Anzac-class Fast Frigate Helicopter Ship Brief

HMAS Perth is the featured ship in the Anzac-class Ship Brief. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) operates Anzac-class frigates, which are known as fast frigates. These frigates are a class of warships designed for multiple roles, including anti-submarine warfare, anti-aircraft warfare, and surface combat. The Anzac-class frigates were built by Tenix Defence Systems (now BAE Systems Australia) in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the lead ship being HMAS Anzac.

The Anzac-class frigates have a length of approximately 118 meters (387 feet) and a displacement of around 3,600 tons. They are equipped with various sensors and weapon systems, including surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, and a 76mm naval gun. While they do have a helicopter flight deck and hangar to support embarked helicopters, they are not primarily helicopter ships.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
#perth #anzac #frigate

Aaron's PC Spec
------------------------
CPU: Intel i9-9900k @4.7 GHz
RAM: 32GB
GPU: NVIDIA TITAN RTX 24GB GDDR6
Accelsior 4M2 16.0TB PCIe M.2 NVMe SSD

sub brief, sme, subject matter expert, naval, policy, technology, tactical use of the ocean, sonar, submarine tactics, weapons employment, aip, air independent power, 21st century, aaron, amick, aaron amick, sonar, sonarman, sme, SME, subject matter expert, naval, games, wargames, testing, tactics, news, history, tactical use of the ocean, hide, find, search, jive turkey, jive, subbrief,

[Muggsy_]

As a bloke currently sailing on Perth, thank you, I absolutely loved this. Great to see us and the rest of the Anzacs getting some recognition. This class is the workhorse of the fleet. Fight and Flourish!

[xtimbox]

It's awesome to see the Ships that I got to give my little bit to help construct on your channel. I just need to pick a couple of you points. HMAS Perth was Ship 10 in the 10 Ship build undertaken by the RAN and the RNZN. Her steel was cut in the early 2000's and all of Her original Combat suite was used by the Crew Training Facility offsite to the Ship Yard. You stated that She was only capable of 27 knots, I know for a fact these girls can make 36 Knots. The latest upgrades have been very successful in extending the life of the Class. You all so missed her NULKA capability. Thank you to all those who worked at Williamston Ship Yard, we produced some very high quality and enduring ships of war.

[superstorby]

I have served on three ANZAC class ships, HMAS WARRAMUNGA 2005-2007, HMAS PERTH 2009-2010 during the 2010 upgrade then straight onto HMAS TOOWOOMBA 2010-2011. They usually only carry around 150 crew unless they go on an overseas deployment and take flight crew and air crew with the Seahawk (who are nicknamed Birdies) as well as electronic warfare specialists (Spooks) and a couple more officers for the bridge and Ops Room, plus a Chaplain. During the deployment to the Middle East on HMAS WARRAMUNGA we carried 185 crew with 1 of them having to sleep in the FWD switchboard room on a fold up cot due to absolutely no bunks available. There are lots of small mess decks that were less than 20 crew in each which I loved as it fostered a great comradery amongst the different messes. Loved my time on them for sure.

[brettcashmore]

The US didn’t quit ANZUS, they distanced themself from New Zealand. The Australia/US agreement has never been cancelled or paused.

[AuB]

Great run down on the Anzacs, however there are a few things that you missed that help explain some of points that you made. The HMAS Perth came out of its most recent upgrade in 2021 and that was for the full Anti Ship Missle Defence Upgrade which installed Ceafar 2 in place of the SPS-49 radar, in addition to a number of other enhancements.
Until these ASMD upgrades, the Anzac class were considered quite lightly armed, having only 8 Sea Sparrow missiles in total, before the addition of the quad packed ESSM. One of the reasons that further MK-41 VLS were not installed was said to be due to top weight issues following the installation of the new Ceafar mast. Also, the Harpoon placement on the front added further weight issues. As a result, further ballast was required and the ships top speed and seakeeping has apparently been impacted. It has also recently been announced that the Harpoon ASM is to be replaced by the Naval Strike Missile on the Anzacs.
There's a great article written by ASPI called Rearming the Anzacs which goes into a lot of detail of Ceafar etc.
One important system that you missed was the Nulka missile decoy system. It was a joint Australian and US system developed to help counter ASMs.

