Combat System contenders sweat on Reith's decision

Which way will the government jump on the question of a new combat system for the Collins-class boats? And when?
As ADM closed for press it was hoped that Defence would announce the supplier of the new combat system for the Navy's Collins-class submarines at the 2001 Defence + Industry conference in Canberra. This didn't happen, but an announcement was believed to be 'imminent'.

In essence, the Commonwealth has three choices: to acquire the ISUS 90-55 system from STN Atlas and its Australian partners (including BAE Systems Australia, whose parent company owns 49 per cent of STN Atlas); acquire Raytheon's CCS Mk2-based system; or keep the existing system and implement a rolling upgrade program designed to eliminate the acknowledged faults with the existing combat system and replace the troublesome Tactical Data Handling System (TDHS) entirely using an evolutionary approach.

Each choice carries its share of technical and political risks and rewards. It is widely believed that the Defence Materiel Organisation and Submarine Capability Team recommended the RAN acquire the ISUS 90 system. However, the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral David Shackleton, and the Cabinet, are believed to favour the Raytheon system. If so, a source selection which ignores the recommendations of the DMO and SMCT would seem to undermine further Australia's once widely respected acquisition process.

ADM understands that STN and BAe Systems feel they may have genuine grounds for a legal challenge if they lose out on this contract. In this election year that would cast a deep shadow over a project already bedevilled by party, service and industry politics.

So that third choice is looking increasingly attractive to a government which wishes to avoid both political damage and a potentially troublesome legal dispute. Doing nothing would give Raytheon the contract by default: last year the company became prime contractor on the troubled combat system project and now controls the single greatest pool of software and systems integration expertise relating to it.

ADM understands the reliability of the final version of the TDHS software deliverable under that prime contract, Version 2.0, was proven by the successful performance of HMAS Waller during Exercise Tandem Thrust. The operational capability of the system is not far short of the augmented TDHS (more accurately, CSA 2.2) that currently equips the two 'fast-track' boats, HMAS Sheean and Dechaineux.

Although less than the standard the standard the RAN originally wanted, and expects to achieve with either of the new TDHS it has considered, this may be good enough to justify a slower, lower-cost approach to upgrading the combat system.

If a new TDHS is the solution, however, both contenders are reckoned capable of doing the job the RAN wants, with relatively minor variations in functionality and capability - though if either feels it has been denied the chance to demonstrate its solution properly, the lawyers may be called in. And both contenders are understood to have submitted bids well below the $400 million ball-park figure bandied around last year. Whether the price difference between the contenders could be a determinant depends largely on the amount of difference and the context in which it is measured.

Otherwise, the major differences are believed to revolve around perceptions of risk and the benefits to the broader national bottom line.

Taking STN Atlas's bid first, the ISUS 90-55 offered to Australia has seven multi-function consoles, is based on a mature, fully-developed COTS-based system in service with conventional submarines worldwide, carries a low risk and has an open growth path.

The system will be manufactured and integrated here in Australia by STN Atlas's local partners, Sonartech Atlas, BAE Systems Australia Ltd (whose UK parent has contributed some of the system functionality, based on software and systems expertise applied in the UK's own submarine program), Nautronix and Lockheed Martin. All of the necessary Intellectual Property will be transferred to Australia to support what the STN Atlas team says will be an Australian-owned solution through its life of type. Some of the smartest elements of the bid are sonar processors such as SARPS and SARTEPS, developed by Sonartech Atlas at North Ryde and now being examined closely by the US Navy as a Los Angeles-class retrofit.

In selecting the ISUS 90-55, Australia would become part of a global user group with a massive installed customer base. Furthermore, being an Australian-owned and -controlled system means that the interface between this and any US-sourced submarine smarts in the future would be non-porous, sources argue. There could be no risk to sensitive US technology and IP and so no impact on the ability of the RAN and US Navy, and on their respective contractors, to cooperate closely in the future as the Collins-class design evolves.

