ASW capability at a crossroads

The ADF has reduced its investment in Anti-Submarine Warfare development at an odd time.
The future of surface combatant Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has been in a shadow for many years. At the strategic level the absence of credible regional submarine threats has driven the priority well down in force structure planning and acquisition programs. Only the persistence of ASW related programs such as the now defunct Sea 1100 Phase 4 and Sea 1348 Phase 3C kept the hopes of ASW practitioners alive.

Those projects acknowledged the need to "earmark" funding to acquire appropriate technology in time for the ADF to remain credible in the face of a regional threat coming of age well inside the next decade. That was until the latest DCP was released and these bastions of hope evaporated, although it might, and no doubt will be, argued that potential funding for ASW has been increased through upcoming major projects.

However, without any real force level ASW capability the force in being looks quite sick. If the old adage "never give a submariner an even break" remains valid then it seems that the ADF has just dealt the emerging regional submarine forces a "winning hand".

This situation is not new for the RAN Surface Combatant Force. Since the late 1980's, when strategic doctrine described the threat to Australia from submarines as low, little has been done to raise capability levels beyond those necessary for ASW surface combatant self-defence. Force protection capability within deployed task groups has largely been left to aircraft, the Orions and Seahawks, both of which are arguably much more capable for localisation and prosecution of hostile submarines than they are for ASW surveillance.

Furthermore, while submarines might augment force ASW capability, their tactical employment requires careful planning and worldwide experience points to significant shortcomings in the ability of diesel-electric submarines to support surface task groups. Therefore, without reasonable surface combatant ASW capability it is not surprising that ADF task groups remain vulnerable to a regional submarine threat that is growing in numbers and quality.

While cost/capability trade offs are a management imperative at the strategic level they have to be taken within the context of prevailing strategic circumstances. Indeed in the period from 1986 to 1996 the submarine threat to Australia was low. However, strategic analysts and force development planners confidently predicted that this would change during the first decade of the new century, and they were right.

The regional submarine threat is vastly different today with acquisition programs in full swing in a number of nearby countries. Clearly the sea denial potential of the conventional submarine has been readily recognised in a region where the geo-strategic environment is ideally suited to maximising the strengths of submarine warfare. It seems problematic then that the ADF might consider risking the restriction or loss of its regional operational freedom of manoeuvre through cancellation of ASW capability at the very time it is becoming essential. Nevertheless, this is what is inferred through the removal of Sea1100 Phase 4 (Australian Surface Ship Towed Array Sonar System) and Sea 1348 Phase 3B (ANZAC Undersea and Surface Warfighting Upgrade) from the DCP.

Clearly there is more to ASW capability than merely investment in appropriate equipment. Sound doctrine, tactical development, professional mastery and constant exercising of skills all contribute. Nonetheless, these skill sets, in the absence of suitable technology, are largely meaningless if you assume that, by definition, military capability is a combination of operational skills and the equipment itself.

Submarine warfare is all about technology and technical skill (fighting smarter), therefore, logically to some extent so too is ASW. This has been acknowledged in endless ASW studies, technology investigations and in operational experimentation but is not carried through to investment planning. These activities have all pointed towards a surface combatant ASW requirement focussed on a series of systems to extend capability to include ASW force protection in addition to self-defence.

The extension of this logic indicates a requirement for sensors and systems designed to operate in deep and shallow water and covering the full extent of the water column in which hostile submarines may operate. The final outcome is a capability which extends detection ranges beyond the submarine's weapon release range and one that generates surveillance levels which deter, complicate or defeat the capability of the hostile submarine to interfere with the mission assigned to the ADF.

Essentially, the surface combatant force requires two capabilities that may broadly be described as force protection and self defence. The capability requirement for force protection rests upon the ability to generate sufficient tactical surveillance to enable detection of the presence of an emerging submarine threat in time to complete an appropriate response, and to exert tactical pressure on the hostile submarine before he commences an attack.

Similarly, for self-defence the requirement is based on detecting submarines conducting the final stages of an attack in sufficient time to enable the attack itself to be defeated or at least for the incoming torpedoes to be detected and defeated. If major overseas programs can be seen as a reliable indicator then it would seem that one type of ASW sensor, the modern active sonar can do both tasks. However, while current surface combatants carry a hull-mounted sonar it would seem that this system requires augmentation by systems such as low-frequency variable depth sonar which are becoming increasingly more common onboard modern ASW-capable warships.

It would also seem that the ADF was working towards achieving this and had invested significantly through earlier phases of Sea 1100. Similarly, the ADF must have an understanding of the cost of these systems, and, in all probability it might well be affordable in the context of a future ASW upgrade which seems essential for the ANZAC Class.

The fact that these systems will not be acquired has an immediate impact in that it creates a capability gap at the platform level. In the longer term it raises issues within the framework of ADF plans to move towards network centric warfare principles.

The surface combatant must be viewed as a vital node in any future ASW network by virtue of the important role it plays within a task group. Given that the effectiveness of any warfare network is governed by the capability of the nodes within it, any degradation in the capability of a node must ultimately degrade the effectiveness of the overall network. It stands to reason then that a low capability in surface combatant ASW must result in a low capability within the ADF's overall ASW system. In light of the capacity of the regional submarine threat relative to ADF ASW capability this ought to be a serious concern.

Clearly any enhancement in the RAN's surface combatant ASW capability will cost something. In an environment hallmarked by competition for available resources this might be problematic. However, as has been pointed out previously the cost for appropriate systems is more reasonable than might be apparent, and recent large scale deferrals from the capital equipment budget suggest that lack of funds is not really an issue. The RAN knows this. Nevertheless, there appears to be a tendency towards alternate solutions consisting in the main of a mixed bag of largely unproven and minimally capable bits and pieces; despite the fact that worldwide operational experience does not vindicate such an approach.

The bottom line is that a robust capability can only be achieved through robust programs, which stand up to rigorous operational, technical and financial analysis. An analysis of the funding estimates in earlier DCPs for Sea 1100 and Sea 1348 (in the order of $500 million) indicate that someone in Defence understood the merits of the sort of approach suggested in this article. In reality a useful capability could have been achieved for much less than that figure, and that solution could well have been developed and supplied by Australian companies, drawing on the vast experience acquired by Australian industry in developing solutions to the ADF's unique operational requirements.

Only the right systems will generate the required level of capability. Any compromise is going to lead to a situation whereby ineffective sensors and systems will be fielded and the capability gap will remain. Arguably, ASW has suffered from a piecemeal approach over the past decade or so. That may have been acceptable at a time when the threat was low, but it is now time to deliver surface combatants with an appropriate ASW system so that it can take its place within the overall ASW system.

By Daniel Cotterill, Canberra