‘Fast-track frigates to save jobs’

A PLAN to save Australia’s ship building industry by bringing forward construction of eight potent new frigates for the Royal Australian Navy is being considered by the Abbott government. 

              

This option to bridge the so-called “valley of death” for shipbuilding would mean constructing sections of some of the new frigates when the hulls of the three air warfare destroyers (AWDs) are completed. That would mean the 7000-tonne frigates would use the same hulls as the destroyers so that they could be built with the existing equipment and the same workforce.

 

The sections, or “blocks” can be built in different shipyards and then welded together.

 

This option will be discussed in a speech to be made by Defence Minister David Johnston to key defence industry figures in Canberra today.

 

The valley of death is the tag given to the point when current defence contracts run out with the completion of the AWDs and two giant landing ships. Companies say they will have to sack thousands of skilled workers unless more ships are ordered.

 

That follow’s last night’s warning by Royal Australian Air Force chief Geoff Brown that the world was entering a period of political and economic instability “which will shape a potentially volatile and dangerous security environment, especially in our region”.

 

“Of particular concern to Australia is the rising tension in the South China Sea where our vital interests are directly engaged,” Air Marshal Brown told The Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

 

He said air power was the most agile and responsive military instrument available to government.

The use of air power by the US to save refugees trapped on Iraq’s Mount Sinjar had demonstrated how decisive it could be.

 

Senator Johnston will tell the industry representatives today the AWD project is running 21 months late and more than $360 million over budget.

 

He stresses the option of building the frigates in Australia ­depends on the shipbuilding industry demonstrating that it can complete the destroyers without further cost overruns or delays.

 

“This is to ensure everything is in place to allow a continued naval shipbuilding industry in Australia,” he will tell the Australian Business Defence Industry Group.

 

“All we are asking is that industry demonstrates it can meet an acceptable benchmark for cost and productivity.

 

“Part of the work on the future frigate program is to examine whether we can commit to the construction of some early blocks to ensure there is no break in production overall.”

 

Senator Johnston says no decision has been made on the design of the navy’s new submarines but work is progressing well on ­options. The government has ­already provided $78m for preliminary work on the new frigates.

 

The new class was set out in the Rudd government’s 2009 defence white paper which intended they’d be operational by the mid-2020s.

 

The ships were to carry cruise missiles and they were likely to be equipped with a system able to ­destroy ballistic missiles.

 

Co-operation on such a system was announced in Sydney last week at the annual AUSMIN talks between Australia’s foreign affairs and defence ministers and their US counterparts.

Collins submarines have reached their performance targets

The recent article in The Australian "Two subs out of action for six years" (24/6) suggests that ASC has missed deadlines for the maintenance of HMAS Collins and the Collins sustainment program in general. This is incorrect. 

 

ASC is working with our submarine enterprise partners, the navy, the Defence Material Organisation and the Finance Department to achieve international benchmarks for fleet availability and reliability as identified by British specialist John Coles. We are safely doing this by driving productivity initiatives in our production, engineering, planning and supply chain capability.

This year we have reached our performance targets. We have proven that high availability can be generated from the Collins class.

Mathematically, it is plain that availability for a class of six submarines will be maximised by moving to a 10-year operating and two-year deep maintenance cycle. HMAS Collins is a core part of that plan.

ASC welcomes scrutiny of the public and the media into our performance. We are proud to lead advanced manufacturing in the naval industry and the defence of our country.

Steve Ludlum, chief executive, ASC, Adelaide, SA

ROBERT Bond's letter (25/6) on our future submarines made interesting reading and reinforces the need for our politicians to consider all options available. It is pointless to expect them to consider nuclear power because for some reason the N-word is a step too far. But they should look at the German Type-212 submarine operating with the German and Italian navies. Unlike the Collins boats, the Type-212 can stay submerged for two weeks and cover 1500 nautical miles. Its long range is ideal for Australia.

