Close×

At a time of intense activity in Australia’s naval domain, planning for the design and construction of $85 billion worth of Future Submarines and Future Frigates is proceeding apace without any apparent alarums and excursions.

Meanwhile work on the first of 12 Arafura-class Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) is progressing well, the third and final Air Warfare Destroyer is set to be delivered ahead of schedule, and the first Anzac frigate to complete the class’s extensive Mid-Life Capability Assurance Program (AMCAP) will rejoin the fleet by the end of the year.

Given the recent low-key disclosure that the workhorse Anzacs are to have their service life extended by up to a decade, that program has assumed even greater importance. Additionally, a further life-of-type study now under way on the Armidale-class patrol boat fleet could see that capability extended until the late 2020s.

Following 12 months of complex and sometimes heated negotiations, a Strategic Partnering Agreement (SPA) setting out the principles of cooperation between French shipbuilder Naval Group and the Commonwealth for the $50 billion future Attack-class submarine program was signed in Canberra in February.

The overarching SPA sets out terms and conditions that will endure for the entire Sea 1000 program, up to and including contracts for the build of the 12th and final boat.

Negotiations were drawn out by issues including the length of warranty periods to cover potential defects, and the implications for the transfer of intellectual property rights in the event of a merger between Naval Group and Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri.

Rear Admiral Greg Sammut, head of the Future Submarine program in Defence’s Capability and Sustainment Group (CASG), told ADM that issues from a concept studies review completed late last year had been satisfactorily resolved in January.

Design work was now focusing on the capability of the so-called critical systems for the 4,700-tonne Shortfin Barracuda – the main motor, diesel generators, switchboards, batteries and weapons discharge system – and ensuring the correct balance in terms of the agreed requirements and weight, power generation, and margins for further design work, build, and through-life upgrades.

“Design is a successive process, we have a rigorous process for ensuring we don’t proceed further until we know that the design at a given point is balanced; then we do that again when we get to the next level of detail, and then we’ll do it again,” RADM Sammut commented to ADM.

A systems requirements review was scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2019, a procedure undertaken at each stage of design “to make sure we’re making defensible decisions about the trade between capability and cost”.

The first sod at the construction yard at North Osborne was turned in December 2018 and work was now underway on the propulsion land-based test site and the combat system physical integration facility.

Detailed design of the remainder of the yard was being finalised and work on the construction halls, blast and paint workshop, warehousing and other facilities would commence in the second quarter of 2020.

Construction of hull frames and sections (cans) was likely to begin in 2023 with work on the rafts of equipment that slide into the cans starting two to three years after that.

“We’re talking about the first submarine doing contractor sea trials in 2031 and Navy getting that boat in 2032,” RADM Sammut stated. “What we have yet to do is to decide on the final build rate – we’ll probably eventually have three boats in various stages of build at any one time – and ensure that deliveries are at a rate in step with Navy’s ability to crew them.”

Hunter Class
A head contract signed by the Commonwealth on 16 December with BAE Systems Australia’s (BAES) new subsidiary ASC Shipbuilding provides the framework for the design and build of the RAN’s nine Hunter-class frigates.

In effect from 4 February, the contract incorporates allowable profit margins for the life of the $35 billion project, other terms and conditions, and detailed scope for the design and engineering work necessary to allow prototyping to commence in 2020 and to ensure steel is cut on the first ship in 2022. The scopes for the build of the ships are to be agreed and added to the Head Contract in due course.

Also included in the Head Contract was the peppercorn sale of ASC Shipbuilding to BAES through a Sovereign Capability Offer

Deed (SCOD) under which Defence retains one golden share enabling it to ensure the company acts in the national security interests of Australia.

Design work is now focusing on productionisation, including the changes to the UK’s Type 26 Global Combat Ship design necessitated by Australian-specific systems.

“BAES are beavering away on finishing some areas of the Type 26 design,” Paddy Fitzpatrick, CASG’s Assistant Secretary Ship Acquisition – Surface Combatants said to ADM. “Our major part is in getting ready the pieces that are going to change and from late this year starting to modify the drawings and the designs so they can be built at our very modern Osborne yard which will do things completely differently to BAES’ Goven yard in Scotland.

“Consistently when we bring people out from Scotland and they see what we’re building they get very envious,” Fitzpatrick commented.

A systems requirement review starting in July was described by Fitzpatrick as “basically the first piece of ensuring that BAES understand what we want and we understand what they think we want”.

External assessors, half chosen by the Commonwealth and half by BAES, will talk to program personal over four weeks and identify areas of potential disjointedness for remedial action. An initial baseline review at the end of 2019 will link budget, schedule scope and future activities.

BAES will move into the new part of the Osborne South shipyard in July 2020 and focus initially on prototyping the yard’s facilities.
“I think we’ll probably build about four blocks and take somewhere between 22 and 24 months to train the staff, qualify the yard and ensure all the systems are working, operational and fully reliable before we actually build the first block for the first-of type in 2022,” Fitzpatrick explained.