Raytheon's sales pitch, to the surprise of some people, is not dissimilar. It dismisses the notion that a nuclear boat's combat system necessarily must be big and cumbersome. Raytheon's offer is based on the core of the US Navy's CCS Mk2 combat system, except that it embodies a new Human-Machine Interface designed by Raytheon in North Ryde, and already adopted by the US Navy, which exploits that system's inherently high level of automation. This in turn transforms the CCS Mk2 into the versatile, highly automated TDHS necessary for modern conventional boats with their smaller crews.

Raytheon points out that it employs 150 systems and software engineers at North Ryde who have over 13 years' experience of developing combat systems for a conventional submarine - specifically, for the Collins-class with its unique requirement to be able to handle a large number of targets and contacts simultaneously while operating in littoral waters and regional choke-points..

The new HMI and Track Management System owe much to Raytheon's Australian industry partner, Thomson Marconi Sonar, which provides the Scylla sonar suite for the Collins-class boats. Raytheon plans to install new COTS-based consoles in the control room; these would use the same floor space as the existing consoles. But the company plans to keep the existing fibre optic backbone and processor cabinets, simply replacing the cards inside. And the new combat system is designed to be installed while the submarine is alongside at HMAS Stirling, so the boats don't need to be transferred to Adelaide for a lengthy docking.

Raytheon has leveraged the $273 million spent so far on the fast-track augmentation process by investing in the establishment of a Risk Reduction Laboratory at its North Ryde naval systems facility where it has trialed and evaluated changes to the CCS Mk 2 and the HMI. The latter was developed in just six weeks, the company says, and less than 9 per cent of the CCS Mk2 software is changed from the original. Importantly, the set-up uses the existing system's interfaces with the Scylla sonar suite, which is acknowledged to be working very well, and is also fully integrated with the Mk48 and Mk48 ADCAP torpedoes and Sub-Harpoon anti-ship missile.

Looking at the wider ramifications, the STN Atlas bid emphasises a pedigree founded on an intimate relationship with the world's biggest constructor of conventional submarines with a massive knowledge base on which to develop customer solutions. Importantly, the bid also provides a solid link to BAE Systems, which is prime contractor on the UK's own submarine programs, and by inference to the 'magic circle' of major submarine capability inhabited solely these days by the US and Royal Navies. Whether or not a link with STN Atlas would allow Australia to enter that magic circle remains to be seen.

Advocates of the US solution argue that this is unlikely, notwithstanding BAE Systems' credibility with the US in this area. They point, however, to the positives of a close relationship with the US Navy. Key among these is a genuine two-way street in tactics and CCS Mk2 (and equally importantly Mk48 ADCAP torpedo) configuration development/management based on the RAN's world-leading expertise in shallow/warm water and littoral operations.

At a higher level, analysts such as Professor Desmond Ball of the ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre have highlighted the contribution a modern submarine force can make to Australia's Information Warfare (IW) capabilities. Ball's views received some publicity earlier this year and may have influenced Defence thinking; they certainly articulate the US lobby's case for the Raytheon solution.

As an unrivalled surveillance platform, the Collins-class boats will be able to collect and disseminate a wide range of intelligence data and also attack maritime and, in the future, land targets. They will become key nodes in the 'system of systems' towards which our defence force is migrating, say the US advocates. But to achieve their full strategic and tactical potential, both as a national and as a coalition asset, they require the high-rate satellite and conventional data links, communications interfaces and security infrastructure which allow an unimpeded flow of voice, data and imagery to and from the submarines using both Australian and US satellite and other communications infrastructure.

A TDHS based on the ISUS 90-55 can provide much of this, but the fear is that American concerns over the safety of its technology will see a limit on Australian access to some sensitive communications links and intelligence sources, and constrain the level of connectivity Australia might enjoy with the US Navy. Over time, this may have a distorting effect on Australia's IW architecture and ultimate capability.

It's not clear whether these US concerns are a bargaining position or a genuine worry in the Pentagon; either way, defence minister Peter Reith is understood to have been briefed in Washington earlier this year about the consequences of selecting a non-US TDHS for the submarines. Both US and Australian sources have argued strongly that the ultimate operational potential of the Collins-class fleet, and of a vital node in Australia's future 'system of systems', is a function of how close Defence wants to become to the Pentagon.

By Gregor Ferguson, Adelaide