To design and build a new super-Collins from scratch without considering this technology is pure folly and a guaranteed waste of our money.

THE federal government has eliminated the two cheapest options to deliver Australia's 12 new submarines, a project likely to be the biggest in Australia's history. 

 

An off-the-shelf (MOTS) model of submarine similar to those operating overseas can't meet requirements for long range and endurance, even if fitted with Australia-specific systems.

So the government's now pursuing the final options - an all-new design or an evolution of the existing Collins-class submarines, according to the 2013 Defence White Paper.

"We have before us the largest single capital works program or project the commonwealth has seen," Defence Minister Stephen Smith told reporters on Friday.

"We have learned some painful lessons from the maintenance and sustainment of the Collins."

Australia recently secured an agreement with Sweden to gain access to the intellectual property of the Collins boats, which were developed from a design by Swedish firm Kockums.

It also decided on a combat system for the new submarines based on an evolution of the US system now used on the existing six Collins boats.

No final cost for the 12 submarines is yet available but analysts put it as high as $40 billion for an all-new design, or as low as $10 billion for boats based on an existing European design.

While the 2009 white paper left open the possibility of building a fourth air warfare destroyer (AWD), the government has now concluded on defence advice there's no need for another.

To share the existing work around, the AWD Alliance of shipbuilders will reallocate the construction of four AWD hull blocks for the third vessel from Forgacs shipyard in Newcastle to BAE Systems' yard in Melbourne.

Mr Smith confirmed the government was committed to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) under the current timetable, with the first of three squadrons to enter service from 2020.

He said the troubled JSF project had greatly improved.

"But there are still risks associated with that and we are not prepared to take the risk of a gap in our combat capability," Mr Smith said.

So the white paper proposes Australia acquire another 12 Super Hornets fitted with advanced Growler electronic warfare technology.

This will give the RAAF a mixed combat fleet of 36 Super Hornets and 71 older F/A-18 classic Hornets, until the fighters arrive.

Defence Company Lockheed Martin says the government is showing confidence in its F-35 aircraft program.

"Along with the first two Australian jets in production, which (we) will deliver in mid-2014, we will work closely with the government to support their purchase of their remaining 100 F-35 aircraft," it said in a statement.

"Additionally, we will work with Australian industry supporting their participation in the production of components and sub-assemblies for the more than 3000 F-35s to be built during the life of the program."

The company said the projected $5.5 billion of Australian industrial participation in the F-35 program would deliver economic benefits to Australia for decades.

Columbia Inducts Two Former German Submarines

The Columbian Navy announced today that it has inducted two former Type 206A submarines from Germany.

Under a contract concluded between Colombia and the HDW shipyard, the latter "tropicalized" the two submarines, which were originally designed for use in the Baltic. These activities have included the technical integration of the Naval Arsenal is intended.

"Intrepido" and "Indomable" will support two other submarines built by HDW in Kiel for the Colombian navy, "Tayrona" and "Pijao" (Type 209).

Submariners - Part 1 to 6 - Royal Australian Navy Submarine Service

Submariners - Part 7 to 12 - Royal Australian Navy Submarine Service

Australia Committed to Procurement of 12 New Submarines

07:03 GMT, September 7, 2012 Australian Minister for Defence Stephen Smith, Minister for Finance and Deregulation Senator Penny Wong and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare yesterday announced Australia’s Future Submarine Systems Centre will be based in Adelaide continuing the strong relationship that has been formed between South Australia and the Commonwealth in support of Australia’s maritime sector.

The Systems Centre will be the home of the Future Submarine program. It will be formally established this year and over the next few years will expand to include hundreds of Defence personnel from Navy, the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO), the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) and the Australian and international Defence Industry.

The Systems Centre is a similar facility to the one that was established for the Air Warfare Destroyer project. It will undertake a variety of tasks including evaluation of options, design work, program management, engineering, logistics and production planning.

The Government is committed to acquiring 12 new submarines to be assembled in South Australia.

