Tag Archive for: RAN

Australia’s future submarine: the best Plan B is to make Plan A work

At this stage of Australia’s future submarine project, there is absolutely zero chance of the government adopting a Plan B.

Realistically, I doubt that the government—or the opposition if by some alternate miracle they were the government today—would reverse course on the submarine project now.

That’s because Plan A—the plan we have now—was the best outcome available from a set of limited and somewhat difficult options.

In 2016, and still today, we do not have a realistic option to go for nuclear propulsion. Not without a decade-long investment to build the nuclear engineering, infrastructure, safety and operating experience the Navy would need.

In 2016, and still today in my view, the US Navy is not going to sell, lease or give us Los Angeles–class attack submarines. The Americans would rightly want to see massive Australian investment in building the skills to operate such boats. Right now they don’t think we could do it, and they won’t hand over the crown jewels, even after 100 years of mateship.

In 2016, and still today, there is simply no point in us looking at the smaller conventional submarines operated by other navies—because of our need for range. Our geography isn’t going to change. We do not have the option of protecting Wollongong from an attacking force from Newcastle.

The defence of Australia starts in maritime Southeast Asia, and if we are going to defend our interests against the aggressive sea power building in the region, we will need to project our military force as far forward as we can.

And finally, in 2016 and still today, there is little point in us investing in a lower capability submarine that would not be able to operate in high-threat environments.

Bringing a Chihuahua to a Rottweiler convention will not end well.

So, we are in our current situation for mostly logical reasons.

I’m not being complacent, just realistic. This is not an ideal world and there are good reasons to be concerned about some aspects of the submarine program.

Most obvious is the growing gap between our need to strengthen the deterrent capability of Defence today and the agonisingly slow time frame to get the future submarine into the water.

Second, there is a clear problem about finding the workforce we will need to build and maintain the future submarine and to keep the current Collins submarines going for 10 to 15 more years.

Third, I do not see a clear development pathway ensuring the future submarine can operate as a drone mothership. That is the likely future role for all large submarines.

Last, it’s clear that a national crisis of confidence has settled over the future submarine program.

That takes me back, sadly, to almost 25 years ago when I was chief of staff to the first defence minister in the Howard government, Ian McLachlan. Many will remember the damage that was done to the reputation of the Collins-class submarine—the so-called dud sub that sounded like a rock band underwater. Thanks to a huge amount of work, the Collins was put right and it is, in my view, the best conventional submarine in operation today.

But reputational damage of this type sticks. Governments become uncertain about what decisions to make and about how to carry the project forward.

So, what would I do if I was advising the government on the future submarine?

I would say that the best Plan B is to make Plan A work.

First, the government must start explaining the project in a way that it has simply not yet done.

We are spending billions on the biggest national infrastructure project in Australian history, not to sustain an industrial base in Adelaide, but rather to give us the strongest navy we can get in the face of a tough strategic outlook getting worse by the day.

We are doing this to be the strongest ally we can be to the US in what is likely to be a collective defence endeavour. We are doing this in such a way that builds sovereign strength in Australia so that we can keep operating in circumstances where other partners may be too pressed to help.

I have said this many times before: you can’t run a project of this scale as though it is a secret, black project, kept off the books. I know that runs contrary to the instincts of many in Defence, but ‘Run Silent, Run Deep’ is not how to win over a sceptical public.

Second, we need some certainty on and investment into the life-of-type extension for the Collins-class submarines. I see no alternative other than a major investment upgrade for all six boats. This will give us a superior submarine capability in the relative short term.

Again, there is a precedent. When Brendan Nelson was defence minister, he made a judgement call that rather surprised Defence on the need to acquire Super Hornet aircraft as a gap filler between the retirement of the Classic Hornets and the arrival of the F-35s.

It was a controversial decision at the time, but absolutely the right call, and indeed the Super Hornet has emerged as not just a gap filler but an essential part of our air-combat capability into the future. We are very close now to needing a Super Hornet moment for the Collins submarines.

Third, we need to think harder about how to manage our relationship with France.

This must be crafted as a strategic partnership, not a purchaser–contractor relationship. There are differences of cultural perception that must be addressed.

I strongly support Defence Minister Linda Reynolds’s plan to meet quarterly with her French counterpart, Florence Parly, over the rest of this year, and I hope for coming years as well. A strategic relationship needs to be run at the topmost levels of government, not in a departmental project office.

Finally, I want to see some opportunities for lateral thinking created to explore our own and allied development of undersea drones, smart mines and other technology which will be the guts of future undersea warfare capability. In other words, the boat must have weapons. What’s the plan for those?

Overall, I think Plan A can be made to work.

Above all, let’s stay calm. There is no point panicking about the word ‘risk’.

Looking forward, I see nothing but more risk. We need to own that risk creatively and explain it better to our people.

‘Taking back the seas’: boosting the lethality of naval surface forces

The Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis recently released a thought-provoking assessment of the US Navy’s plan for its surface forces. Taking back the seas: transforming the US surface fleet for decision-centric warfare is an important contribution to the naval debate.

While it accepts many of the underlying principles of the US Navy’s force structure proposals, the study puts forward several major modifications, some of which may be relevant to allied navies seeking to transform in a fast-changing technological environment.

One initiative with which the CSBA study is in full agreement and which has relevance to other navies is the increase in the number of long-range strike and anti-ship weapons at sea. Surface navies need to become more lethal and less focused on their own defence. The US Navy therefore plans to increase both the number of surface platforms at sea and their collective lethality.

By distributing enough long-range weapons around as many platforms as possible, it seeks to complicate an adversary’s problem. The conundrum is that sufficient numbers of missiles cannot be sent to sea in cruisers, destroyers or frigates because all these ships are too expensive to be produced in sufficient quantities to overcome their individual physical constraints of weapon capacity. Alternative weapon carriers therefore have to be provided—and they must be cheap.

The US Navy proposes large unmanned surface vessels (LUSV), which are effectively floating missile batteries, built to the simplest possible standards, that can accompany—in the loosest possible sense—the major units which have the sensors, communications and battle management capabilities to deploy the weapons when and where required.

