Closer to 10 years not 17 years for RAN ship

In its one-sided mention of the Manoora decommissioning the other day, Defence wasn't quite accurate with the years of service in the RAN.

And so the Royal Australian Navy, on decommissioning HMAS Manoora, has noted the "17 years of dedicated service" given by the assault ship.

Manoora did not give 17 years of service, dedicated or otherwise. It and its sistership, Kanimbla, then 24-year-old members of the USN's Newport News class, were commissioned into the RAN in 1994. They then spent the next six years being rebuilt and were only provisionally accepted into service in 2000. Readers may know that more recently they have been confined to harbor, non-operational because of faults.

At most, Australia got about 10 years of service out of Manoora. Maybe we should not blame the ship. It was the navy that failed, somehow, to monitor and maintain the ship's material condition.

Correction of the last bit;the DMO and Navy;not just the Navy.

With our quality minded Defence Material Organisation, do you think we will get 10 actual years of service out of the new Bay-class?