The first-of-type should be launched between 2027-28 and enter service between 2029-31.

A gap of just over three years between the start of work on Ship 1 and Ship 2 then reduces to two years culminating with possibly just 18 months between Ship 8 and Ship 9, whose completion date is forecast for 2042.

Patrol boats
Construction of the first of 12 Arafura-class Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) is proceeding slightly ahead of schedule, and detailed planning is expected to obviate any risks involved in the build program being split two-10 between South and Western Australia.

Launch of the first 1,640-tonne OPV at Osborne by ASC OPV Shipbuilding under contract to Luerssen Australia is scheduled for May 2021, with delivery in December 2021 after trials and verification.

Construction of the second ship starts in August with launch anticipated in February 2022, while Civmec will begin work on Ship Three at Henderson near Perth in April 2020. Launch is forecast for November 2023.

“Through delivery of accurate 3D model cutting files from Luerssen, good quality steel from BlueScope in Wollongong, accurately-profiled steel from Civmec and high quality work from the ASC workforce and supervisors, the hull blocks are taking shape fast, accurately, and are of a high quality,” Peter Croser, Assistant Secretary Ships Acquisition – Specialist ships at CASG said to ADM.

The first keel was laid shortly before this edition of ADM went to press.

AWDs
Sea trials for NUSHIP Sydney, the third and final Hobart-class Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD), will begin in the last quarter of this year.

The ship will arrive at Fleet Base East in the first quarter of 2020 and is likely to be handed over from CASG to the RAN towards the end of that period. Commissioning is expected to take place early in the second quarter of 2020.

The anticipated date of delivery to the RAN is several months earlier than previously scheduled thanks to a decision to modify the storage of Mk54 torpedoes and AGM-114N Hellfire missiles for the ship’s MH-60R naval combat helicopter as part of the construction process rather than after its completion.

The modifications include racks for Hellfire and Mk54 storage, enhanced safety measures and the installation of blowout doors for the magazine. Additional magazine space will enable flight-in-air material to be fitted to the Mk 54 in the magazine rather than the hangar.

Other work will include changing the external lighting systems, in particular the flight deck lights, to be more compatible with night vision devices.

Anzac class
The good news is that HMAS Arunta will rejoin the fleet at the end of the year as the first of the eight Anzac-class frigates to complete a full Mid-Life Capability Assurance Program (AMCAP). Since arriving at Henderson in September 2017, around 300,000 hours of work have been invested in the ship.

Work on HMAS Anzac will begin at the end of July and HMAS Warramunga will go on the hard in mid-2020.

Included in the AMCAP upgrade is the replacement of the ageing Raytheon SPS-49(V)8 ANZ long-range air search radar with the new CEAFAR L-Band active-phased array radar, enhancements to the torpedo self-defence systems and the Nulka active missile decoy capability, installation of Link 22, engine modifications, and improvements to lighting, ventilation and sewage systems and to the ship control and monitoring system.

The new radar will sit atop and complement the faceted CEAFAR radar installed under the anti-ship missile defence (ASMD) program which was completed in 2017.

All eight Anzac vessels are scheduled to be upgraded by 2023, two years before the previously-scheduled retirement of the oldest of the class, HMAS Anzac, in 2025.

The bad news is that Defence advised the government in June 2018 that it would be necessary to extend the life of the Anzac ships pending the entry to service of their Hunter-class replacements.

This development only became known in March by courtesy of a report on Anzac-class sustainment by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO). Now, HMAS Anzac will not be withdrawn until 2030 while the youngest ship, HMAS Perth, will remain in service until 2043.

“Defence’s advice to the government to extend the Anzac-class life-of-type to 2043 was not based on a transition plan or informed by an analysis of the frigates’ physical capacity to deliver the required capability until then,” the report said. “Navy will need to address potential risks, relating to the frigates’ material condition, to maintain seaworthiness and capability.”

Further life-extension planning was disclosed during a Senate Estimates hearing on 10 April by Rear Admiral Wendy Malcolm,

CASG’s Head Maritime Systems Division, who revealed a study was underway to provide Navy with options for extending the life of the Armidale-class fleet until the late 2020s.

“This will include a number of options in terms of early-life-of-type extension and late life-of-type extension,” RADM Malcolm said. “As part of that, we will also do a very detailed assessment of the structural state of each vessel. We will then look at that from both a quality and a quantity perspective.”

Operations
Chief of Navy Mike Noonan told the hearing that the primary operational task for the RAN’s 12 Armidale and two Cape class patrol boats was border protection under Operation Resolute.

Five to six boats would be at sea on any one day and the remainder of the fleet would typically be in a cycle of scheduled maintenance.

VADM Noonan acknowledged that remediation work had been required for superstructure cracking that had not been originally expected or anticipated.

Asked if that was caused by the Armidales being used in heavy seas for Operation Resolution, VADM Noonan responded “they were being used in a way that has been a feature of evolved operations that we’ve been involved in over the last 20 years with these boats”.

This article first appeared in the June 2019 edition of ADM.

comments powered by Disqus