This increase in lethality at a potentially affordable price is one of the most interesting ideas in the US Navy’s entire concept of distributed maritime operations. But its reliance on unmanned units—rather than vessels which can be unmanned if necessary—effectively confines the use of the new type to high-intensity conflict only. Smaller navies certainly cannot afford such specialisation—and it is arguable that the US Navy can’t, either.

The most important suggestion of the CSBA study is to man the vessels while retaining the option to operate them unmanned, rather than the LUSV’s optional manning of a vessel fundamentally intended for unmanned operations. There are two key advantages to having what the authors call a corvette (DDC). First, in high-intensity conflict there are likely to be many situations in which the adaptability and flexibility of humans in the loop will still be important and perhaps critical. Second, as the study observes, there is more to force structure than combat.

Many tasks in situations short of war could effectively be fulfilled by such substantial vessels—at 2,000 tons, both the LUSV and DDC are bigger than the Royal Australian Navy’s new offshore patrol vessels. Furthermore, the DDCs would be much more cost effective and appropriate in many presence and maritime security tasks than major surface combatants. An Arleigh Burke–class guided-missile destroyer, for example, has never been a good fit for activities such as the Oceania Maritime Security Initiative, in which US Navy surface units host fishery-protection personnel in the Central and South Pacific.

Simple, multipurpose vessels which have the capacity to embark vertical launch tubes and the data links necessary to allow external initiation and guidance of the weapons onboard, but which are capable of deployment in many other scenarios, have obvious attractions for smaller navies like the RAN and the Royal Navy that are under pressure to expand. However, although the CSBA study argues for a reduction in the number of US Navy major surface combatants to allow a greater number of DDCs and an even larger fleet of smaller unmanned units, this option is not available to either the Australian or British services, which need all the higher capability hulls they are currently promised.

But it does offer a way of increasing offensive power in which less money need be found for additional platforms and more can be made available for missiles. The next generation of offshore patrol vessels could look very different to the Arafura class soon to enter service with the RAN, or the British River class.

Finally, the study’s judgement that nucleus manned platforms may be preferable to unmanned units confirms that we need to be careful not to become caught up with enthusiasm for autonomous vehicles for their own sake. For example, how does one prevent an unmanned unit from being seized by the enemy? It doesn’t take too much imagination to conceive of a special-forces-configured submarine deploying boarding parties in small craft to capture an unmanned unit—perhaps even with the intention of re-employment.

The great science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote a story in 1958 titled ‘The feeling of power’. In it, he postulated the rediscovery of arithmetic and mathematics at a time when humanity had surrendered calculation entirely to computers. As anyone can attest who has watched a teenager struggle with change at a cash register, this process is well underway—and arguably is accelerating with the onset of the cashless economy.

In Asimov’s story, in the midst of a major war an individual works out how to add, subtract, divide and multiply. This is immediately seized upon with the idea that manned systems would be cheaper and more effective alternatives to computerised units. Appalled at the weaponisation of his rediscovery, the hero of ‘The feeling of power’ kills himself. But the genie is out of the bottle.

The point is that artificial intelligence and remote control, even as they become ever more important, must be complementary to human decision-making, not its substitute. Cyber warfare only increases the need for intelligent human beings ‘in the loop’.

The compounding risk in Australia’s transition to new submarines

Two questions are frequently raised about the process that selected Australia’s preferred partner for the design and build of the future submarine.

The first is why the Defence Department didn’t pursue a ‘son of Collins’, that is, an evolution of the successful Collins design, with the questioner’s underlying assumption being that evolving an existing design should be cheaper and faster than starting an entirely new design. The second is why the Swedish shipbuilder Saab, which had acquired Kockums—the company that designed the Collins—wasn’t invited to participate in the competitive evaluation process (CEP), given that it (other than the Japanese) was the only entity with demonstrated experience in designing and building large conventional submarines.

It’s worth revisiting these questions because they’re relevant to the Collins life-of-type extension (LOTE) program, which is the key to Defence maintaining an effective submarine capability throughout the long transition to the Attack-class submarine.

The two questions are distinct but related. The Australian National Audit Office’s 2017 report on the CEP is silent on why Saab wasn’t offered the opportunity to participate in the competition. The report simply says that Defence determined that the three entities that were invited to participate (TKMS of Germany, the Japanese government, and the ultimately successful DCNS of France) were the only ones that met Defence’s requirement that the future submarine be ‘designed and built by a proven submarine designer with recent experience in designing and building diesel-electric submarines’. The report doesn’t assess whether that was an appropriate requirement or explain why Saab didn’t meet it.

But there was a more fulsome discussion at Senate estimates in February 2015, only two weeks after then Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the CEP, followed by Defence’s written response to the Senate’s questions on notice. On the first issue, Defence testified that a study into the possibility of evolving the Collins ‘demonstrated that the design effort involved would be similar to a new design’. Ultimately Defence concluded that an evolved Collins ‘would not provide a beneficial, nor a low cost and low risk solution for the Future Submarine’.

On the second question, Defence officials repeatedly argued (pages 109 and 129, for example) that while the French and Germans had not designed or built a large conventional submarine, they along with the Japanese had demonstrated continuous submarine design and build activity.

In contrast, the Swedes, despite previously designing and building submarines both large and small, hadn’t completed a full design and build program since 1996–97. Even though they were well into the design of their own A26 class, had been involved in the build of the Collins into the 2000s, had an extensive record of major upgrade activities (including inserting entirely new ‘plug’ sections into submarines), and employed over 3,000 naval and submarine engineers, that hiatus was judged to be an unacceptable risk.

Whether or not you’re convinced by Defence’s reasoning to exclude the Swedes (for me, it is one of Defence’s most bizarre capability decisions), its argument is clear—submarine design, even modifications to an existing design, is difficult, and deep expertise is needed to undertake it successfully. There are no easy wins in submarine design, and mistakes create major cost, schedule and capability risks.

Which brings us to the Collins LOTE. To recap, the Collins submarines were meant to be progressively withdrawn from service every two years from 2026. Since it’s been clear for some time that the future submarine wouldn’t enter operational service until the 2030s, again on a two-yearly cycle, some of the Collins fleet would need to undergo a LOTE to avoid a capability gap. In essence, the LOTE is the mitigation strategy to address the schedule risk in the future submarine program.

