{"id":76031,"date":"2026-04-18T06:57:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/18\/australia-and-japan-sign-6-5b-warship-deal-with-3-mogami-frigates-ordered-first\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T06:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:58:11","slug":"australia-and-japan-sign-6-5b-warship-deal-with-3-mogami-frigates-ordered-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/18\/australia-and-japan-sign-6-5b-warship-deal-with-3-mogami-frigates-ordered-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia and Japan sign $6.5B warship deal with 3 Mogami frigates ordered first"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Melbourne, Australia — <\/span>Australia and Japan on Saturday signed contracts for the delivery of the first three of a 10 billion Australian dollar ($6.5 billion) fleet of Japanese-designed warships, with the first delivery to take place over three years.<\/p>\n

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will build the first three Mogami-class frigates in Japan. Australia plans to build another eight at a shipyard in the state of Western Australia.<\/p>\n

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and his Australian counterpart Richard Marles<\/a> Attended a signing ceremony aboard the Mogami-class frigate JS Kumano, part of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, off the Australian city of Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Kumano recently participated in Exercise Kakadu, a biennial multinational maritime exercise hosted by Australia.<\/p>\n

Australia announced<\/a> In August last year the Japanese bid won the contract to provide Australia with the next generation general purpose frigate over Germany’s MEKO A-200 from ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. The deal provided a major boost to Japan’s still-underdeveloped defense industry after Australia lost a submarine contract to a French company in 2016.<\/p>\n

The Japanese-designed fleet will replace Australia’s aging ANZAC-class frigates, which are considered more vulnerable to modern missile and drone attack.<\/p>\n

Marles said the Japanese frigates were a major step towards providing Australia with a larger and more lethal surface combatant fleet. The first Mogami-class frigate is scheduled to arrive in Australia in 2029.<\/p>\n

“The timescale that we have announced is the fastest ever acquisition of a surface combatant aircraft in service in the Royal Australian Navy, and so it is a very fast timescale,” Marles told reporters.<\/p>\n

Japan is accelerating its military buildup while expanding its defense ties beyond its only treaty ally, the United States. He now considers Australia a semi-ally.<\/p>\n

Marles said Australia welcomed Japan’s relaxation of export controls on defense equipment and technology with “reliable partners like Australia”.<\/p>\n

“Japan is an industrial powerhouse and it offers a lot of opportunities for the development of Australia and our own defense industry as the Mogami project demonstrates,” Marles said.<\/p>\n

Koizumi said the introduction of Japanese ships into the Australian Navy meant “finally a major step is being taken to elevate our bilateral defense cooperation to greater heights.”<\/p>\n

He said Japan would remain Australia’s “indispensable partner” in the new case Australian defense strategy<\/a> The deal, announced this week, will add AU$53 billion ($38 million) to the defense budget over a decade.<\/p>\n

Koizumi said a “decisive factor” in Australia choosing the Japanese frigate was that it could be operated with only 90 personnel, about half the crew of Australia’s current ANZAC-class version. <\/p>\n

Australia says its Mogami-class frigates will be armed with surface-to-air and anti-shipping missiles and can operate combat helicopters. Her crew will consist of 92 sailors and officers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melbourne, Australia — Australia and Japan on Saturday signed contracts for the delivery of the first three of a 10 billion Australian dollar ($6.5 billion) fleet of Japanese-designed warships, with the first delivery to take place over three years. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will build the first three Mogami-class frigates in Japan. Australia plans to build<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[22928,5322,1570,22930,2842,22929,4475,505,3254],"class_list":{"0":"post-76031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-6-5b","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-deal","11":"tag-frigates","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-mogami","14":"tag-ordered","15":"tag-sign","16":"tag-warship"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76032,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76031\/revisions\/76032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}