This commitment will be reinforced as part of the 2013 Defence White Paper.

The first Systems Centre staff are already working in Adelaide, and are temporarily based at ASC.

The Future Submarine project will be the largest and most complex Defence project ever undertaken by Australia.

It will involve hundreds of companies and thousands of workers.

It will involve Federal and State Governments, Defence, Industry and Universities working together for years to come.

Four options are being considered for the Future Submarine fleet ranging from military off-the-shelf to a wholly new design.

Defence is undertaking a wide range of studies into these four options before returning to Government for First Pass approval around late 2013/early 2014.

Minister for Defence Stephen Smith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today also welcomed Mr David Gould to his new role in the Department of Defence as General Manager Submarines.

As General Manager Submarines, Mr Gould has been given responsibility for the oversight of the maintenance of the current Collins Class fleet and the Future Submarine Project.

Mr Gould’s appointment was announced in May. He began work in July.

Mr Gould works in the DMO and reports to Mr Warren King, Chief Executive Officer of the DMO.

Mr Gould works across Government, Navy and Industry to pull together the remediation and support of our existing submarine fleet and the project to replace our existing Collins Class submarines.

Mr Gould will oversee the implementation of recommendations the Coles Review of submarine sustainment, to improve the availability and reliability of the Collins Class fleet.

Mr Gould brings a wealth of knowledge to his new position.

Mr Gould has extensive international experience in large-scale defence projects, including the UK aircraft carrier program, the Type 45 Destroyer and the restructuring of the Astute Class nuclear powered submarine project.

Mr Gould also served as the Chief Operating Officer of Defence Equipment and Support Organisation in the UK Ministry of Defence.

Time for talking on new submarine is over

Australia -   Senator David Johnston is the shadow minister for defence.

Our submarines are so operationally fragile that competing in exercises with allies has become a case of going in with fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong. Photo: Supplied

The cheeky headline last week from Defence media read "HMAS Farncomb celebrates successful sinking at RIMPAC" and I quietly cheered for the crew of the submarine for sinking their target ship during the 22-nation exercise off Hawaii.

The maintenance and sustainment issues that have dogged our Collins Class submarines must be very challenging on the morale of our dedicated submariners and this was a rare glimpse of what the sub can do.

If we want a viable submarine capability to defend our island nation over the next 20 to 30 years and we cannot afford to wait any longer.

But then came the following day's announcement from Defence, HMAS Farncomb had suffered a minor flood while at periscope depth after a hose split and the vessel was forced to surface. Farncomb was now returning to Pearl Harbour for repairs.

Farncomb is no stranger to this kind of incident as the boat and its crew had two separate emergencies last year.

Advertisement

In August it lost both its propulsion motor and emergency back up in deep water off the Western Australian coast. The second, a few months later in the South China Sea, involved a build up of toxic gases that had the crew wearing oxygen masks and blowing its emergency ballast tanks for a rapid ascent.

In May last year another Collins Class submarine, HMAS Dechaineux was forced to return to Singapore for repairs after breaking down on its way to a training exercise, also in the South China Sea. It was the only submarine due to participate in the 5-nation exercise and the embarrassment was amplified when the Navy News published a pre-written account of its daring exploits on the presumption nothing could go wrong.

More concerning was the 2003 incident with HMAS Dechaineux off the Western Australian coast when the submarine had a burst seawater hose which allowed a flood ingress of 15 tonnes of water in 9 seconds just when the vessel was at its deepest diving depth.

The bravery and skill of HMAS Dechaineux's 55 crew ensured they avoided the worst military disaster since Voyager. I have often said that submarines, along with our Special Forces, are our nation's most important force element group.

Yet this year alone we will spend close to $1 billion on maintenance and sustainment of the Collins Class with sometimes two, sometimes one, and occasionally none out of six submarines operationally ready at any one time. So depressingly bad are the figures for Unit Ready Days for the Collins Class that Defence no longer publish them – citing security concerns even though they were regularly published up until 2009.

