Australians should be proud of Collins Submarines
Australians should be proud of Collins Submarines Australians should be proud of Collins Submarines Australians should be proud of Collins Submarines The Collins Class submarines are internationally considered among the best conventional submarines in the world. The Collins submarines are also the most effective and important strategic assets to ensuring our nation’s sovereignty, security and future economic prosperity. When the project commenced, the Collins were a new design of a highly complicated piece of equipment, second in complexity only to a space shuttle, built for Australia’s unique needs in a brand new shipyard with a highly skilled workforce created from scratch. We were inexperienced at submarine building and, as with almost all new technology and projects, there were challenges along the way. However, they were all eventually System. However, what many do not realise is that the great- solved, mostly from in-house local ingenuity, and the Collins est challenge related to how the project was established and project has proven to be a huge success industrially and op- managed by the Government of the day, which prevented erationally. 1 the easy fix of many of the less complicated challenges.4 2 Two former submarine commanding officers (Rod Fayle and Peter Briggs3) who spent years operating the subma- Noise Levels rines and working closely with the Collins project (giving The Collins initially had problems with the level of noise they them the best overall knowledge of the submarines) have made, which was quite a serious issue as the key to a suc- both attested to the capability of the Collins’ and Australia’s cessful submarine is its stealth. The high level of noise was ability to build submarines again. mainly due to issues with the propeller (how it was made and what it was made from) and the shape of the hull and how The Challenges Encountered water flowed over it. These two major issues have long been fixed through clever adaption by ASC, and the Collins’ now make less noise than the background noise of the ocean.5 It is well known that there were a number of challenges encountered on the Collins project with the two biggest technical challenges relating to noise levels and the Combat 2 Australians should be proud of Collins Submarines Combat System The Combat System encompasses a variety of different tools essential for a submarine to operate; sensors, including sonars for underwater listening, two different types of radars and the periscope, navigation, communications, the weapons system and the ‘Tactical Data Handling System’ which processes then displays the array of information for the submariners. These systems presented many challenges as in the late 80s and early 90s when the submarines were first being built, both the technology and the way we were developing it was uncharted territory. These systems involve a lot of software and advanced technology that simply was not around, as one retired submarine commander pointed out, laptops weren’t even available at the time and smart phones didn’t exist until the mid-2000s.6 In a world where technology was rapidly evolving, we were trying to predict and cater for the needs of the future. With help from the US (who also had numerous problems with their own combat systems around this time) the Combat System challenges were overcome, giving the Collins’ a highly capable system that allows the submarines to challenge even the US.7 10 facts about the Collins class submarine 1 2 The Government’s original requirement was for ten Collins submarines, however they later settled on six submarines, with the option to order two more. Seven companies submitted proposals for the Collins submarine design; the combined submissions weighed over four tonnes. 3 A Collins submarine weighs 3,100 tonnes when it is surfaced and 3,400 tonnes when it is submerged. 4 A Collins submarine can travel up to 19 kmh when surfaced and up to 37 kmh when submerged. 5 The first Collins submarine was commissioned in 1996 the sixth in 2003 6 A Collins submarine can carry up to 58 crew members for as long as 70 days 7 A Collins submarine carries 21 torpedoes 8 Collins submarines are covered in a skin of tiles to minimise detection (stealth). These tiles were developed in Australia from scratch because no other country would share their technology. 9 During the late 1990s the Navy only had 40% of the trained Collins submariners it required. By 2008 the Navy could only provide crews for three of the six submarines. 10 By 2006, A$5.071 billion had been spent to build the Collins submarines; after taking inflation into account, the project had run A$40 million (less than 1%) over contract. 3 Australians should be proud of Collins Submarines Project Establishment A lot of the problems and delays with the Collins project did not stem from the inability of Australian workers or a lack of skill, but from the way the entire project was established and managed. The contracts between the Government and its contractors (namely ASC, Rockwell’s and their sub-contractors) were inflexible and poorly structured. As a result, when minor and major problems arose, it was unclear who was responsible for fixing them and who was going to foot the bill for it. This mistakes: the maintenance and rebuilding of the Collins submarines are now meeting international standards. After decades of learning and achievement, Australians should be proud that we now possess the capacity and capability to build and rebuild internationally acclaimed, leading edge submarines. As one expert proclaimed ‘It is, therefore, difficult not to acknowledge the success of the Collins project in building from scratch something never achieved before in Australia, and which required complex processes and advanced technology that few other nations have mastered.’9 meant that even some of the most basic problems took an unreasonable amount of time to fix.8 The contracts also failed to take into consideration the long lifespan of the project and were not flexible enough to allow for changes in needs and technology that occur over such time periods. As a result, when the Navy realised it needed upgraded capabilities built into the submarines, there were no provisions to allow for this. Making this issue worse, was how the project management was organised. The overall management structure was weak and did not facilitate getting all the parties involved on the same page. There was poor communication between the organisations involved in building the Collins submarines making problem solving even harder. These problems were again mostly due to the Australian Government’s inexperience with both purchasing and building such a large scale project, and again we learnt from these Notes 1 Fayle, Rod, An Open Letter on submarines, 13 February 2015, available at: [http://indaily.com.au/ opinion/2015/03/11/former-subs-commander-stopthe-political-spin/] 6 Fayle, Open Letter 7 For more detail on US Weapons Systems troubles see: Woolner, Derek, ‘Taking the Past to the Future’, Security Challenges, vol 5, no 3, 2009, p 53. 2 Fayle, Open Letter 3 Briggs, Peter, ‘Why Australia should build its own submarines (2)’, The Strategist (online), 22 January 2015, available at [http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ why-australia-should-build-its-own-submarines-2] For more on the Collins ability vs US see: Thompson, Roger, Lessons not learned: the U.S. Navy’s status quo culture, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2007, p 26 & 28. 4 See: McIntosh, Malcolm and Prescott, John, ‘Report to the Minister for Defence on the Collins Class Submarine and related matters”, June 1999. 8 For more detail see; Malcolm McIntosh and John Prescott’s ‘Report to the Minister for Defence on the Collins Class Submarine and related matters”, June 1999. 5 Fayle, Open Letter 9 Woolner, ‘Taking the Past to the Future’, pp 49-50.
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