It’s also been clear that the LOTE would be based on an additional full-cycle docking, which means taking a Collins boat out of the water for two years of deep maintenance and upgrades so it can keep operating for the next 10 years. What hasn’t been clear is how many of the six Collins would need to undergo a LOTE and what its scope would be.

As the future submarine schedule has developed, with the first Attack-class boat now not expected to be operational until 2034, Defence’s Senate estimates testimony has moved from saying one to three LOTEs would be required to five. Theoretically, doing all six Collins could mitigate a further two-year slide in the program, but beyond that total submarine numbers could fall below six.

Defence has also started to reveal the scope of the LOTE—see here (page 31) and here (pages 17–22). In addition to all the usual maintenance and obsolescence management of a full-cycle docking, Defence wants to replace the Collins’ main motor, diesel generators, and electrical conversion and distribution system with new hardware made by the suppliers for the future submarine.

Interestingly, Defence has also said that these are three of the five most important systems on the future submarine. It is also looking at mast and sensor updates (for example, replacing periscopes with modern digital optronics masts) as well as combat system updates.

In short, the LOTE concept is starting to look a lot like a son of Collins—which Defence told the Senate in 2015 wasn’t worth the cost and risk involved. This poses serious questions about Defence’s risk-mitigation strategy for the submarine transition.

First, the Collins maintenance cycle is a finely tuned process. Between full-cycle, mid-cycle and intermediate dockings, two of the six boats are almost always out of the water in deep maintenance. If the amount of work required for the LOTE exceeds the two-year window for full-cycle dockings, Defence will have to choose between having more than two boats out of the water—with a consequent impact on the number of boats available—or deferring LOTEs and continuing to operate 30-plus-year-old boats with mounting obsolescence and reliability issues. Can all the regular maintenance plus replacement of three of the submarine’s five major systems fit in that two-year window?

Second, this potentially poses second-order and third-order effects on the submarine transition. For example, to train the much larger uniformed workforce needed to operate the larger and more numerous future submarines, Defence needs boats in the water. If submarine numbers or availability falls, submariner numbers won’t increase at the rate required to transition to the eventual 12 boat future fleet.

Third, who has the design expertise to replace three of the five major systems on the Collins? ASC, which maintains the boats, is the design authority for the Collins, and has started early design work on the LOTE. But it has never done anything like this, and—as the government’s shipbuilding program ramps up—ASC has been losing its engineering workforce.

Since the LOTE will use systems made by the future submarine’s suppliers, then presumably Naval Group, the future submarine’s designer, will need to be involved. Defence may also need to involve Saab, which inherited Kockums’ Collins design pedigree, but Saab could have its hands full should it win the submarine programs it is bidding for in Europe. And if Defence’s original assessment that getting the Swedes to evolve the Collins wasn’t worth the risk, how confident should we be that this is a safer approach?

It may be that the LOTE will ultimately be a straightforward affair despite Defence’s testimony that even small changes to submarine designs can have great consequences. And commonality of key systems between the Collins and the future submarine is probably a good thing.

But the prospect of Defence pursuing something like a son of Collins to mitigate the risks involved in designing and delivering a new submarine from scratch does give pause for thought.

Time for corvettes for the Royal Australian Navy

It’s time for the Royal Australian Navy to break out of a 20th-century force design mindset and embrace the robotic revolution at sea.

As part of the debate surrounding the Pacific 2019 and Sea Power conferences, I argued that even with the recapitalisation now underway, the navy would remain seriously undergunned to deal with possible scenarios emerging in our region.

The RAN’s future surface warfare plans are based on its three Hobart-class air warfare destroyers and nine Hunter-class frigates now being built. The first new frigate won’t appear until the end of this decade, and the eight Anzac-class frigates will serve in the interim. A feature of Australia’s naval mindset that carries over from the current to the next generation of warships is a lack of long-range anti-surface warfare capabilities. The Hobart class carries only eight subsonic, short-range Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and the frigate is similarly constrained in the number of anti-surface weapons it can carry.

The problem we face is too few missiles on too few (very complex and expensive) hulls.

A small, highly advanced fleet is fine as long as Australia isn’t challenged by a major power. Such vessels can play a role in coalition operations and support global deployments, as in the Middle East. If there’s no serious challenge in Australia’s backyard, a larger fleet isn’t necessary.

But we face a very different emerging reality. The rapidly growing PLA Navy is overtaking the US Navy in ship numbers, and is steadily eroding the US’s qualitative lead while expanding China’s ability to project power into our maritime approaches. China has reportedly negotiated access to Cambodia’s Ream naval base, and its de facto control of the South China Sea expands its ability to operate further south, notably with aircraft carriers in its South Sea Fleet.

A recent standoff between China and Indonesia over the Natuna Islands is a worrying sign that China won’t limit its maritime claims. China’s expanding presence in the Southwest Pacific is ringing alarm bells in Canberra because it raises the prospect of a future military staging post within striking distance of Australia’s east coast.

If Beijing increases that pressure, Australia should increase the size of its navy beyond the plan laid out in the 2016 integrated investment program. Rather than reducing the number of Hunter-class frigates to fund other platforms, we should develop a new, mid-level capability by acquiring larger numbers of advanced, but off-the-shelf, small surface combatants.

These would be fast, missile-armed corvette-type vessels, a good example of which is the Swedish Saab Visby class. Saab is already developing a next-generation design to follow the Visby. These smaller vessels could be acquired in large numbers relatively cheaply to significantly expand the fleet. They’d be optimised for offensive strike and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions—akin to ‘see, shoot and scoot’. They’d be stealthy and would ideally operate unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and strike tasks.

This new capability would allow distributed maritime operations for sea denial. We can’t do that with only 12 large ships. A report by the US Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments highlighted the value of larger numbers of small surface combatants—referred to as ‘optionally unmanned corvettes’ or DDCs—with a small crew and equipped primarily with offensive weapons. The US Navy is moving down this path and the RAN risks being left behind. Australia should remain responsive to changes in an emerging US Navy that could, in 10 years, look radically different.

It’s time for Australia to be bold and imaginative with fleet design and mitigate the risk that comes with a small boutique fleet which, while very capable, is limited by the number of hulls, and increasingly vulnerable in the face of China’s rapidly growing naval capability.

We should also embrace unmanned systems. The US is investigating the potential of unmanned surface vessels such as the Sea Hunter, and underwater vehicles such as Orca, and Australia should do likewise.