I readily accept the problems of our submarines transcend both Labor and Coalition governments. But what the Rudd/Gillard governments and the three Defence Ministers over that period have failed to do is to get the ball rolling on the Collins replacement submarine.

In May 2009, the Defence White Paper outlined ambitious plans for 12 new submarines to be assembled in South Australia under a project known as SEA 1000, with the first to be in the water by 2025. I say ambitious because there was no detail whatsoever as to how we were going to pay for them in the White Paper and conservative estimates have the cost at $36 billion although I believe it will be closer to $50 billion.

For three years after the launch of the White Paper the SEA 1000 project sat in a file on successive Defence Minister's desks with no action whatsoever. Defence commentators and experts all began to get nervous and earlier this year the government's own funded thinktank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, published a damming report warning of a significant capability gap and noting inaction was not a responsible option.

The ASPI report described the gap between when all the Collins Class have been retired and the time it would take to build a replacement as ''nothing short of catastrophic'' where Australia's submarine capability would ''essentially be run down and restarted'' and there are three years ''of no submarines at all''.

The Defence Minister's recent answer to that was to repeat the announcement from three years ago that the Navy was to acquire 12 new submarines, and there was to be a $214 million 'scoping study' to look at the options.

Why wasn't that done after the White Paper launch? These past three years of sitting on their hands will come back to haunt our submarine capability long after this government is consigned to the history books. After some prodding the Minister also declared a final decision on the replacement would not be made until late 2013 or 2014 – in other words, not until after the next election. He wants to make it someone else's problem, not his.

This is all against the backdrop of our submarines being so operationally fragile that competing in exercises with allies becomes a case of going in with fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong.

We also have our submariners reluctantly leaving the Navy because they simply don't get time at sea doing what they signed up to do. We are losing some of our most experienced submariners and it is precisely that experience that has probably prevented these incidents becoming major tragedies for the Navy and the nation.

If the latest incident with HMAS Farncomb tells us anything about the state of the submarine fleet, it is that the time for talk of a replacement for the Collins Class is over.

It is now five minutes to midnight if we want a viable submarine capability to defend our island nation over the next 20 to 30 years and we cannot afford to wait any longer.

Collins submarine problems.

Sailors aboard a Collins-class submarine forced to return to base for repairs during a multinational exercise near Hawaii last week would have been profoundly disappointed, a former senior submariner says.

It is the second time in just over a year a Collins-class submarine has had to withdraw from a major international exercise because of mechanical issues.

The former commander of the Australian Navy Submarine Group, Steve Davies, said the officers and crew of HMAS Farncomb would have been riding high after successfully sinking a decommissioned United States warship with a Mk 48 torpedo during RIMPAC 2012.

HMAS Farncomb experienced ''a minor flood'' shortly after the firing exercise while snorkelling to recharge its batteries.

One of the hoses in the submarine's weight compensation system split, spraying water into a machinery space.

Emergency measures were invoked with the ship withdrawing from the exercise and returning to Pearl Harbour for repairs.

HMAS Dechaineux was unable to take part in Exercise Bersama Shield last May when issues with her engines left her stranded in Singapore.

Mr Davies, who was in Canberra last week as part of his new role as executive director of the Submarine Institute of Australia, said he had experienced similar disappointments during his own service and could feel for the 60-strong crew.

It was unfortunate the hose failure had drawn attention away from the excellent job HMAS Farncomb had done in sinking the former US ammunition ship, USNS Kilauea, with a single Mk 48 torpedo.

Hitting a target that was dead in the water was far more challenging than locking on to a moving ship.

''Torpedoes like speed,'' he said. ''A moving object is much easier to spot. One of the tactics you can use against a torpedo attack is to stop near a border or boundary of some kind.''

The firing exercise, or SINKEX as it is known, would have been a very costly undertaking.