[RobMcGinley]

As built the first ANZAC where described as "Patrol Frigates" which was accurate as they had extremely limited war fighting capabilities.

In the 2000's they received upto 32 ESSM (replacing the 8 NSSM), HARPOON, NULKA Active Missile Decoy) and an Air Weapons Magazine ( The space was previously used as a gym). At this stage I was proud to serve on them.

I left in the early 2010's when they where receiving the ASMD upgrade to the Combat System and they have only improved since then with the full Phased array setup.

The second MK 41 VLS was never installed because they lost the weight margin with the other upgrades.

[mclouj]

As a resident of Perth, WA thanks for the in depth brief on our titular ship!

[llamamclarry]

I got the opportunity to work on both NZ's ANZAC's while working as a laborer, cool ships been waiting for you to do a ship brief on them.

[FoolOfAToke]

Fleet Weeks in San Fran these past couple of years have been a little small, but it is still impressive seeing warships passing in-line under the bridge, plus the airshow is always a good time. And seeing the city full of sailors is always a good thing!

[picardtseng]

Those Australian Anzac class fleet have received further upgrade called ANZAC Mid-life Capability Assurance Programme(AMCAP) since 2017, Including CEAFAR-2L phased array radar that replaced the legacy AN/SPS-49. So RAN Anzac fleet now have a larger mast top that housing three different CEA series phased arrays (L/S/X bands), which looks like a pineapple.

[GM-fhjp]

Very good analysis and commentary of a fine ship type.
The Aussies keep their powder quite dry with regard to all of their combat systems and capabilities, which is not a bad thing.
Incidentally, that Ceafar radar system is considered absolute state of the art. It was invented in Australia using Aussie technology and has even been considered by the UK and US Navy due to its excellent performance and clever ECM capabilities.
One thing to remember, due to the experiences with the US Navy in those bloody sea and land battles of the Pacific War is that the Australian Navy would come to the aid of the USNavy no matter the circumstances, even if it required a suicide mission. Australians don't abandon their mates.
Thanks for posting, sir!

[fishua]

The best defense against pirates are trained beavers 🦫 that eat their peg legs and leaves them crippled and spinning on the deck!

[TrugginsOFFICIAL]

Great, reliable class of warship. Brilliant modular design that’s accepted heavy upgrades over the years to modernise it. It no longer has mk49 radar and now has total phased array. The only problem is, they need more VLS and towed array but that’s pushing buoyancy limits. But they’re the backbone of the fleet

[konradandreenordvik]

The Spherion sonar was built by Simrad in Norway using technology developed in coperation with Thomson-CSF and Simrad for the Norwegian navy. The Australian Navy bougt the sonar which was assembeled by Simrad in Horten Norway using both Norwgian and French parts and technology.

[iltc]

Thank you for a very detailed and precise review. The RAN is small but highly capable, and has a proud tradition.

[OrDuneStudios]

Current Aussie Ship Driver. SWO equivilent.

Love your work.

Unfortunatly they are getting old as hulls. But yes as Multi-role Frigates they still remain quite capable.

But as a Navy we were not quite happy with them from the offset despite being leagues ahead of the Desteoyer Escortd they replaces and despite being not a long range AAW platfrom were seen as not as good a platform as the OHP FFGs, other than AAW they preformed on par.

They recently went through AMCAP with the newer CEAFAR2 over the mid 2010s CEAFAR. We jokingly call it CEAFurther.

They are mostly limited by not having strike length VLS and were hamstrung by only having 8 VLS until we got ESSM.

The Replacement it taking its sweat time so we may see these old gals doing a full 30 or 40 years like the OHPs.

Again awesome work.

[atrothe]

Glad to hear that Australia has some good equipment fit for purpose.

[spoddie]

Australians generally have a lot of pride in their military but I don't they realise how good the RAN is. It has a long history with a lot of British support from WWI with RN officers serving as officers passing on a wonderful heritage and they maintain exchanges with RN and USN. We're small, but very good.

[allensanders]

the LM 2500 is the CF6 jet engine that is used by DC10, early 747, A 300, and 767 aircraft. also used on the air force Lockheed Martin C-5M Super Galaxy.

[macattack_nz]

would be interested to see you do a short talk on the RNZN variant.