In part one of this series, I examined some of the limitations of a lead acid Main Storage Battery for Australia’s Future Submarines (FSM), the potential advantages offered by lithium ion alternatives now being developed and the risks attached to lithium (dramatically demonstrated by failures in some otherwise highly safety-conscious applications).

At stake is FSM’s dived endurance—a critical characteristic, particularly to meet Australia’s requirements for long snort transits and patrol areas in heavily surveyed, busy littoral, tropical waters. Additional dived endurance provides increased tactical mobility and effectiveness, which improves flexibility and survivability in both transit and patrol area operations.

Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) offers an option to extend the dived endurance in both transit and patrol situations. There are a number of technologies available, with fuel cell systems appearing to be the future for larger submarines.

A submarine fuel cell typically combines hydrogen and oxygen in a chemical reaction to produce electricity (by-products are oxygen and potable water). But there’s a downside: unlike the MSB, AIP fuel can’t be recharged at sea—once its fuel has been used the AIP effectively functions as additional space used and weight to be carried.

In low sea states or where maritime surveillance is intense during a transit or patrol, it mightn’t be possible to snort to recharge the MSB at will or when planned. With a finite MSB endurance and without AIP, there’s little option but to slow down and wait until the surveillance eases or to move out of the busy area on battery power—accepting the impact on transit times/time on station and battery expenditure.

The level of public information available on the 3 CEP contenders differs greatly; they’re also offering quite different AIP solutions (PDF).

The German solution appears to be the most mature, with over 20 submarines at sea operating their fuel cell. A methane reformer is proposed to provide hydrogen as required by the fuel cell, avoiding the need to store the difficult to handle, expensive and dangerous gas. The reformer for FSM has yet to go to sea and is currently being tested.

The French propose different fuel cell and reformer technologies, both operating in shore-based test beds.

The Japanese reportedly intend to remove the Stirling engine AIP system purchased under a licence from Sweden from future Soryu-class subs with a view to replacing it with a lithium ion battery.

The proposed German AIP system could provide power for the Hotel Load and 5-7 knots propulsion for 21 days. At higher speeds energy is drawn from AIP and MSB, greatly extending the mobility of the submarine enabling it to evade or close a target at high speed—for example, at 10 knots 50% of the power could be provided by AIP. Once the MSB reaches the minimum acceptable level the submarine can slow and still have days of AIP mobility depending on fuel remaining, without having to snort if the Commanding Officer choose not to.

Such an AIP system would typically add 15% to the displacement (say 600t) and 10% (around $150M) to the sail away cost. It’s understood that tkMS’s price of $20 billion reported in The Australian on 21 May 2015 was for 12 FSM fitted with lithium MSB and AIP.

Australia’s geography poses particular challenges for a transit northward through the Indonesian archipelago—narrow straits create several choke points to be negotiated en route. To avoid surveillance or casual observers in the approaches, strait and egress areas, these choke points must be transited covertly. The prevalent ocean current flows southward, adding to the energy requirements.

Even a lithium MSB could be hard pushed to provide the energy required to maintain a covert 8 knot speed of advance; leaving the submarine little option except to snort during or as soon as it’s clear of the strait. An AIP system providing the Hotel Load and the first 5–7 knots would make a covert transit more feasible and once clear of the strait offers ongoing mobility while avoiding snorting if the surveillance situation warranted.

The arguments surrounding lithium MSB and AIP for FSM are two of the major technical issues requiring careful consideration during the CEP and design process that follows. Provided a safe design and the ability to handle the worst-case failure can be achieved, lithium offers significant benefits over a lead acid MSB and possibly, AIP. On balance I think it’s a case of ‘when’, not ‘if’, a lithium MSB will be fitted to FSM.

Why not add more lithium batteries, i.e. ‘rechargeable AIP’ (as the Japanese are proposing)? The test for FSM is whether lithium batteries, have sufficient energy density to justify replacing an AIP installation. The lithium technology currently being advocated for MSBs has only 20–25% the energy density of AIP—improving this safely is another R&D goal.

Hedging our technical bets and fitting an AIP system seems to be a sensible option at this stage of the FSM design process and given lithium’s current development. A shift from AIP to more lithium in later FSM batches, when improved energy density is proven technology would be practical. If a lead acid MSB is to be fitted, then AIP is even more strongly justified to increase dived endurance.

From a submarine operator’s perspective, dived endurance is a critical characteristic, determining survivability and effectiveness in both transit and patrol area operations.

In response to Andrew’s question about the future submarine coming up for air? The answer should be ‘at a time and place of the Commanding Officer’s choosing’. Until we’re absolutely sure that a lithium MSB of sufficient safety and energy density is assured, let’s give the CO two numbers to worry about—MSB percentage and AIP fuel remaining.

Why is that issue important at this stage of the CEP?

