Tag Archive for: DCNS

Australia’s future submarine: a Class with no equals

If the RAN holds firm to the Barracuda Shortfin Block 1A concept offered by DCNS it will acquire an orphan no informed Navy would contemplate commissioning into service. It will own a submarine that will be expensive to build, maintain and operate. It will be a Class that has no equals—sadly for all the wrong reasons.

The award of the Future Submarine Program to France in itself shouldn’t be the issue. DCNS has a proven track record of naval vessel design and construction. It would employ qualified personnel across a wide spectrum of naval engineering. And the Turnbull government is steadfast in its assurance that the decision in favour of the Barracuda Shortfin Block 1A was made after the most intense technical evaluation by national and international submarine experts. The government accepts DCNS’s claim that it’ll be ‘the most lethal conventional submarine ever contemplated’, which will provide Australia with the most advanced conventionally powered submarine in the world.

Notwithstanding Australia’s considerable capabilities in naval construction I remain doubtful that a long-range diesel-electric submarine with a 5100-tonne submerged displacement can be designed and built successfully locally. Nor am I convinced that such a class will be more lethal than smaller long-range submarine classes. ‘As the size and power of a submarine increase’, argues the government’s DST Group correctly, ‘the gains made in range, speed and endurance diminish’. The maxim: ‘as small as possible and as big as is necessary’ holds firm for all naval submarine designs, but particularly for diesel-electric boats. DCNS confirms this by introducing their new blue-water submarine concept—SMX®3.0—at Euronaval 2016.

At 3000-tonnes displacement the ‘Z-Generation’ submarine class will be nearly 50% smaller than the Barracuda Shortfin Block 1A. It’ll have a propeller drive train and hydrogen-oxide fuel-cell AIP. The SMX®3.0 indiscretion ratio will, in all likelihood, be superior to the Shortfin Block 1A because this submarine will have less drag, greater underwater speed, endurance and a lower signature. Importantly, the replacement of lead-acid with lithium-ion batteries will eliminate the dangerous process of hydrogen venting.

The inexcusable blunder by our defence planners is the determination to procure a 5100-tonnes submarine that doesn’t have air-independent-propulsion (AIP), and is based on lead-acid battery technology.  It’ll feature an innovative pump-jet system that requires prototype testing for flow, vibration, cavitation and magnetic signature, efficiency and reliability. Then the challenge will be to guarantee safe operational performance under all circumstances.

Australia has learned much about operating modern diesel-electric submarines and in particular its design strengths and weaknesses and how the next generation should be improved. In the early stages of the SEA1000 program the government tasked ASC to investigate different options ranging from procurement of an off-the-shelf submarine to an Australian ab initio and an evolved Collins design. Over five years a team of some 60 national and international experts explored different submarine design options. Their efforts were terminated once the government redirected attention to a Japanese solution and subsequently to a Competitive Evaluation Process to select a strategic partner to design, build and sustain the future submarine fleet. That work shouldn’t be wasted if the current program runs into major problems, while the SMX®3.0 should also be kept under active consideration.

Assuming that Australia stays with the current plan there should be no doubt that the US Navy can assist in the future Australian submarine program. However, we should question whether any members on the recently announced Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board have much experience in the design of diesel-electric submarines. Categorically they have no experience in the construction of warships in Australia. Many former and current managers and engineers at ASC, BAE Systems Australia, Thales Australia, and, of course, former RAN submarine COs and Engineering Officers have the requisite experience. They could provide government with equal or better counsel on the industrial requirements for our future submarines and frigates than could this congregation of eminent persons.

Not least of the deficiencies in the government’s advisory panel is the lack of depth in labour relations and productivity—one of the major risks for the project. To set up a 5000-strong workforce at a single naval shipyard in Australia will be a monumental task. To manage such a site from a labour-relations standpoint over a 30-year plus timeline has, to my knowledge, only been done successfully in this country in wartime.

Williamstown Naval Dockyard, the last government shipyard before the Howard government nationalised the ASC, was managed by Navy personnel and so-called overseas experts, including managers from the US. When EGLO Engineering—a specialist Australian company with experience in the hydrocarbon and mining sectors—formed AMEC to acquire the dysfunctional Williamstown Dock Yard in 1987 it had the option to retain some 2000 government employees. AMEC declined the option and some 200 of EGLO’s most capable and reliable trades people were transferred to Williamstown to form the nucleus workforce for the completion of the FFG-7 frigates, Melbourne and Newcastle, and to start on the 10-ship ANZAC build-program for the Royal Australian and Royal New Zealand navies.

