 9k figure with a shaker's worth of salt.

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1602595636469239809

While it's never smart to underestimate an opponent, one key lesson from the campaign so far had been that Russian military materiel is in fact in worse condition than expected by many serious analysts. The appearance very early of vintage T-72 & now T-62 cases in point.