• HMAS Rankin returns to her home port of Fleet Base West at the completion of her South East Asia Deployment. Credit: Defence
    HMAS Rankin returns to her home port of Fleet Base West at the completion of her South East Asia Deployment. Credit: Defence
Close×

Of all the complex military electronics systems out there, nothing will be more complex than the combat system aboard one of our new submarines. Yet in all the heated politics about just who will build them and where, next to nothing has been said of the electronics.

A Special Correspondent | Canberra

Which is a bit curious, considering submarines and also surface warships, exist only to keep their electronics dry.

This also suggests there are some politicians out there with short memories, for of all the many problems which afflicted the Collins boats, none were more complex, intractable and costly to remediate than getting the computerised combat system to work properly.

Back in February, when former Defence Minister Kevin Andrews announced details of the competitive evaluation program (CEP) for the new subs, he stipulated a set of key strategic requirements which apply no matter who designs and builds the new boats and where.


 

"Whoever does this work, it will be big business involving most of Australia's high-tech defence sector."

 


They must have range and endurance similar to Collins and superior sensor performance and stealth characteristics.

Crucially, it says the preferred combat system and main armament for the new subs is what's on the existing Collins boats. That's the AN/BYG-1, as used on US attack subs in the 2000s, along with the Mark 48 CBASS heavyweight torpedo.

Conceivably, the government could opt for a different system, but that seems unlikely.

Various analysts have praised this as a sound decision. There are a number of proprietary combat systems available out there but why change what has been developed, with considerable input from the Australian taxpayer and US military, when it works and is familiar?

But getting this to work on the new subs will involve the services of a systems integrator and that's likely to involve a second CEP, pitting Lockheed Martin Australia against Raytheon Australia for a deal worth several billion dollars.

Either company could perform this complex work. Raytheon and Lockheed both tendered for the Collins replacement combat system back in 2000, though the winner was German firm STN Atlas, now part of TKMS.

For various reasons, including US fears of security risks from dealing with European firms, the tender was canned and Australia and the US agreed to cooperate on development of AN/BYG-1 for Collins.

Raytheon was prime for that job and was subsequently chosen as systems integrator for the air warfare destroyer program. So it has plenty of runs on the board.

The company says this will be the biggest and most sophisticated electronics systems project in Australian history and has even produced its own "white paper", declaring the lowest risk approach draws heavily on its Collins experience.

Lockheed points to its long experience integrating US Navy sub combat systems. It's building a submarine combat system lab at its facility at Mawson Lakes, Adelaide, to support its bid to become combat system integrator.

Whoever does this work, it will be big business involving most of Australia's high-tech defence sector.

This is also seriously big money, around 20 per cent of the acquisition cost. All the dollar numbers for future subs remain pretty rubbery but on the $20 billion for 12 subs quoted by TKMS, the combat system would be around $4 billion.

It could be the government will opt for a sole source selection, or an abbreviated CEP, but however it decides to proceed, it needs to get cracking.

The first of the Collins boats, HMAS Farncomb, is scheduled to decommission in 2026. To avoid any capability gap, the first of the new boats needs to be in the water and fully operational. For that to occur, the chosen designer will need to finalise the design and commission a new production line. That will certainly be in Australia, though boat number one will be built wholly or partly overseas.

It may be the government can fudge a bit, as Labor did with the Oberon boats in the 1990s. But any extended delay with the new boats – which may not become fully apparent until Collins retirement is looming – would require a Plan B.

That would require a life extension for some of the Collins boats. Australian National University Professor Hugh White suggests an interim capability – a couple of TKMS Type 214 boats, which could serve as a lead-in sub should the TKMS Type-216 be chosen as Australia's future sub.

This is a mature modern design currently in production, although under half the size of the future sub.

So how much wiggle room is there in the schedule? On one view, there's not much at all. In this period of growing uncertainty, that could create a strategic risk.

"I think the official term is a poofteenth – there is really no room," Lockheed Martin chief executive Raydon Gates said.

comments powered by Disqus