AMEC, renamed Amecon in 1989—and later known as Transfield Shipbuilding—employed some 1,500 people at Williamstown, about the same number ASC employed to build the 6 Collins-class submarines in Adelaide.

To assemble and manage a large‎ construction workforce takes a lot of experience anywhere, but especially in Australia. Management needs to understand and work with both the Australian trade unions and a complex and dysfunctional labour relations framework. The workforce needs to be kept as small and as efficient as possible, and labour productivity management must be extended to the procurement of third-party components and systems. Such capacities or track records aren’t generally found in government enterprises.

Advice on diesel-electric submarine design and construction should be sourced in Australia and Europe. Industrial advice, however, is clearly the domain of experienced Australian labour-relations strategists that have managed similar complexity and comparable risk.

We can only hope that the supreme confidence with which the Turnbull government has chosen this submarine class will be borne out when it comes to the Australian build.

Australia’s future submarine—problems of politics

While I was ambassador to the US, I visited Electric Boat’s yard in Groton, Connecticut, where the US Navy’s latest Virginia-class nuclear submarines are under construction. This wasn’t an indulgence. Part of my job was to seek constant reassurance from the relevant officials of our ally that strong US support would be forthcoming when we finally decided on a process and partner(s) for the replacement for the Collins-class submarines. That reassurance was constantly but, lately, impatiently given. They came to wonder when we would get on with it. The US regards the Australian submarine as a potent addition to allied underwater strength in the Pacific.

I was taken aboard the then-latest Virginia-class submarine, the USS Missouri. The captain showed us the control room and asked me if I recognised anything. I said, ‘Yes’, and told him that I appeared to be standing in a Collins-class submarine. He responded, ‘Exactly’. The US had benefited greatly from the structures we had put in place in the Collins. He had served as an exchange officer on one of them. ‘Best submarine I have served on.’ It was polite hyperbole, but the US Navy has great respect for the class nonetheless. It has been a handful in joint exercises—so troubling, in fact, that a couple of years ago they hired the Swedes to practise on, as they tried to get to grips with finding modern conventional submarines. On my bookshelf sits a photo of the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln taken on exercise through the periscope of a Collins. The submarine, undetected, had just put three ‘torpedos’ into the carrier.

The Collins-class submarines are a great Australian engineering accomplishment. To go from no background in submarine production to building one of the best conventional submarines ever produced was a genuine national achievement. Its recognition elsewhere isn’t replicated here because a successful political campaign demonised it. That fed into a media unaccustomed to domestic complex defence production. ‘Dud subs’ as a headline beats the hell out of ‘problems to fix’ any day. All complex defence platforms take years to shake out. Our experience was no different from the F-111 when introduced or the F-35 fighter now. You know at the end of the day the problems will be fixed because governments and manufacturers know they have the need and ingenuity to fix them.

I had hoped we would, as most submarine-building nations do, determine on an iteration of the Collins for the replacement submarine. That was apparently studied a while ago. Some held fears that the intellectual property wouldn’t be teased out of the Swedes. We had some mighty fights on that front. It’s a shame the Swedes weren’t included in the bid. Frankly, so politically poisonous had the atmosphere in Canberra around the Collins become, that I can understand departmental and governmental fears. We’re now much more knowledgeable than we were in the 1980s. This build should be easier with our experience. And no minister for defence connected with it is likely to be an opposition leader as production of the future submarine unfolds.

As was the case in 1987 when the Swedes won, so it is now. The boat least expected, the Shortfin Barracuda Block 1A, won the bid. Selection by the RAN and Defence Department can be trusted now as it was to be trusted then. People should understand this. Our navy and Defence Department will tolerate political determination of the size of the program, a determination for a local build and the location of that build. The premium is worth it as it massively aids long-term sustainment and improvement. They will revolt against political determination of source selection. They have to fight from the boat and they want the best they can get. We have been lucky with Rear Admiral Greg Sammut as head of the evaluation team and in the current service/departmental leadership.

Like most directly associated with submarines in the US at the beginning of this selection, I hoped for the Japanese outcome. This wasn’t related to calculations about Pacific politics but respect for the Japanese boat and a fear that politics might suborn it. Paradoxically, the timetable the government set may have scuppered that outcome. A year was not enough. The Japanese, not being arms exporters let alone constructors in another country, needed more time to bid an appealing design. The RAN demands a bid of the best a country can offer. They expect every element of a bidding country’s knowledge and capacity in the design. That’s a very tall order in a very arcane world. A world in which our navy is thoroughly rehearsed courtesy of the Collins.