With the large fleet combatants such as the Hobart-class and Hunter-class vessels operating as part of a coalition task force or leading an ADF joint task force, it’s the robots that should go into harm’s way on, and under, the waves—and in the air too. A mix of manned and unmanned platforms exploiting our strategic geography to deny our seas to an enemy can be more difficult to defeat than a small number of large, high-end crewed vessels. Such an unmanned force can emphasise offence rather than fleet defence to protect a human crew.

Smaller naval vessels have less range than larger ships so must be based forward or replenished at sea. Use of the naval base at Manus Island and further development of Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean could be excellent starting points, and deployable tenders could enable ‘pop-up’ forward bases to support multiple DDCs and unmanned surface vessels.

We need to recognise the advantages of using distributed mass in warfare and exploiting our strategic geography. Our capability planning is based on the assumption that a knowledge edge will enable us to carry out precision strikes from a limited number of platforms. That can now be challenged by the rapid growth of anti-access/area-denial capabilities, as well as an enemy’s ability to attack key elements of our networked command structures and to project power at greater range.

If we continue to rely on a small, high-end force and don’t adapt to change, we’ll place ourselves at a disadvantage in a future war. As the saying goes, quantity has a quality all of its own.

Collins submarine maintenance: What’s best for the navy and its people?

The public debate about moving full-cycle dockings of the Collins-class submarines to Western Australia has been overwhelmingly political. The vital point has so far been ignored: industry is engaged to support the navy, not the other way around.

A navy that repairs and maintains its ships and submarines close to their operating bases (not half a continent away, as we do with the Collins) generates capability more reliably and cost-effectively. John Coles pointed that out in 2012, although he also noted Australia’s challenges.

The Royal Australian Navy was originally set up that way. Complex warships were built at Williamstown near Melbourne and Cockatoo Island in Sydney, or overseas. Repair and maintenance were generally carried out at Sydney’s Garden Island, the navy’s main fleet base. Submarine refits before the Collins were done at Cockatoo Island, close to the submarine base, which was in Sydney at the time. Simpler ships were built and repaired elsewhere.

The dockyards at Williamstown and Garden Island specialised in shipbuilding and refit, respectively. The two activities are quite different. There’s overlap in the trade skills required, but each task requires specialised management, design and engineering skills. This difference is as significant as that between the anaesthetist and surgeon in an operating theatre; they have much in common, but each is a specialist.

With the Collins submarines, a new company, shipyard and workforce were set up to build them. They turned to maintenance when the build program ended, by which time Cockatoo Island had been closed for over a decade. Early results were not so good, for many reasons.

One factor was that skills had been developed to build the submarines, not to maintain them. It took over a decade and the Coles review before an acceptable outcome was reliably achieved. When Australia started building the air warfare destroyers, after a break of almost 10 years, everybody had to relearn the craft, including Defence, which took time. The fact is, building ships and submarines requires different skills from repairing and maintaining them, even when you built them in the first place.

The current debate is mostly about the jobs for industry that Collins maintenance would provide in Western Australia or South Australia, rather than what would achieve the best outcome for the RAN. The tradespeople that industry has are vital, as are skilled and experienced professional managers, planners, designers and engineers.

What about the navy’s submariners? There are fewer than a thousand of them, with diverse specialist skills. The fact that the RAN must expand this workforce substantially for the new submarines is barely mentioned. But that makes debating the right question even more important.

As the Collins class entered service, the submarine base was moved from New South Wales to Western Australia, causing enormous disruption for the submariners. Being based so far away from most of the population made the capability recovery a long and difficult struggle. Relocating Collins full-cycle dockings to where the submarines are based, restoring one of the fundamentals for a successful capability outcome, is a logical step. It’s also timely, coming ahead of the commencement of the construction of the new submarines.

Other submarine repair and maintenance has been done in WA for a few years. While less complex than full-cycle dockings, this work is still vital, and building up the skilled tradespeople and specialist managers has steadily progressed. There is more to do, especially in providing the Collins engineering design capability needed in WA. This won’t be easy, as the existing specialists are in SA and probably won’t want to move westward, given the exciting new frigate and submarine work on offer in Adelaide.

Why should repair and maintenance be close to the navy’s home ports? RAN recruits are generally younger people who accept and often relish mobility when they sign up. But as they progress through life and acquire families, mortgages and the other trappings of normality, moving around the country becomes less attractive, just as it does for other Australians.

The navy must provide these people with more stability and more time at home with their families or risk losing them from the service. By this time of their lives, those looking to leave are generally the ones whose experience and deep specialist skills will take many years to replace. The RAN can least afford to lose these people.

If submarine maintenance is done in SA, the submariners who must be there are also separated from their families in WA—often for long periods and in significant numbers.

If it’s done in WA (that is, near the submarine base), the navy’s people can go home after their shifts like normal workers. They can also be more easily involved in the work in greater numbers, so more of them can learn the submarine’s complex systems more deeply.

The result is more highly skilled, experienced, knowledgeable and professionally satisfied submariners who will deliver better capability. Industry can perform better too, through closer interaction with the crews. Paradoxically perhaps, better-skilled navy people are also likely to stay in the navy longer. Experience shows that when they feel that their skills are falling behind those of their civilian counterparts, navy people fear for their long-term employment prospects and will leave earlier.

Concentrating the construction of complex new frigates and submarines in Adelaide will stress the local labour market. Keeping Collins maintenance there too would increase the risks for all of those activities and create a serious strategic vulnerability.

Co-locating all Collins maintenance in WA will best serve the RAN in the longer term.

Australia’s navy is undergunned for denying long-range attackers

The Royal Australian Navy has neglected long-range naval surface-warfare capability for too long.

Its new Hobart-class air warfare destroyers represent Australia’s most advanced naval combatant introduced into operational service, but their main anti-ship and land-attack missile, the RGM-84 Harpoon Block II, has a range of only 124 kilometres, is subsonic and has an explosive payload of just 272 kilograms.

It carries just eight missiles in two quad launchers, which can’t be reloaded at sea. The Hunter-class frigate, based on the BAE Systems Type 26 design, will have the same quad launchers, though navy fact sheets simply mention an ‘advanced anti-ship missile’.