R&D experience and capability in both lithium MSBs and AIP could be significant differentiators in selecting a design partner to work with our indigenous R&D capacity to achieve the optimum and safest dived endurance outcome for FSM.

We would be wise to hedge our bets on the timely availability of proven lithium MSBs and their capacity to replace AIP.

Finally, let’s ensure that our national R&D investment is sufficient to ensure that we’re in charge of our own destiny in this critical area.

Part of my summer reading has been British naval historian Geoffrey Till’s excellent 2014 book Understanding victory: naval operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands. At first glance it doesn’t seem to offer much to anyone who has read a bit of naval history. In its slim 200-odd pages it looks at the Battles of Trafalgar and Jutland, the sinking of HMS Repulse off Malaya in 1941 and the travails of HMS Glamorgan in the Falklands campaign in 1982. Given that there are shelves of books on each of those four topics, a new angle’s required to produce a worthwhile contribution to the literature.

Till does that by two devices. First, he tells the story from the viewpoint of a single ship, and not always the obvious one. For example, central to the account of Trafalgar is HMS Belleisle, rather than the much better known Victory or Royal Sovereign. And the much analysed Battle of Jutland is from the viewpoint of HMS New Zealand. The second device is a deconstruction of each battle into components of capability, rather than a retelling of the story of the battle and its key figures. The subtitle of this book would be more accurate if it was ‘the fundamental inputs to capability in naval warfare’, because that’s what it’s actually about: the front line platform being the tip of a much bigger iceberg.

The Belleisle is interesting for various reasons, including the fact that it started life with the French Navy before being captured and pressed into the Royal Navy. Till describes it as a ‘Death Star’ of its time, and observes that it had ‘more firepower than Napoleon’s entire army at Austerlitz’. But as impressive as that is, I think the main reason for shifting the focus from the flagships to a ship further down the line is to allow Till to develop his main theme of the enablers of victory.

It’s a focus that’s lost in far too many discussions of military capability. The Royal Navy wasn’t victorious at Trafalgar because it had better ships—Till makes it clear that French naval engineering was ahead of Britain’s in many ways, as the Belleisle attests—but because of all of the other elements that had to come together for success. Most militaries have their own list of capability inputs, varying in the way they’re broken down but ultimately covering much the same ground. (See the American, British and Australian definitions.) Till breaks them down into these 11 categories, a longer list than militaries usually employ:

• Strategic design
• Technological advantage
• Command and leadership
• Organisational efficiency and supply
• Training
• Intelligence
• Concepts of operations
• Battle awareness
• Maneuverability
• Firepower
• Resilience

Looking at classic battles this way allows a new perspective to emerge. To give one of Till’s many examples, the logistics capability and quartermasters of the Royal Navy were fairly reliably able to provide enough vitamin C to avoid widespread scurvy outbreaks. They also provided enough food on board for daily intakes to be as high as 5,000 calories. The combination of the absence of sickness and the energy provided by a robust diet meant that English gun crews could maintain the backbreaking business of manhandling and reloading cannons, or pulling down miles of rigging and large sails for longer than their Spanish and French counterparts at Trafalgar. Few ships were actually sunk in naval battles at the time, and the battle typically went to the side able to inflict the most damage on its foes. In the wind-powered slow motion naval battles of the time, the extra rate of fire was a true ‘force multiplier’.

The perspective in this book is a refreshing one, and I couldn’t help but think of the shallow discussion of air combat capability that accompanied the leaking of the F-16 versus F-35 dogfight report. Technological advantages matter, but they aren’t the beginning and end of the story. I think Till could usefully have added ‘numbers’ and ‘persistence’ to his list of enablers, but he still does a worthwhile service.

In a thoughtful conclusion, he observes that this book is in some ways a pushback against the ‘revolution in military affairs’ fad of the 1990s, which was driven very much by a feeling that technology had finally found a way to trump everything else. That might’ve been how things looked in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, but we have a much better sense of perspective about it now. As Till observes, sometimes battles matter to the fate of nations. When they do, ‘silver bullet’ technology answers might not be available to carry the day—but you can bet that the elements of warfare that underpin the four examples in this book will still have a say.

I am a senior warrant officer who has been fortunate to serve in an Australian Special Forces unit for over 25 years, including more than 13 years in combat roles, and, most recently, as head of my unit’s combat and firearms training program. I’m writing this because I respectfully disagree with John Coyne’s recent assessment that the EF88 (the designation of the rifle in Australian Army service, not ‘F90’ which refers to Thales’ export version) ‘seems to make perfect sense’, when compared to the M4/AR-15.

I’ve had the opportunity to fire the EF88 and while it’s an improvement on the current Steyr, it’s definitely not a good combat weapon. The Steyr has many aspects that are less than desirable—some I will discuss below—but I’ll acknowledge that for the majority of the Australian Defence Force, it’s adequate for self defence. However, for our combat soldiers (not just Special Forces) we could do a great deal better.

