Shipbucket

1. Like you said, they wanted a domestically built ship.
2. A full Burke probably was outside their requirements - extra capability (and expense) they don't need.
3. I haven't heard anything bad about the F-100 class.

4. Crew... The latest Flight IIA Burkes' have a crew of 380ish; early Flight IIs had crews of around 280ish; The Hobart class is designed to have a crew of around 200ish. Therefore we'd need to devote 1.5 to 2 times the manpower to the DDGs if we'd gone with off the shelf Burkes. That'd either mean increasing recuitment (expensive and difficult with competition from the mining boom, particualrly for the skilled personel) or laying up some of the ANZACs.

@alanceloet: spot on. This is the way it works in a lot of modern shipbuilding nations, and the Netherlands and Norway in particular. As part of my job, I track the deliveries from Dutch shipyards. This is a real challenge, because it is very hard at times to figure out which ships were: 1) completely built in the Netherlands or 2) only fitted out in the Netherlands, or 3) merely built to a Dutch design, in a foreign country. Still, I like my job!

Apparently the Aegis systems are a bit difficult to service because the decision to go to Aegis was made a bit late in the design process.

Then again, it's possible that workarounds will be incorporated in the Hobart class. Experience and all.

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Would you please not eat my gun...

No. You can argue with me about this but I just transferred off one in January

My Flight I has a crew of around 230 onboard at any one time once factor in pregnancies, emergency leave and people at schools with maybe 250 assigned max. Granted this was with our billets not fully filled but that's been a reality for the better part of a decade so there is no point in throwing out reality in favor of a manning goal that is a work of fiction. USN ships only deploy whole these days by cannibalizing other ships in port, that goes for crew and parts.

I was on a Flight II until 2007 and the manning was the same with the exception of a couple extra CTs. The IIs also have flag accommodations but this is rarely in use on any DDG.

The Flight IIA has around 320 crew counting the air detachment. This is packing the ship to the gills, the IIAs actually have less berthing than the previous flights because they cut down aft officer country to fit in the hangers and most have half of Berthing 3 turned into a classroom/crew lounge (the other flights are back modifying themselves a habitability dollars allow, so not often these days).

So in short i don't think the manning is an issue to dictate procurement on. Honestly given the Aussie ships wouldn't have Tomahawk you could cut a dozen bodies out of the US crew complement levels right there.

and wouldn't the same account on the australian destroyer? so wouldn't part of the crew be not on board as well?
also, I would suppose that australian manning requirements would be different from USN practise as well, so the same spaces could maybe not be kept.

shipright, not to be mean, I understand that you have knowledge from own experience on the burkes, but watch out that not all you learned there is applicable to all ships and all navies

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
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We are talking about the actual Burkes here regarding the numbers Roach provided, so I believe it is relevant. I didn't mean to come off as bossy, sorry. Given the FFLX thread I don't even register on the scale of pushy know it alls on this site, in this case though it would be odd not to listen to what I am saying.

Any comment I have concering the Hobart version is speculation just like any other, I am just throwing out my thoughts. In addtion to not having the STRIKE mission area the Hobart as drawn in the OP has half the VLS and is missing the aft GTG. Its drawn with two Phalanxs here but all the documentation points to only one being installed. Its missing SLQ-32 as well (which accounts for a dozen odd CTs on a US Burke). What I am getting at is that this version of the Burke would have a crew far less than than the US version regardless of manning guidelines, and the US has one of the most padded ones out there anyway.

And I was in error above, I talked to a buddy assigned the the Forrest Sherman (Flight IIA) yesterday and their deployment complement including the air det was about under 300.