Whinge of the day thread...

[HippyProspecting]

Do you actually believe the government when they Estimate that it will only cost us taxpayers $265 billion to $368 billion

The last major project in Victoria was estimated to cost us $6 billion and has now run up a bill of over $10 billion.
I wish I could quote so flippantly in my line of work

 

[ozboy]

That's all good in retrospect but we weren't expecting that. We thought we'd find an upset mum/dad frantically searching for their child.
Unfortunately we weren't really prepared for a calm mum, seemingly casually going about her shopping. We were a bit taken aback to be honest.

understandable, but I'm a mandated notifier; I have to report anything like that.

 

[user 4386]

Do you actually believe the government when they Estimate that it will only cost us taxpayers $265 billion to $368 billion

The last major project in Victoria was estimated to cost us $6 billion and has now run up a bill of over $10 billion.
I wish I could quote so flippantly in my line of work

Me too - I would not have many clients. Although I suppose I don't do 30 year jobs....

 

[Nightjar]

Me too - I would not have many clients. Although I suppose I don't do 30 year jobs....

If the Yanks could find a hole big enough for their mouths, to crawl into this arms race would be scaled.

 

[EVIE/BEE]

My understanding is that it is over 30 years, not 10 years, so divide by 3. There is another way of looking at it. They say it will be 0.15% of GDP. At present we spend 1.85% of GDP annually on defence spending. So an increase to 2%, which is what most nations spend (Trumps complaint was that a few European nations did not, and he argued that America should not be picking up the tab for their defence- a sore point that many American's supported. So we are increasing our annual defence spending by 3.9% Everyone seems to ignore that we already spend more than 12 times the cost of the submarines annually on defence (and odds are that there will be some savings there anyway).

And I notice that the media has jumped at the upper figure in the announced range (which includes upgrading our shipyards)"

"The total cost of the submarine program is estimated to be A$268 billion to A$368 billion by 2055, or roughly 0.15% of gross domestic product per year, a defence official told Reuters". Another figure announced was $245 billion. Pretty rubbery.....

The cost is as you say 'pretty rubbery'. That's because it doesn't stop at delivery.
Ongoing costs like manning the boats plus maintenance will be huge. Don't forget about depreciation, they will all have to be replaced eventually.
The cost will not stop at 30 yrs it's forever.
A fantastic deterent.

 

[Mackka]

I don’t have an issue with the spend if it is going to help Australia in the next three decades Because right now our navy resembles McHales. Mackka

 

[user 4386]

The cost is as you say 'pretty rubbery'. That's because it doesn't stop at delivery.
Ongoing costs like manning the boats plus maintenance will be huge. Don't forget about depreciation, they will all have to be replaced eventually.
The cost will not stop at 30 yrs it's forever.
A fantastic deterrent.

The cost of our cars does not stop at delivery either. Nor does the cost of maintaining our Collins class submarines.

"Australia’s Collins Class submarines are the most expensive in the world. The fleet of six submarines costs taxpayers $630 million a year to maintain, or $105 million for each submarine".
"Rear Admiral Sammut said the most recent estimate [for maintaing the new submarines] was now $145 billion out to 2080 - their expected life. So $4.8 billion per year in present-day dollars". This appears to also include maintaining the Virginia-class submarines to see us through the 1930s to 1950 when the new submarines will be delivered.

We have a $45 billion per year defence budget, a significant part of which is for maintaining our defence equipment.
No free lunches. However the media is making the cost particularly "eye-watering" (their words) by quoting the 30 year cost. If we did NOT buy them, our current annual defence budget over 30 years would be $1350 billion (but the existing submarines would jack this up as they further deteriorated, before in a few years they would become unusable). The new submarines capital outlay will cost a quarter of that over that period and we end up with state-of-the-art submarines.. And hopefully a re-invigoration of Australian manufacturing (almost non-existent now) and tens of thousands of jobs.

Of course this assumes that the government can do its sums.

 

[EVIE/BEE]

Maybe by the time they arrive submarine warfare will make all submarines obsolete.

 

[Goldfreak]

We should have a nuclear detterent. I think thats actually the plan with out saying and the subs are to be a delivery vehicle. If you think that would only make us a target well I suggest you take a look at Ukraine as an example of what happends if you dont have them. They had nukes and gave them up for soverignty declarations and assurances on paper. We cant win a war toe to toe against a major power but we can make it just not worth it to attack us. We should also be working out what we are to do with potentially millions of refugees coming our way from Taiwan. Hopefully none of this happends but no harm having a basic plan.

 

[Goldfreak]

Maybe by the time they arrive submarine warfare will make all submarines obsolete.

Swarms of automonous, cheap, mass produced ai controlled self learning target identifying the drones are the future of warfare. The Isrealis already have something that uses topography and land marks for navigation eliminating the need for a satellite or other communication that could be interrupted. Scary stuff.