In terms of surface warfare, the navy remains undergunned going into a more challenging future maritime battlespace.

The AWDs and the future frigates are both superb choices for the navy’s development. They epitomise the sharp cutting edge of sensor and combat-management technology. The Hunter class incorporates the world-leading Australian CEAFAR2 Radar, as well as the US Aegis combat system and a combat interface developed by Saab Australia.

The Hobart guided-missile destroyer’s primary role will be naval air defence, while the Hunter class will be an anti-submarine warfare frigate, but both are required to undertake the full spectrum of operations in the joint maritime environment, and that includes surface warfare.

The challenge for the RAN, and for many Western navies, is that surface-warfare capabilities have not responded quickly enough to rapid changes in long-range adversary strike capabilities which are now emphasising supersonic—and ultimately hypersonic—speeds and much greater range.

Instead, an emphasis on defensive responses to these threats is evident. Modern naval surface combatants are being equipped with more capable sensors and sophisticated missiles that are launched from vertical launch systems, such as the Standard Missile-2 and Evolved Sea Sparrow missile that will be equipping the Hunter-class frigates.

The result is an imbalance in naval capability, with fleets optimised to go somewhere and defend against attacks, but with little ability to offensively project force decisively to deny such attacks from happening—‘shooting the archer before he releases his arrow’. An emphasis on defence surrenders the tactical initiative and is riskier, especially when an adversary can launch large numbers of long-range, high-speed anti-ship missiles—both ballistic and cruise—beyond the tactical range of defensive missile systems.

As we confront a growing Chinese naval capability, together with development of its broader anti-access/area-denial systems, it’s important that the RAN places more emphasis on long-range naval surface warfare, delivered either from naval assets or from long-range air platforms.

Two options could be acquired quickly, via off-the-shelf sales, from the US, which is developing a long-range anti-ship missile. The LRASM’s air- and ship-launched variants are a logical successor to the Harpoon, boast stealth technology and can conduct autonomous targeting. That would offer commonality with the RAAF’s joint air-to-surface standoff missile and provide a considerable range boost over the Harpoon, at 560 kilometres.

The latest version of the Tomahawk land-attack missile, the Block IV, also has an anti-ship mode, and offers a range of 1,600 kilometres. Such a capability would mean the navy could strike at land targets as part of a coalition, similar to the employment of Royal Navy and US Navy forces in strikes against Syria. Acquisition of such long-range weapons would boost the ability of the RAN to burden-share in complex scenarios.

An LRASM capability would also have the advantage that it could be air-delivered from the F/A-18F Super Hornet. That would then fill the gap in the air-delivered naval strike weapon, which initially had been designed to be employed from the F-35A, but which is now to be acquired without a specific launch platform in mind.

Looking further out on the horizon, there are other possible alternatives. Greater dependence on long-range unmanned combat air vehicles could open up options for either land-based or sea-based naval air strike for the RAN. The US development of the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider bomber could see complementary long-range strike escort platforms that would support the B-21, which could include allied participation in the program.

Or Australia could look at the possibility of small surface combatants that can mount long-range strike weapons.

These would be corvette-sized, offer an interim level platform between the Arafura-class offshore patrol vessels and the Hobart-class and Hunter-class vessels, and would imply an expansion of the fleet beyond that planned for in the 2016 defence white paper. Such a move would contribute towards distributed architecture across more ships, rather than having all our eggs in a very few, very boutique platforms.

Navy recruiting for roles that don’t yet exist

The size of the Royal Australian Navy’s workforce must increase if the service is to maintain its rising operational tempo, says Vice Admiral Mike Noonan.

‘We’ve a navy heading towards 12 submarines, 12 surface combatants, 12 offshore patrol vessels’, the navy chief told The Strategist. ‘And if you accept the requirement for us to be conducting more sustained operations off the Australian station, achieving our future workforce milestones is going to be absolutely critical.’

Noonan says he’s considering very closely what the navy of the future will look like and a key factor will be the men and women who will run it. ‘I’ve got some work going on at the moment to review and analyse what further increases we might need to seek approval for into the future.

‘I expect that without growing, it’s going to be very difficult for us to maintain our current tempo and accept these future platforms.’

In a fast moving, high-tech world, the navy is planning now to recruit people who will be able to fill roles that don’t exist yet. ‘There are jobs in our future navy that are yet to be defined’, Noonan says. ‘As we bring capabilities to life in the coming years, we need to ensure that we’ve got the right people trained at the right time and in the right place to take delivery and ultimately bring those capabilities into service. So, we have a big focus on workforce.’

Noonan says he’s long believed that the navy doesn’t have enough people and that retention of current personnel is crucial to its future.

‘We have struggled over the last few years to do everything that we are asked to do with a workforce that has typically been about 1,000, 1,500 people understrength. The approved size of the navy has not been met.’

Some of the reduction in size of the naval workforce had been deliberate, as when it downsized at the end of the aircraft carrier era with the decommissioning of HMAS Melbourne. The manning of some vessels with civilian crews under the commercial support program also brought a reduction in the uniformed workforce. Personnel were also attracted away by other changing dynamics with opportunities elsewhere in the economy.

A lot of work is going into planning the workforce to crew, operate, test and support the fleet of 2035, the navy chief says. ‘We’ve been working on that over the last couple of years and I’m delighted to say that we’re starting to see some green shoots and some very positive progress around the size of our workforce.

‘We’ve currently got an authorised strength of around about 15,500 people to be in place by the mid-2030s and we’re on a pretty steady trajectory to achieving that.

‘My greatest challenge over the next couple years is to get the shape and the depth of it right.’

Noonan says he doesn’t see the navy’s operational tempo regionally, internationally or globally reducing anytime soon. ‘This new step-up in the Middle East is likely to require us to be involved in that new line of effort for some time. The step-up in the southwest Pacific is clearly an important but an emerging task that the government is clearly committed to.

‘And it’s important that we are present in Southeast and Northeast Asia.’

The workforce will be critical to all of that, says Noonan, and the navy is working hard on recruiting. This year, about 1,400 sailors joined, compared with 800 in recent years, and around 170 midshipmen started at the Royal Australian Naval College, HMAS Creswell.

