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Although Australia’s Future Frigate (Sea 5000) program is still at the requirements definition stage, there’s no discernible shortage of debate on capability and construction issues, or of lobbying to press the merits of individual platforms and systems.

Nowhere will this be more apparent than at October’s Pacific 2013 international maritime exposition in Sydney, which Defence’s Capability Development Group (CDG) has determined will be the baseline for one-on-one discussions with major industry players associated with particular platforms. The same venue should also see additional program details released at a meeting of the Maritime Environment Working Group.

The Sydney discussions will be followed in either the first or second quarter of 2014 with visits by a Defence Team to possible ship designers; a trip postponed from earlier this year because of the opportunity presented by Pacific 2013.

According to the 2012 Defence Capability Plan, the eight Future Frigates proposed in the 2009 Defence White Paper will be larger than the 3,600 tonne Anzac class and will be designed and equipped with a strong emphasis on anti-submarine warfare (ASW).

Ascertaining specifics at this stage of the program is akin to asking the length of a piece of string.

Nevertheless there are already some indications of Defence’s thinking, platform options, and concerns within industry relating to a possible dearth of engineering resource for Sea 5000 construction.

The program was formally initiated earlier this year by Defence’s Project Initiation Review Board, providing a baseline for project staff to move forward with a schedule indicative of what they believe industry can provide to get a ship in the water by a certain date. This formal initiation also signalled the point at which the project could begin serious engagement with industry.

Schedule

The current schedule calls for initial pass in 2014-15. This will fund a variety of studies involving CDG, DMO, RAN and DSTO that will provide a body of objective information sufficient to seek first pass in late 2017/early 2018, with second pass anticipated between 2-3 years later.

These studies will proceed in parallel with Government-funded development by CEA Technologies of a high-powered concept demonstrator variant of the CEAPAR (phased array radar) being installed on the Anzac class as part of its anti-ship missile defence upgrade.

Industry sources believe that this CEAPAR2 development has been mandated for Future Frigate, but Commodore Robert Elliott, Director General Maritime Development in the CDG, says this is not necessarily so.

“Mandated is a strong word,” CDRE Elliot told ADM. “It’s a developmental radar program that builds on the success of CEAPAR which will have an appropriate number of assessments along the way to determine its maturity. The only way that Government will choose CEAPAR2 for Future Frigate is if we provide sufficient evidence to confirm it fits the requirements.”

Commonality with other RAN major fleet units will be sought wherever possible to drive down through-life costs. Obvious examples are the LM2500 gas turbine currently equipping the Landing Helicopter Docks, AWDs, Anzacs and FFGs; another is the Mk 45 5” 62 calibre gun aboard the AWDs. This will not however constrain studies into new and possibly more cost-effective systems.

“As an example, we’ve got the Lockheed Martin Mk41 vertical launch system (VLS) in the Guided Missile Destroyers, the FFGs and the Anzacs but there are a number of other solutions out there that might be acceptable,” CDRE Elliott said.

“You’ve got to do a study, a cost of ownership benefit analysis on the cost of using a Mk 41 VLS versus the attributes and cost of a new system and the logistics trail. That sort of thing is a significant amount of the work that we’re planning at the moment.”

Such issues raise the question of what should be determined first; the platform or the systems it will eventually host. One such example was the selection by the Howard government of the AEGIS combat management system for the air warfare destroyer program well in advance of any decision on platform.

CDRE Elliott simply says government must be given choices.

“For example, you could have AEGIS as the appropriate combat management system, but would you put that in with a Lockheed Martin Spy-ID (V) or a CEA radar? And it would be wrong not to look at the Saab 9LV Mk3E combat system option, which has been very successful with us.

“As we have seen with the Anzac Class ASMD Upgrade project, Defence has followed a regimented process of derisking this capability as the project moved forward.

“It is possible that such derisking trials might be seen appropriate for new capability that we may be considering for the Future Frigate and so you might consider trialling them on the Anzac before you get anywhere near a new frigate design.”

International interest

Collaboration at expert level is already underway with the UK on assessing the possibility of the Royal Navy’s Type 26 frigate, also known as the Global Combat Ship (GCS), as a Future Frigate option. The Type 26 has been designed by BAE Systems with the potential to accommodate systems specific to the requirements of prospective international partners.

Meeting in Perth in January, both the UK and Australian defence ministers noted the potential benefits accruing from the economies of scale, primarily in through-life support, should Australia choose to combine its requirement for eight vessels with the Royal Navy requirement for 13.

Certainly the timing of Type 26 development slots in with Australian requirements; the first of class will enter service with the Royal Navy around 2021, while Anzac life-of-type currently expires in the mid-2020s.

Another platform option is the FREMM European multirole frigate being built for the French and Italian navies. Fincantieri has been active in promoting the merits of the slightly larger (at 144.5 metres and 6,670 tonnes) Italian variant, and recently hosted a capability workshop in Canberra attended by a number of high-ranking RAN officers and Vice Admiral Stefano Tortora, the Italian Navy’s Chief of Logistics.

Other platforms of interest are likely to include the 7,200-tonne Blohm and Voss F125 currently under development for the German navy, the Norwegian Navy’s F310 Fridtjof Nansen class antisubmarine frigate, the Navantia F-100 air warfare destroyer hull configured for ASW, and, in a more speculative sense, the US Littoral Combat Ship under construction in Fincantieri’s US Marinette Marine shipyard.

While Future Frigate emphasis is on the ASW role, the parallel requirements for anti-air and land attack capabilities all point towards a larger rather than a smaller hull.

“What the customer wants is a lot of ASW frigate that can carry two helicopters with two hangars, anti-air to cover some level of area defence to help protect high value units, and the land attack capability,” according to a senior industry source. “For land attack they’re probably looking at TLAM (Tactical Land Attack Missile) and carrying 16 of them, so you end up with a hull in the region of 5,000-6,000 tonnes.

“Defence would love to be able to point to an in-service option and say we’d just like to modify a couple of things on it. But it’s the traditional problem; off the shelf you don’t get the capability outcome, and something more speculative might not work.”

However, a separate source points out the hull is simply the envelope that wraps around the combat system, the propulsion and the accommodation.

“With Sea 5000, first you decide on the payload – the combat system, the missiles, the radar, the underwater systems that you’re going to fit, then you decide whether you’re going to do mechanical or electrical propulsion, then you decide on the number of crew and the standard of accommodation, and then you can work out the platform.”

Defining the pace

The sources consulted by ADM see the initial pass process as one that sensibly provides Defence with the opportunity to clarify precisely what government seeks from Sea 5000 in terms of industrial issues as well as strategic and capability outcomes.

But it’s in the industry space that concerns are increasingly being voiced about the resources available to drive domestic development and construction of both Sea 1000 (Future Submarine) and Future Frigate.

“The gap is the design and engineering expertise to allow us to translate our concepts into an engineered product without losing our shirt on it,” stated a senior shipbuilding executive whose views were echoed by other experts.

“That’s the bit that needs to be wrestled with and the FFISB (Future Submarine Industry Skilling Plan) was silent on it. It talks about Australia’s ability to weld and assemble ships; undeniable, but if you get rubbish engineering data then you’re assembling rubbish and it’ll cost you dear – look at the massive amounts of rework necessary with the AWD because the engineering information wasn’t accurate.

“So Defence will have to go out and find a partner or an organisation who will help them design something which we can then build, and they’re clearly shopping around.” 

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