There are 5 ship designers in the running for the SEA 3000 General Purpose Frigate contract – and 2 of them are from South Korea. In this episode we discuss Hanwha Ocean, based on a visit to their extremely impressive facility at Okpo near Busan on the south coast of the country. However, we could not discuss their Australian bid because the government has banned companies from speaking with the media under threat that if they do so their participation in the competition will be instantly cancelled. This is to prevent any information about how badly this project is being bungled by the RAN ever reaching the Australian public. Even with that restriction there was still plenty to talk about, including Hanwha Ocean frigates for the Korean and Thai navies. Then a few words about industry policy, where the government of South Korea is doing the Australian government’s job for it. As promised, a few words about UK nuclear submarine projects – and they are struggling so badly with their own programs it is hard to see how they will ever manage to design and build SSN AUKUS.

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