Retention of personnel has been a very big focus over the past 12 months. ‘We’ve done quite a bit with respect to improving the conditions of service and workplace conditions for our people in a determined effort to see them stay longer. And I’m delighted to say that our current separation rate from navy at 7.8% is the lowest it’s been for a number of years. So, things are starting to turn the corner and I’m pretty optimistic about that.’

Noonan says he was often told in his first 12 months as navy chief that the service needed to provide better career management.

‘I’ve listened to that, and we are currently in the process of standing up a new category within navy for both our officers and sailors, which is absolutely focused on the professional HR function that is essential to our future workforce growth and retention. Becoming more aligned and more focused on truly managing that HR capability is crucial.’

The Attack-class submarine battery debate: science fiction or engineering?

In view of Derek Woolner’s warning last month that the Royal Australian Navy’s new Attack-class submarines will be obsolescent by the time they’re delivered, it’s time to revisit the main storage battery question—including what we’re trying to achieve, the implications for submarine design and build programs, the state of the art, and what is actually being delivered.

For any submarine, safety is paramount. We want our submariners to come home safely from their patrols. Life is dangerous enough under the sea without adding to the risk.

A fire in a dived submarine can turn it very quickly into a tomb. Any proposed new type of battery must be able to pass a rigorous safety case to ensure that the risks are thoroughly and reliably mitigated. That will be difficult for a chemistry like lithium-ion, which contains its own oxidant and has a development history of unquenchable fires (for example, the US Navy Advanced SEAL Delivery System, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, mobile phones and laptops and, more recently, the Russian Losharik disaster).

Derek Woolner and David Glynne Jones build a case for light-metal batteries in their three-part Strategist series titled ‘Future-proofing the Attack class’ (‘Part 1: propulsion and endurance’, ‘Part 2: performance and capacity’ and ‘Part 3: regional superiority’).

There are fundamental flaws in their argument. In part 3, for example, they assume that the technology for utility storage systems is directly transferable to submarine propulsion systems. They’ve also failed to understand the nature of submarine design and the impact of the battery.

The size, type and design of a submarine battery must be matched to mission requirements. Utility storage facilities are generally spread out over a large area and are isolated from neighbours. The South Australian Hornsdale Power Reserve—the Tesla battery—covers almost 10,000 square metres, nearly the size of a football field. And unlike a deep-cycle submarine battery, the Hornsdale Power Reserve is designed not to provide baseload power for long periods but to kick in quickly to stabilise the power grid for a period measured in minutes, not days—a vastly different mission requirement. Utility storage systems have very different weight and volume requirements and safety regimes than a submarine.

There’s also an immense difference between the conditions for relatively close and short submarine patrols of a few weeks (generally European and Asian submarines) and the conditions for Australian long and distant patrols. ‘Long and distant’ entails a punishing regime of continuous deep cycling of the batteries dived at sea, while remaining safe and reliable for nearly three months. For ‘close and short’ patrols over a two-week period, with little or no transit to the patrol area, a submarine with air-independent propulsion (AIP) could spend the time at low speed without using its engines to recharge its batteries.

Woolner and Jones admit that the patrols of Australian submarines require a much bigger battery and generating power and, if chosen, a much larger AIP section than closer and shorter patrols. But it’s not simple to make everything bigger or replace lead–acid with a new chemistry.

As I wrote in 2016, replacing the lead–acid battery with a lithium-ion battery (or any light-metal battery) will require a completely new submarine design. Woolner and Jones argue that a new design should be started now for a battery that exists only in a laboratory. That’s impossible and would compound risk upon risk.

A main storage battery type and its size must be factored in at the start of the design phase because it will affect nearly every other system (over 70 for the Collins class). It will affect the weight, stability and trim (through location) of the boat; the size of the high-power cabling (and not forgetting bend radius); the electrical protection system; and the number of generators. It will also affect the electrical distribution network, the magnetic signature, the shock resistance, the main propulsion motor, the ancillary equipment, and even the air-independent propulsion system if one is included.

Nearly all proponents of lithium-ion or light-metal batteries concentrate on the high energy per kilogram characteristic. This is good for mobile phones, laptops, ground vehicles and aircraft. But this advantage of lithium or another light metal is also a vulnerability.

Due to the very high short-circuit currents and fast rise times, a lithium battery will need fire-hardened boundaries and advanced electrical protection systems. Each of the thousands of 500-amp-hour modules will need to contain safety-critical software-driven electronics to control voltages and currents within strict limits. At some stage during the life of the class, we could expect some failures. That would not make a good safety case for a submarine.

As a final shot, Woolner and Jones suggest that an advanced light metal–air battery would replace the original lead–acid battery, diesel fuel and engines together in one package by the mid-2040s, enabling a submarine to complete a full patrol on a single charge. I have run the numbers to check whether this is likely to be possible, for a generic 3,000-tonne conventional submarine performing an Australian submarine mission profile (see the online appendix to this post for details). My conclusion is that it is not.

A lithium-air battery (a new type of battery using oxidation and reduction of lithium to induce a current flow) would require some 4,000 tonnes of air (or maybe 800 tonnes of liquid oxygen) instead of the original batteries, fuel and diesels. That wouldn’t make sense unless it replaced an AIP plug. Significant development challenges yet to be overcome include chemical stability, capacity reduction and internal short-circuiting. The difficult development path and dependence on oxygen render lithium-air impracticable for a submarine design at present.

The Woolner–Jones predictions to the 2060s are theoretical performance projections from laboratory testing. The prediction is weight-based, and our submarines are volume-based, so to replace lead–acid the curve will be far less advantageous in practice.

From a submarine design perspective, I can only conclude that the suggestions are neither sensible nor practicable.

There’s no doubt that we need better submarine battery performance, which is the real focus of the Woolner–Jones proposal. What improvements do we want and how might we achieve them if that proposal is not the answer?

Reducing the battery charging (and therefore indiscretion) time for an Australian submarine is imperative. Their long transits require more engine time than for shorter range patrols. Submarines with little or no transit to the patrol area, and fitted with AIP, could run an entire two-week patrol at low speed without using a diesel engine to recharge their batteries.

We certainly need greater dived endurance, as Peter Briggs has written, including at higher speeds. This means we need longer time between charges, so beefing up battery capacity is the aim. Lead–acid batteries also lose capacity with each discharge–charge cycle, limiting the available energy to less than half the theoretical energy. It takes many hours to fully charge a lead–acid battery at reducing rates of power, to get that final 20% of battery capacity. Minimising that limitation would be very beneficial.