By all reports, the French gave Australia the best they could offer. French engineering will be tested to the limits on this one. They have a brilliant propulsion system and they will have been careful in their presentation not to talk above themselves. It’s not a simple matter to put a conventional system into a nuclear boat. I was told by one American that there’s about eight times the amount of piping in a nuclear boat as in a conventional one, so they should have plenty of space to play with. We are, both nations, now setting out on a long and risky journey. French scientists and engineers are superb so they have the herbs.

One hopes we will have a wiser media and political leadership courtesy of the Collins experience. That will require the tolerance and acceptance of the trial and error that goes with the acquisition of all major defence platforms.

Graphs of the week: less haste, more speed and lower costs

Back in 2009, Sean Costello and I wrote an ASPI paper called How to buy a submarine (PDF). I’m still writing about submarines, while Sean now has the job of actually delivering a dozen of them. It’s a big job, and at times it’ll be a thankless one, but at least he’s been thinking about it for a while now.

Some of the things we wrote about back then have since been sorted out. For example, we suggested that the new boats would be over 4,000 tons if they were to meet the then extant requirements as described in the 2009 Defence White Paper. For a little while, it looked as if Defence was backing away from those requirements a bit, with a public statement that the Collins range and endurance parameters were still fit for purpose. But the Shortfin Barracuda (video) will be 4,500 tons surfaced (PDF) compared to the Collins at 3,050 tons. The difference in size can be partly explained by the possible inclusion of air independent propulsion and a greater payload of weapons, but there’s still many hundreds of tons unaccounted for—which suggests a boat with a greater range and endurance than Collins, as well as being stealthier and having better sensors.

Sean and I suggested at the time that aiming for a quantum leap in performance above Collins would result in a price tag around the $36 billion mark. We caught quite a bit of flak about that, but when Sean and his collègues sign the contract, I’d expect our prediction to be pretty close to the mark.

We also wondered what would become of the government-owned ASC. That hasn’t been sorted, and it’s be important to work out how the nation’s shipyards will be structured before we embark on the five naval construction projects on the books concurrently: the subs, the yet-to-be-completed air warfare destroyers, the Pacific Patrol Boats, the Offshore Patrol Vessels and the Future Frigates. Similarly, we’ll need to work out who the combat systems integrator will be—a very important role when we’re putting an American combat system into a French submarine.

The order book’s awfully full for Australia’s small shipbuilding sector—especially given the problematic state of Defence’s engineering workforce identified by the Rizzo Review, and recently reviewed by the Parliament. And there are time pressures on the shipbuilding projects, with the government announcing that steel would be cut on the OPVs in 2018 and the frigates in 2020, moves designed to minimise shipyard job losses.

Shallowness in engineering stocks and haste in getting fabrication underway is a dangerous combination from a best practice project management perspective. Before any steel work begins, we’ll need to make sure that the Navy’s requirements are captured and designs finalised (or at least very close to it). Systems engineering principles identify several key steps that have to be taken before proceeding to production if cost and schedule risks are to be managed.

There’s nothing new in that. Sean and I said this back in 2009:

‘It’s intuitively obvious that incorporating mature technologies is less risky than betting on ones that are still under development. But it’s instructive to see the quantitative impact of each approach in terms of the impact on project cost and schedule.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) provides … data that shows that a sequence of design and requirement reviews will result in more predictable outcomes if they are carried out before cost, schedule and capability estimates are made. (Figure 1) It’s important that the navy’s requirements be stable before the design is finalised—which the Kinnaird process is designed to do. Failure to do so is likely to result in cost and schedule overruns. Again the GAO provides some hard data—requirements changes late in the project could cost an additional 50% in cost overruns and well over a year of delay. (Figures 2 and 3)’

 Figure 1: the effect on program cost growth of starting before key system reviews are completed. (Source: GAO analysis of Pentagon data)

Figure 2: the effect on program cost growth of changing user requirements after work has begun.

Figure 3: the effect on program schedule of changing user requirements after work has begun.

Sean will remember those lessons, and systems engineering best practices will be deeply ingrained in DCNS engineers. That’s why I don’t expect steel to be cut on the first of the new submarines much before 2023.

But the surface vessel programs are due to start well before that, despite the initial selection processes not being finished yet, let alone detailed design work. For a preview of what might be in store for us, have a look at mess caused by the delay to the start of the Type 26 frigate program in the UK. Danger, danger, Will Robinson!