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Yup, the two Newports did have a bunch of corrosion no one was aware of at the time of the transfer- I guess neither navy did very thorough meterial inspections. On the other hand, they were 25 years old and were purchased for only slightly over scrap value (A$30 million each compared to A$500 million each for new ships) so I should think it would have been obvious the ships would need some work. The corrosion was only discovered when the ships were ripped apart to rebuild them as command ships, and rebuilding both still cost 20% less than building a single new one, so not a bad bargain. Mexico, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Malaysia, Moracco, and Spain bought them also. Moracco, Chile, and Peru have all asked to replace the ones they bought in the 90s with ones sitting in the US reserve fleet- ones that have been sitting there for 18 years. The term 'buyer beware' comes to mind LOL!

Not sure that the Australian Navy would have been interested in the Kidds even if the quote from Wikipedia is true (it lists only a tabloid as the sourse). The ships were air defense ships set up for hot weather and sand storms. Large, crew intensive, not well suited for the primary missions of anti-sibmarine, maritime boarder patrol, and coast defense, and quite unsuitable for any kind of cold weather. I think Australia made the right choice going with a larger number of smaller ships.

Chile got 16 years out of San Bernardino, and tried to buy ex-Tuscaloosa to replace her. Congress held up the deal, not Chile.

Peru has tried to buy ex-Racine and ex-Fresno. Again, the hang up was Congress.

Australia did more than just refit the ships- they completely rebuilt them as command ships. Even then the cost was A$400 million for both, compared to an estimated A$500 million for one new build, so not a bad deal as a stopgap measure.

The comment about a used car salesman show some ignorance of the way ex-US Navy ships are transfered- the US Navy does not actively sell them. In the last 20 years alone over 230 ships have been transfered to other governments, with the price being based on the ability to pay. The nation must first be on the US State Department list of nations eligable to get US weapons transfers. Developing nations are generally not charged at all, developed nations pay basically scrap value unless the vessel has substantial life left in it (like the Kidds at the time), in which cast the price starts at 5% of the original cost of the vessel and goes up based on both the ability to pay and the remaining service life of the ships. Often the payment for the vessel is made out of US defense aid funds to that nation, so the recipients do not have to spend anything, they just have less money to spend on other weapons. Transfers are at the discretion of the President of the US, and at the approval of Congress if the value of the transfered asset is greater than a certain dollar amount (ships always are), and the total value of all material transfered to all countries must not exceed $450 million per year. US Navy does not initiate the transfer, and unlike in days gone by the Navy does not get to keep the money, if any, from the sale- in fact, at the discretion of the President, the US Navy can be stuck with the transfer and transportation costs if the receiving nation does not receive at least $10 million in US defense aid cash in the year of the transfer. Often there are more nations wanting ships that the dollar amount per year will allow to be transfered. The ships are very clearly transfered 'as-is'; US law specifically prohibits any refits or repairs from being performed to the vessel before transfer. It is up to the recieving nation to decide if they want the ship, what repairs it will need, and if they do not get US defense aid then they have to make arrangements for the transfer and to pay the transportation costs. If they decide they want it, they apply for the ship, and lobby Congress to approve the transfer. So no one has their arm twisted, no one gets a 'used car' sales job- it actually takes quite a bit of effort to get the ship, and as Peru and Chile have found out, Congress will often hold things up or deny the transfer at their whim. Some nations pass, some have recieved dozens of ships at little or no cost. Some will choose to lease a vessel instead.

The A$500 million figure was the published estimate from the time for the command ships the RAN wanted. The government was not going to give them that, so the choice really was the Newports or nothing. And there was zero chance that they would order brand new ships form a US yard instead of building them locally, and if they did they would not have gotten the same unit price from the shipyard as the US Navy did, so cost comparisons to new built US Navy ships are irrelevant. The RAN got two serviceable ships, and two that they picked out themselves, no strings attached, in hot transfers, for only slightly over their scrap value- it is hard to argue that this was a bad deal when the alternative was to get nothing. What happened after that is entirely on the RAN.

Your main point of contention with the transfer seems to be that the RAN spent hundreds of millions on the ships on massive rebuilds trying to turn them into something they weren't, and that they led short service lives due to being poorly maintained and in the case of Kanimbla suffering a serious onboard fire. To carry the above analogy further, you can't buy a '73 Ford pick up out of someone's yard for $300, spend $3,000 to try and turn it into a mobile home, never change the oil, and then complain to the seller that what you ended up with did not last as long as a new motor home would have.

These issue have nothing to do with the purchase of the vessels, and everything to do with their use after the transfer. Other nations that took transfered units used them as they were intended, did not waste a lot of money trying to make them into something they were not, took good care of them, and are still getting service out of them after 16-18 years.

So clearly the problems with the Newports in Royal Australian Navy service have absolutely nothing to do with anything on this side of the Pacific, and in reality little to do with the actual ships themselves. If I were an Australian, I'd stop complaining about the ships you got cheap from the US, and start wondering why the RAN managed to spend $461 million on these ships and got only 10 years of service out of them, when the navies of Mexico, Taiwan, Morocco, Chile, Brazil, Malaysia, and Spain purchased identical ships, spent 1/20th as much money, and got 16-20 years out of them. The problem is not with the sale, or with the ships, but with the RAN.