Lead–acid batteries require routine and lengthy ‘gassing charges’ followed by a top-up of each cell and then cleaning. A battery requiring little or no maintenance would mean more submarine availability.

Understanding what we want and what might be possible sets us on the right path to improved performance. It’s important to understand that the ‘state of the art’ in technology often differs markedly from the ‘state of the market’—what shipbuilders are actually delivering.

While underwater endurance may not necessarily be as good as that provided by AIP, Japan has begun replacing Stirling engine systems with lithium battery systems for its shorter patrols and has launched at least one such submarine. Japan has concentrated on battery chemistry, case hardening and software-critical battery management systems for safety management.

I remain unconvinced that this is the solution for Australia with its requirements for long transits and distant patrols and its stringent safety regimes.

Sweden continues to deliver new submarines with lead–acid batteries, although it is reviewing lithium chemistries. It’s also about to start testing a fifth-generation 150-kilowatt Stirling AIP module in the same footprint as the fourth-generation 75-kilowatt module.

I’ve seen no evidence that European builders have delivered a submarine with lithium batteries at sea. There are promises in advertising, but shipbuilders will want customers to pay for a risky development program.

Interestingly, the UK Ministry of Defence has awarded a contract to develop a new chemistry battery to replace the existing lead–acid emergency backup batteries in the Royal Navy’s Astute class. It’s chosen not to use lithium-ion but rather nickel-zinc due to its substantially safer chemistry and high energy density.

The continuing development of lithium (and light-metal) batteries is driven by commercial interests in mobile devices, ground transport and utility storage. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there is no big profit in submarine batteries, which are a small drop in the ocean of global demand compared with transport and utilities. And batteries for transport and utilities are not the same as for submarines.

So how do we upgrade a submarine to take advantage of commercially driven technology advances?

First, by improving capability in manageable stages—for example, using ‘drop-in’ replacement batteries, like the upgrade from 7,420-Ah to 8,400-Ah batteries we did in the Oberon submarines.  The advantage of such a drop-in is that it could be tested on the Collins. Another way might be to lengthen the hull by adding a new section with extra capacity (like the Japanese or Swedish submarines). That, too, could be tested with a hull extension on the Collins. But for the Attack class, the extra length would make our submarine larger than its nuclear-propelled parent. We would be better to take the nuclear version!

Alternatively, there’s the full redesign. This is a big-bang approach with very high risks and costs and a long program schedule. It’s what Woolner and Jones appear to be suggesting, using a type of battery still being developed in a laboratory.

The changes they urge are radical with multiple parallel high-risk development activities. What is proposed is a no-win position for government—to choose an obsolete design now or to start a new design for the 2040s with theoretical projections from early laboratory testing.

However, Woolner is right to argue that there’s still a compelling need to improve submarine energy storage. The trick, though, is to plan properly for a transition to advanced batteries that are intrinsically safe, and that do not rely on complex safety-critical software-driven battery management systems.

Such batteries should be delivered as drop-in replacements and be tested at sea on the Collins.

Nickel-zinc may be a better option and should be the subject of an engineering development program such as the UK is undertaking.

In for the long haul (part 1): good news and bad news about the frigate transition

Moving from the Collins-class submarines to the Attack class is not the only long and complex capability transition that the Royal Australian Navy is embarking upon. The journey from the current Anzac-class frigates to the future Hunter class also presents a set of challenges.

Since the Australian National Audit Office’s recent report on Anzac-class sustainment has provided some solid information about some key parameters in the frigate transition, it’s timely to examine the broad risks that the government and Defence will need to address to transition without a capability gap.

Overall, the frigate transition should not be a risky as the submarine transition. There are key differences.

The number of frigates is only increasing from eight to nine, which shouldn’t be as demanding as doubling the submarine fleet from six to 12 boats.

The increase in individual frigate tonnage from 3,900 tonnes to over 8,000 will be a step change in capability, but at least the crew size will be comparable.

Larger wharves will be needed, and things will no doubt get tight at Garden Island in Sydney as the navy doubles in tonnage overall. But the future frigate basing arrangements will most likely be similar to the current situation, with the class split between fleet bases east and west, so at least there won’t be the challenge of establishing a new base from scratch as there likely will be with the future submarine.

The design of the Hunter class appears to be more mature than the design of the Attack class: construction of the UK’s Type 26, from which the Hunter class is derived, has already started. That said, there are still challenging design and integration issues to address, since the Hunter class will have a different combat management system (Aegis with a Saab interface), radar (CEA Technology’s CEAFAR), weapons (the US suite of the Evolved Sea Sparrow and SM-2 missiles) and helicopter (the MH-60R Seahawk ‘Romeo’) than its British sibling. And the Australian design will need to be adapted to a very different operating environment.

Expertise in ship sustainment is not in as short supply as expertise in submarine sustainment, and Anzac deep maintenance is already safely quarantined in Western Australia away from the massive competing demand for the construction workforce in South Australia.

Defence and its build partners, BAE Systems and ASC, have got off to a flying start. They negotiated a head contract in well under a year, suggesting that Defence has a much better relationship with them than it has with Naval Group in the future submarine program (or at least closer cultural and philosophical alignment). The head contract for that program took nearly three years to sign.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that, like the Collins, the Anzacs will have to keep going for a long time. The ANAO’s report states that last year the government agreed to extend the ships’ service lives. The first Anzac was originally meant to retire in 2024–25 and the last in 2032–33. Those dates are now 2029–30 and 2042–43.

The new dates make sense if the transition plan is to retire an Anzac whenever a Hunter enters service. If the first Hunter enters service in around 2029–30 (which is consistent with Defence’s Senate estimates testimony), then on the planned two-year production drumbeat, number 8 arrives around 14 years later. What that means, assuming the Anzacs are retired in the order they were commissioned, is that the life of the first, HMAS Anzac, will be extended five years, from 29 years to 34 years. Because the Anzacs were delivered on roughly an 18-month drumbeat, the later ships will need to be extended even longer since the Hunters are being delivered more slowly. The last of the class, HMAS Perth, will need to be extended by 10 years, from 26 to 36 years.

