Japan Wants to Sell Its Mogami-class Frigate to Australia
Japan Wants to Sell Its Mogami-class Frigate to Australia
The first frigate is slated for delivery to the RAN in 2029; it will enter service the following year.
After spending most of its post-World War II existence pursuing a pacifist foreign policy, Japan has significantly reasserted itself militarily in recent years. This shift has manifested itself in several ways, such as the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (JMSDF) recent decision to boost its surface warfare fleet with the purchase of the new ASEV “super destroyers.” This more muscular defense posture is also manifesting itself in Japan’s alliances with former WWII adversaries such as the Philippines as well as the three other partners in the “The Quad,” Australia, India, and the United States.
Japan is looking to expand its relationship with Australia—which, along with New Zealand, recently suffered a major humiliation at the hands of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). The next step in Tokyo’s plan is to make Canberra a potential customer in a major foreign military sales (FMS) deal.
Japanese Military Sales to Australia?
The latest comes to us from reporter Kosuke Takahashi in a December 2024 article for Naval News titled “Japan takes steps to win Australia’s multi-billion dollar frigate program.” To wit:
“Japan has established a joint public-private promotion committee in a bid to win a contract to develop a new class of general-purpose frigates for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Meanwhile the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) released an English language video to promote the Mogami-class to Australia. The move came after the Australian government had shortlisted Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) of Japan and Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) of Germany over Spanish and South Korean contenders to build Australia’s future frigates.
TKMS has offered its MEKO A-200 design. Meanwhile, Japan has pitched the upgraded Mogami-class, or New FFM (also known as 06FFM), according to the Japanese government statement.”
The winning bid is worth 10 billion Australian dollars ($6.5 billion) and will deliver eleven new general purpose frigates to replace the RAN’s aging (as in 1993-2006 vintage) ANZAC-class frigates and thus ensure the RAN “is equipped with a larger and more lethal surface combatant fleet to respond to our strategic circumstances” (to quote an Australian Department of Defence press release). Whichever competing ship class (and country) ends up winning the bid, three ships will be built offshore, with the first slated for delivery to the RAN in 2029 and entry into operational service the following year. The remaining eight will be built at Henderson shipyard in Western Australia.
Mogami-Class Frigate History and Specifications In-Brief
The 2022-vintage Mogami frigate class bears the same name as a WWII Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) heavy cruiser that was severely damaged during the Battle of Midway in 1942 and finally sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944.
The tech specs of the new-generation Mogamis are quite impressive indeed:
- Displacement: 3,900 tons standard, 5,500 tons fully laden
- Hull Length: 130 meters (426.5 feet)
- Beam Width: 16 meters (52.49 feet)
- Draft: 9 meters (29.5 feet)
- Crew Complement: ninety commissioned officers and enlisted sailors
- Armament:
- BAE Systems Mark 45 127mm (5-inch) naval gun system
- Sixteen-cell Mk 41 vertical launching system (VLS) for surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)
- Two missile canisters containing eight MHI Type 17 anti-ship missiles
- One Raytheon SeaRAM short-range anti-ship missile defence system
- MHI Type 12 torpedoes
- Two remote-controlled weapon stations
- Sea mines
The warships also have a hanger to accommodate a Mitsubishi SH-60 antisubmarine warfare (ASW) helicopter.
But arguably the most impressive feature of the Mogami-class, and the biggest improvement over the ANZAC-class, is the warship’s stealth technology, which is based on MHI’s research & development from the Advanced Technology Demonstrator (ATD-X)/X-2 Shinshin (“Mind” or “Spirit”) stealth fighter experimental aircraft.
Current State of the Royal Australian Navy
According to the World Directory of Modern Military Warships, the RAN has thirty-five total hulls in its fleet, ranking it twentieth out of forty national naval powers currently tracked by the website. (For the basis of comparison. The PLAN] has 405 hulls) Besides the aforementioned ANZAC-class frigates, those thirty-five units consist of:
- Six Collins-class submarines
- Three Hobart-class destroyers
- Three Huon-class minesweepers
- Ten Cape-class and three Armidale-class offshore patrol vessels
- Two Canberra-class and one Bay-class amphibious assault vessels
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
Image: By Hiroshi miyaji, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
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