Like John, I’m also not advocating any particular weapon system, but to say that the AR platform is reaching its end of service is inaccurate. The industry surrounding the AR based platform is a multi-billion dollar giant and the level of innovation and refinement that continues to go into this platform is unprecedented. Just one example will have to do—Sig Sauer recently launched their MCX rifle, an exceptional weapon that’s at the cutting edge of combat rifle design, yet is still based on Eugene Stoner’s original AR-15 design.

In contrast, other than our own efforts with the EF88, there’s no significant investment in developing the Steyr platform, and the list of nations that are now ditching this weapon and instead choosing AR-based weapons grows longer every day, New Zealand and Malaysia to name two. I believe where we can, that we should produce or make military items within Australia—but not at the expense of capability for the soldier. If we take the positive step of diversification, I’m sure Australia could produce more than one assault rifle and possibly create more jobs.  That way we could supply our combat soldiers—Infantry and Special Forces—with a better combat weapon system.

What was once thought to be the best way to do business—ideas reflected in John’s piece—is, in many respects, not in line with current training in combat shooting. Our current training, built on the lessons of recent combat operations, exposes a number of significant shortcomings in the Steyr’s design. I’ll just mention three: fixed length stock/butt, the bullpup design and poor capability to fire offhand effectively. (I don’t have space to cover cocking handle, trigger, height of sight above bore, no free fall magazine and safety catch.)

My current role allows me to conduct training with soldiers from around the Army and a major problem is the fixed length butt, which affects soldiers who are smaller or taller than the average height. It’s difficult for them to achieve correct eye relief (even with the new extended Picatinny rail on the EF88), correct weapon position in the shoulder is also difficult, and fore grip position is suboptimal, all of which lead to ineffective application of fire.

Another problem with the Steyr is that it’s a bull-pup system. While this results in a shorter overall weapon length, this advantage creates a range of problems. For one thing, the placement of the magazine at the rear of the Steyr means that—unlike the M4 we employ in Special Forces—soldiers must look down when conducting stoppage drills. This is problematic as it involves a loss of situational awareness of the battle space—a far more significant concern than John’s worry about the need to hit the forward assist on the M4/AR-15 when addressing a stoppage.

Finally, for today’s modern combat soldier, having the ability to keep oneself behind cover as much as possible, while still being capable of returning effective fire at the enemy is critical. It’s really quite simple to train off-handed shooting if the weapon is capable of doing so effectively—which the Steyr, including the new EF88, isn’t.  After less than one day of training with the M4 we have our soldiers shoot LF6 both strong and off hand and all soldiers can achieve this within two or three attempts.

In summary, there are more suitable combat weapon systems than the Steyr available for our combat soldiers, weapons that will provide greater lethality and survivability. Where lives are at stake, Defence must maintain integrity and focus on capability above all else.

Lost amid ‘canoe-gate’ last week was an interview with the Minister for Defence during which he made an interesting comment:

… the Labor Party when in power for six years had ASPI do a run over* of what the cost of these mythical 12 submarines was going to be and ASPI said it was about $36 billion. Now those were the numbers that ASPI said the cost of the program was running out, Labor themselves had costed the program at $41 billion …

In that short passage there’s an important revelation—the costing the previous government was using as its working figure for the Future Submarine program was $5 billion more than ASPI’s now widely-quoted $36 billion figure.

That’s significant because recently there’s been quite a bit of criticism of that 2009 estimate. For example, it came under fire during the debate that kicked off the recent Submarine Institute of Australia conference. It got a similar serve during the South Australian government’s Defence Industry Summit (PDF) back in October and again at a recent Senate Committee hearing into naval shipbuilding (PDF). The gist of the criticism is that the estimate Sean Costello and I published in our 2009 ASPI paper How to buy a submarine was naïve, ridiculously high and has skewed the debate about the future submarine to the detriment of Australia’s military capability.

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Three presumptions underlie current planning for Australia’s future submarine capability—three ‘musts’. First, the Collins class must be replaced when it reaches its life-of-type. Second, the replacement boats must be built in South Australia. Third, the new boats must have conventional (ie non-nuclear) propulsion.

On Wednesday and Thursday, ASPI’s ‘Submarine Choice’ conference will explore Australia’s future submarine in line with these stipulations. To do otherwise would cause confusion and dismay among the assembled insiders, such is the abiding belief in the need for a conventionally-powered, locally-built replacement for the Collins.

Elsewhere, true believers are harder to find. Among many people I talk to, there’s cynicism about the future submarine—hardly surprising given the twin debacles of the Collins and Air Warfare Destroyer programs. We may be approaching the point where taxpayers think they’re being asked to throw good money after bad. Read more