In addition to missing out on Kilauea's value as scrap, the United States Navy would have also had to spend a lot of money decontaminating the vessel to make sure she was safe to sink. The torpedo alone costs more than $3.5 million.

''The Mk 48 Model 7 has been developed jointly by Australia and the US,'' Mr Davies said.

''It has sonar, guidance and tracking systems and trails a wire.''

The torpedoes, which carry just under 300 kilograms of explosives, are fitted with sophisticated magnetic sensors that allow them to detonate under their targets to inflict the maximum possible damage. They weigh almost 1700 kilograms and are 5.8-metres long.

Classified as a heavy torpedo, the Mk 48s are designed to break a ship in two.

Australia - A ``minor flood'' in one of our submarines says Defence

On Wednesday 25 July (Australian Eastern Standard Time), while participating in Exercise RIMPAC, HMAS Farncomb suffered a minor flood in one of the submarine's machinery spaces.

At the time of the incident, the submarine was at periscope depth operating its diesel engines to charge the battery.

Standard pre-planned procedures were immediately executed and the situation was dealt with quickly.

The submarine surfaced as part of this normal response. The incident has been traced to a split in a hose on the submarine's weight compensation system.

No personnel were injured and Farncomb is currently returning to Pearl Harbour in Hawaii to replace the hose. An investigation is yet to commence.

There are number of hoses fitted to systems in the Collins class submarine that use the supply of sea water as part of their operation. Weight compensation is one such system, moving water in and out of the submarine to maintain neutral buoyancy.

Following the failure of a sea water cooling hose in HMAS Dechaineux in 2003, there were immediate changes made to procedures and the development of equipment changes commenced.

One of these changes was automation of the closure of all hull valves should a similar situation arise. This change has been installed in HMAS Farncomb.

Farncomb is currently on a 13000 nautical mile, five month deployment having departed her home base in Western Australia in May of this year.

The submarine has spent the last 15 days at sea participating in Exercise RIMPAC, which has included the recent successful firing of a Mk 48 torpedo to sink the 12,106 tonne former USNS Kilauea.

Australia - Navy eyeing off new Japanese submarines

Rear-Admiral Rowan Moffitt, head of the Royal Australian Navy's Future Submarine Program, and Dr Alexander Zelinsky, the Chief Defence Scientist, travel to Japan this month to look at the Soryu-class submarines, which started service with the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force three years ago.

Submarines no longer all at sea

Collins-class submarine HMAS Dechaineux sails into Jervis Bay last year.

Access to the Soryu technology was discussed during a visit to Australia last month by the Japanese navy's chief, Admiral Masahiko Sugimoto. It was only in December that Tokyo lifted its post-World War II embargo on defence exports.

The 4200-tonne Soryu-class boats are the only new conventional submarines of the size and capabilities set out in Canberra's 2009 defence white paper for 12 new submarines to take over from the Collins-class subs from the late 2020s.

''Our strategy with the Japanese is one of hope, because there are some very attractive characteristics about the Japanese submarine,'' Rear-Admiral Moffitt said.

As well as having a close alliance relationship with the United States similar to Australia's, Japan's navy operated in the same Asia-Pacific environment, which was reflected in its submarine design, he said.

''Their submarine, by all accounts, and their design and the evolution of that design, has by all accounts brought them to the point of having a very good submarine,'' Rear-Admiral Moffitt said.

''However, submarine technology tends to be crown-jewel stuff for nations, it tends to be at the most extreme end of sensitivity that nations have about protecting their intellectual property - especially if they have developed it themselves, as Japan has, as the US has. They've invested a vast amount of money doing that.''

Under a $214 million allocation in this year's budget, the RAN has stepped up work on selecting the new submarine design. Four options are: Adapting an existing ''military off the shelf'' or MOTS submarine, a large ''evolved MOTS'' design, an evolution of the Collins class, and a completely new Australian design.

Until the Soryu became theoretically available, off-the-shelf submarines included only German, French and Spanish designs of about 2000 tonnes.