In short, the Anzac class will be in service for another 24 years. So just as we observed that some of the Collins aren’t even halfway through their service lives, the ANAO noted that, ‘The ANZAC class is half way through its original service life-of-type’ (page 7).

The ANAO also observed that the government agreed to the service life extension before Defence had developed a transition plan identifying and addressing the risks in that transition. That plan isn’t due for completion until late this year. The Collins don’t yet appear to have a transition plan, but at least Defence conducted studies of service life extension earlier this decade to understand whether the Collins’ systems could be extended. It’s not clear whether this has been done with the Anzac class. As the ANAO drily noted, ‘Undertaking the transition study after the decision to extend has been made is not without risk’ (page 32).

Of course, when it is locked into the tyranny of a two-year shipbuilding drumbeat, what other option did the government have than to agree to the extension and trust that Defence and its industry partners would find a way to get the Anzacs through?

So, what are the risks that Defence and industry will need to address to get the Anzacs through and avoid a capability shortfall or gap? I’ll examine those in the next parts of this series.

We can’t risk a strategic sham on Manus

Much has been written recently about the decision to redevelop the naval base at Lombrum on Manus Island. Initially it was to be a joint Australia–PNG facility, but American vice president Mike Pence has announced that the US will partner with Australia and PNG on the redevelopment project.

Anthony Bergin started ASPI’s commentary ball rolling. He stressed the value of Australia working with PNG to develop port facilities on Manus, and noted that the site’s strategic location could enable us to monitor a large part of the Pacific and control access to Australia through the archipelagic arc to our north and northeast.

James Goldrick provided a useful history of the naval facility on Manus. While strategic circumstances today are different from those of earlier times, the basic geostrategic potential of Manus hasn’t changed. It is well positioned to be not only an advanced base for the defence of PNG and Australia, but also a springboard into the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Peter Jennings in a recent post highlighted the higher level strategic potential of the base for countering Chinese influence in the Pacific. This he saw as a more valuable contribution than just supporting the fisheries surveillance and other policing tasks run out of Lombrum in the past.

Importantly, he identified Momote Airport on Manus as a critical part of the strategic equation. Momote will be an essential element of the joint facility at Manus. Its ability to support long-range maritime surveillance and air patrols will likely be a major part of American interest in Manus.

These posts have all made good points about Manus, but some key issues have been overlooked.

First, there’s the importance of involving the local Manus islanders. Australia’s refugee centre was essentially dumped on them, and although they later benefited from it with jobs and development, there was still resistance to it, particularly when the refugees were released into the community. The closure of the facility has now created an employment and economic vacuum that the redeveloped naval base will help to fill.

It’s extremely important that the Manus community be consulted fully during the development process. As Charlie Benjamin, governor of Manus Province, said, ‘On behalf of the people and government of Manus, I say Manus will not be used again by the governments of PNG and Australia to further pursue the interest of Australia without first engaging meaningfully with the people and government of Manus.’ A former MP for Manus, Ronnie Knight, expressed concerns that so far there has been no discussion with any locals, and there were risks that the base deal could replicate the same governance issues that arose during the development and operation of the Manus Island detention centre.

In the days when the Lombrum base was HMAS Tarangau, a commissioned RAN shore establishment, it enjoyed excellent relations with local people. The naval hospital was the best medical facility in the Admiralty Islands and local villages were contracted to supply the base with fresh fruit and vegetables. An insight into life at Tarangau is available on recently released naval history podcasts covering the RAN in PNG prior to independence.

Second, the most fundamental requirement is a refuelling facility. The oil fuel installation at Tarangau was a major strategic asset for the Royal Australian Navy. It was used regularly by RAN ships deploying from Sydney to Southeast Asia, which was particularly important during Confrontation (or Konfrontasi), when vessels weren’t able to conveniently go through the Indonesian archipelago.

The situation is no different today. The most vital role of the joint base will be to provide fuel for ships transiting through the area or operating out of the base, but the former RAN facility no longer exists. The PNG patrol boats based at Lombrum can’t fuel there and have to go elsewhere, usually to either Madang or Rabaul, to refuel before heading out on patrol. Air operations out of Momote will also require a substantial refuelling facility to be built.

Third, we need an accurate appreciation of the strategic location of Manus. Some of the commentary has been wide of the mark, with overambitious assessments linking the island’s strategic value to the situation in the South China Sea, or even to policing the Sulu and Celebes seas.

Lombrum is too far from these areas to have any worthwhile effect, and besides the Americans already have their extensive facilities on Guam closer to these ‘hot spots’. Its real strategic value will lie in its forward position to monitor and control air and sea activities in the archipelagic approaches to Australia and the wide sweep of the Pacific from across Micronesia to Kiribati, Nauru and Solomon Islands.

Finally, and most importantly, there’s the issue of cost. The facilities at Lombrum have deteriorated over many years due to inadequate maintenance and funding. The base is remote, nearly 500 nautical miles by air from Port Moresby and almost 1,000 nautical miles by sea. Construction of new facilities will be enormously expensive, as will be ongoing support and maintenance. The $5 million already allocated to upgrade the Lombrum wharf to receive the Guardian-class patrol boats will cover only a basic refurbishment. Ideally, the joint base will also require a wharf, as it had in the past, for warships of destroyer size.

An oil fuel installation is essential, and accommodation, medical and recreational facilities will also be required. The extensive housing and other amenities built at Lombrum for RAN personnel in the 1960s and ’70s have mostly fallen into disrepair and will require refurbishment or replacement. American and Australian staffing of the base should not be on a ‘fly in, fly out’ basis. Personnel will need to reside there, which will help ensure better engagement with the local community.

Chinese contractors are already upgrading Momote airfield at a cost of $30 million in a project funded by the Asian Development Bank. It will require further work to accommodate American and Australian surveillance and fighter aircraft, as well as a large fuel installation and other support facilities.

Cash-strapped PNG won’t be able to contribute to the costs of the joint facilities on Manus. However, constructive involvement with the local community could provide in-kind contributions and cost savings.

A Lombrum base potentially has useful strategic purposes, but it will be important that all joint partners fully commit to its development. A half-baked base, lacking essential facilities, will be no base at all. It would only be seen as a strategic sham.