As awareness and debate on the importance and complexity of submarine capability has grown within defence and industry circles, so too has the size and scope of Submarine Institute of Australia (SIA) conferences.
This was reflected in the SIA’s biennuial technology conference in Adelaide in October, where 240 delegates heard speakers ranging from the Minister of Defence, Chief of Navy, head of DMO and submarine capability managers, to more than 40 international and Australian technical experts. Of these, just two were from the US.
Although the inaugural technology-focused conference took place in 2011, the first SIA general conference was held in 2001; a small-scale, low key event compared to this year’s gathering in the Adelaide Convention Centre.
Delegates heard generally good news about Collins class availability, segueing into the challenges facing Sea 1000 and the associated opportunities, interspersed with technical presentations covering the gamut of submarine design, construction and systems.
Chief of Navy Ray Griggs disclosed that three Collins class submarines had been consistently running for around 14 months, an availability unknown since early 2008.
“This financial year we are sitting at around 111 per cent of MRD (Material-Ready Days), our projected cost per MRD is below what we forecasted and to date we’ve had zero maintenance overruns. So far it has been another good year,” he said.
Although significant challenges remained, net growth was being maintained in the submarine workforce thanks to a combination of a full training pipeline, strong trainee and experience-building bunk management along with energetic rejoiner and overseas lateral recruitment programs as well as what he described as modest but targeted individual retention bonuses.
Vice Admiral Griggs also took the opportunity to rebuff a tendency not to be straightforward about the submarine fleet’s capabilities.
“There are still too many ‘ring of steel’ merchants who think our boats will sit off our own ports in time of conflict,” he said. “What a waste of a capability. Our submarines are designed to operate forward in their primary missions of anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare. ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) remains an important enabling capability but it is not the primary combat mission.”
He also poured cold water on continuing “distracting and unhelpful” debate on the nuclear propulsion option for the Future Submarine, without dismissing it for its replacement around 2050.
The cost of the specialised supporting infrastructure, regulatory and safety regime and the industrial skill base that had been built up over decades in both the US and UK dwarfed the often reported – but doubtful – $2 billion cost of a nuclear attack submarine. The personnel bill would more than double per submarine, while outsourcing maintenance to the US would result in a capability entirely beholden to others.
Defence Minister David Johnston said he had yet to receive a full briefing on Collins or Sea 1000 – one which he intended turning into a seminar lasting several days.
However, he would not “swallow for one split second the fact that we must have a capability gap in our submarine capacity, and I know that our allies will not stand for that either. So we must do a lot better in a more timely way”.
Performance goals
Commodore Peter Scott, the newly-appointed Director General Submarine Capability in Navy Strategic Command, confirmed that the performance goals included in DMO’s new In-service support contract with ASC included availability and capability targets for the Collins fleet for the next 10 years. These had been set at what he described as challenging, but realistic and achievable levels which took into account the transition to the 10+2 year usage and upkeep cycle, and stepped towards attainment of benchmark performance from mid-2016.
Consolidation of a fourth crew and expansion of the submarine workforce to achieve a fully supported fifth crew remained short term targets. Longer term, continued expansion was envisaged until the submarine arm was capable of supporting the acquisition of the Collins replacement plus, interestingly, the operation of two classes of submarine for a decade or more prior to eventual operation of a fully supported 12-boat flotilla.
In a sober overview, DMO CEO Warren King stressed the necessity for Australia’s submarine requirements to be matched to the country’s industrial capacity, financial resources and experience.
With some 30 per cent of ship and submarine construction costs spent on labour, there was no structural reason why Australia could not compete with submarine-producing, high labour-cost countries like the US, UK, Germany, France and Sweden. The industrial capacity of all these countries was much smaller than it had been 10 and 20 years ago, which was a good reason why that capacity was needed in Australia.
Wrongly, Collins was perceived as a failure by the general public.
“If it’s perceived that we fail again, there will be no coming back in the next 50 years, I’m absolutely certain of that,” King said. “And if we get five or six years down a path and that path comes to a dead end and we haven’t got roadmaps that get us out of that dead end, as a national enterprise we will be in a real problem area, one in which we won’t be able to build the skills of this country further. No government would touch it for a long time.”
Industry perspective
Close attention was paid to a presentation by Philip Stanford, General Manager of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems Australia and a former Collins class CO, on the development and design of a new submarine.
The company’s parent corporation, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems GmbH (TKMS), owns not only German submarine designer and builder HDW but also Sweden’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems AB, another submarine constructor and best known as the former Kockums, designer of the Collins class.
Stanford said a submarine modified from an existing design could be designed, built and delivered in about seven years. A completely new design would need an additional three to five years for a skilled designer, but for a company which had not previously undertaken submarine design, additional decades could be required.
Even for a well-oiled and experienced team, the preparatory, concept and design portions of submarine construction could take up to six years. This involved numerous component studies and up to three feasibility/concept alternatives taking 10,000 man hours or one year; a definition phase taking 50,000 man-hours and two years, followed by design/detailed design of 200,000 man-hours and four years.
Preparing and shepherding the design through construction, trials and final acceptance could additionally involve more than one million man-hours and five years of hard work, Stanford noted.
To minimise risk and cost, only mainly proven technology should be used. Emerging technologies and new suppliers might offer advantages on paper but too much ambition in the design /build phase typically induced more risk and cost.
“In many ways our submarines are conservative in design, but real life experience in peace and in war has ingrained a preference for safe, proven designs over new, unproven ones,” he commented.
Describing a conventional submarine as one of the world’s most complex assemblies, Stanford pointed out that a typical TKMS submarine equipped with air independent propulsion involved the integration of 300 main components, 4,000 armatures, 3,000 small electric/electronic components, 500 metres of ventilation ducts, 60km of cables on approximately 300 cable trays, 25km of piping, 25,000 bolted and welded holders, more than 350,000 parts, all into a 60 metre structure by means of 40,000 construction documents. Building submarines in the customer’s home country was now commonplace, although constructing a first-of-class in a TKMS shipyard to ensure optimum technology transfer and training was preferred but not essential.
Rear Admiral Steve Lloyd RN Rtd, until 2012 responsible for the assurance of all aspects of the UK’s ballistic missile submarines and now BAE Systems campaign director for engagement with Project Sea 1000, detailed the benefits derived from the Integrated Product Delivery Environment (IPDE) introduced in UK submarine design/build programs.
Basically a set of highly interlinked capabilities, an IPDE includes product development processes, together with the toolsets and training that enable the customer, project managers, design teams, production and test engineers, planners, supply chain managers and support organisations to integrate work efficiently across the full lifecycle of a program.
Lloyd said the approach was helping to address a range of problems that had arisen due to issues such as geographical separation of team components, incompatibility of IT systems, differing interpretation of product data, siloed working practices, and inefficient supply chain engagement.
The IPDE strategy was also assisting with the assimilation of less experienced staff who benefited from a consistent set of working practices delivering a consistent view across all elements of a program.
According to John O’Callaghan, executive director of the Australian Industry Group, the AiG believes the Future Submarine program will cost something like $1 billion a year for the 50 or so years of its life.
O’Callaghan described such a financial commitment as “quite reasonable”, suggesting there was no need to nominate a final number of boats in the program. From the point of view of defence industry, building boats in batches of three or four would ensure the continuity of a skilled workforce, opportunities to introduce technological advances, and scope to apply lessons learnt to other, major defence programs.
He also referred to the paucity of information in the public arena on the rationale for the Collins class fleet and the steps being taken to resolve its technical difficulties, calling on both Defence and the defence industry to take every opportunity to educate Australians, including the media, on the Future Submarine program.