 

[user 4386]

Swarms of automonous, cheap, mass produced ai controlled self learning target identifying the drones are the future of warfare. The Isrealis already have something that uses topography and land marks for navigation eliminating the need for a satellite or other communication that could be interrupted. Scary stuff.

It is a mixed blessing. In theory it means attacks could be limited to specific targets. However not much evidence of that in Ukraine, probably because it reduces the terror aspect of wholesale shelling and bombing. MAD has worked so far, let us hope that remains the case (but then I look at North Korea.....)

 

[Goldfreak]

Problem is who or what decides what the target is and then who or what is then responsible ? Imagine chat gpt fronting the Hague. Not that the winners have to do that anyway. Might isnt right but it certainly gets away with it.

 

[EVIE/BEE]

Swarms of automonous, cheap, mass produced ai controlled self learning target identifying the drones are the future of warfare. The Isrealis already have something that uses topography and land marks for navigation eliminating the need for a satellite or other communication that could be interrupted. Scary stuff.

The CCP have already got that covered.
Transponders in all their bloody windmils.

 

[user 4386]

The CCP have already got that covered.
Transponders in all their bloody windmills.

I don't think you require many reference points anyway, so long as three form a broad triangle - existing airports and other beacons. I do not know if these are used in addition to GPS satellites. Of course there are a lot of GPS satellites that would need to be knocked out first.

"As of June 26, 2022, there were a total of 31 operational satellites in the GPS constellation, not including the decommissioned, on-orbit spares"


However there is something else that I know nothing about:

"With visual inertial odometry (VIO), a UAS can operate autonomously without GPS. VIO uses visual and inertial data to measure distance traveled and position without the need to have a GPS signal. What makes VIO unique is that it can measure the aircraft’s position in 3D space and is the foundation of many other computer-vision functions such as obstacle avoidance, position control, and autonomous navigation in a GPS-denied environment".

 

[Nightjar]

The s**t fight has already begun, WA government claim there is no way they will allow disposal of Nuclear waste in WA from pending submarine deal.
Meanwhile the submarines are trolling under the surface and the nuclear warheads in space are heading for targets?

 

[Mackka]

Scaremongerers.
Xi is visiting Putin next week. Time to bend over and kiss ya …. Goodbye.

 

[Jaros]

Semenly looks like it.....

 

[EVIE/BEE]

The s**t fight has already begun, WA government claim there is no way they will allow disposal of Nuclear waste in WA from pending submarine deal.
Meanwhile the submarines are trolling under the surface and the nuclear warheads in space are heading for targets?

Woomera is the obvious spot.
Nobody is aloud in there anyway.

 

[user 4485]

I don't know how many times we need to say this but:

General reminder on political posts. As said previously here this thread gets a fair bit of leeway in regards to the forum rules & often skates close to the edge on a lot of various topics, not just politics.
The naming of specific politicians or political parties will definitely be removed without notice no matter how seemingly benign the comment/s. It is too open to argument i.e. for every person that thinks a particular politician or party is doing good there are probably 2 others that likely disagree & vice versa.

 

[user 4386]

Woomera is the obvious spot.
Nobody is aloud in there anyway.

Much of Woomera can be driven through (you go through it when you drive to Coober Pedy) and four wheel drivers can get a permit through the Maralinga section (atom bomb sites) where small fenced off areas tell you not to enter past the fence. However there is no compelling reason why it need go there,

"There are now stone monuments at the ground-zero points, which can be visited by tourists (with the written approval of the RAAF Woomera Test Range who now control access to the area), though the location is still extremely remote (see Anne Beadell Highway). Evidence of the explosions may still be seen at ground-zero in the form of vitrified sand and concentric blast rings"

They will have time to argue about it - it will be 33 years before the first of the used sub fuel must be disposed of. I think each sub uses around 200 kg of uranium over that time, varying with the level of enrichment (miniscule in total compared with one nuclear reactor, which uses about 800 tonnes over the same time period ), I suspect we will have other nuclear reactors by then. We already have one - Lucas Heights - that uses about 25 tonnes per year, or 825 tonnes over the same time period. Its waste does not vaporize conveniently, it and its products are temporarily stored in around 100 sites around Australia because no one will bite the bullet and make a decision on a site. So it is not a case of the subs creating a new disposal problem, they add a trivial amount to our existing reactor waste. Storing them in lots of places as we do is risky - storing at a single site in a remote part of any desert state carries negligible risk. Even our past waste is returned to us by the UK. Nuclear waste dumps only need to be tiny.

We need sensible discussion of the engineering and science - so much media hype is driven by ignorance, and it is a bit beyond the realm of politicians to be expected to understand - most have no basic science background.

As for WA saying "no way", guess which was the other state where we did atom bomb testing?