Dealing with SME can be very frustrating, as some of the so called "experts" may be "book experts" with no operational experience at all.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0
- Thread starter OPSSG
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You get hats and patches? I'm lucky if there is a polo shirt I can buy.
That is the attitude many PMs and operators have, but a Subject Matter Expert should be and usually is an expert. One of the funniest things I have witnessed is an operator calling out a presenter, telling him he was wrong, after the presenter specifically warned at the start of the presentation that someone, usually an experienced operator, would interrupt him and tell him he was wrong. He then went on to ask the operator a series of specific questions that resulted in the operator changing his mind.
Basically, it fell into the category of "this is the way it has always been done" without any thought of why it was done. It turned out it hadn't always been done that way, and the reason it was done was as a temporary containment measure that was no longer required, but because the reason behind it had been forgotten, no one thought to stop.
This is the sort of thing we are up against in defence; many operators, although great at their jobs, are not experts in the technology and processes behind the tech, and do not understand why they do what they do. If it's good practice, great, if it's not, it's a waste of effort, inefficient and potentially dangerous.
Been in court dealing with SMEs and to be honest, you can pick the SME that best suits your needs, not necessarily getting to the truth, it has always worked in my favour, however, their arguments can be so stupid it shows their lack of experience in the real world.
The navy personnel in the Virginia SSN pipeline will not be coming back to the Collins Class. There is quite a few that have transfered from army and airforce. With straight off the street recruitment for the SSN program starting next year. The Australian submariners will have the next 3 years at sea with a follow up shore posting and another sea posting.
iambuzzard
Well-Known Member
So it's going to happen, despite the naysayers.
The results of the US AUKUS review have been made public and the seem to agree with you accept for one caveat. That condition being that the US will need to lift submarine production. Australia seems to be mostly living up to its side of the agreement.
To improve the chances of the production rate lifting Australia may have to do more. I am thinking submarine maintainence. The more of this we do in Australia the more the US workforce is freed up to concentrate on construction.
iambuzzard
Well-Known Member
We have also tipped in a considerable amount of money to speed up that production already.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Not sure that Australia taking on more sub maintenance would really improve US sub production. AFAIK the facilities the USN uses for sub maintenance are separate and distinct from the facilities used for sub construction. The Virginia-class SSN for instance is built by both Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport VA, as well as General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton CT. However, whilst some sub maintenance is also done in Groton CT, AFAIK that takes place at the Naval Submarine Base New London, which is ~5 km upriver from Electric Boat. Basically the USN has naval yards or naval bases doing the sub maintenance, with the yards doing construction being owned and run by US defence industries, and they are not even co-located.
iambuzzard
Well-Known Member
Any more scuttle butt on the NZ Navy interest in tagging onto our Evolved Mogami program?
Aardvark144
Active Member
If we undertake more maintenance could the workforce be more concentrated on construction?
The much less discussed aspect of AUKUS is that Australian industry will assist to reduce the production bottlenecks?
And Australia performing SSN maintenance will significantly reduce the backlog which keeps more boats a sea offsetting the impact of SSN transfers to the RAN?
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
The facilities and workforce involved in US maintenance is separate, distinct, and not co-located with the US facilities and workforces involved in construction. AFAIK there is only one municipality in the US which has both submarine construction and maintenance, and as I mentioned already, they are at two different places in Groton some 5 km apart. Yes, the US could theoretically close the maintenance portions of the New London sub base, but that workforce is completely different from EB's workforce.
To perhaps give an Australianized example, it would be similar to shutting down maintenance facilities and activities at FBE/Garden Island or FBW, so that Australia could concentrate on the workforce at Osborne, or perhaps the workforce to be raised in Henderson to start building the Mogami-class frigates.
In the case of some of the US maintenance facilities, they are potentially thousands of miles from the nearest US yard which builds subs (Pearl Harbor and Puget Sound coming to mind immediately as examples). It is possible that personnel that support the Norfolk Naval Shipyard (a USN facility) could work at Newport News Shipbuilding which is ~22 km away, but the workforces and facilities as they currently stand have different capabilities and functions. and I tend to doubt that the maintenance facilities could quickly and easily be reconfigured to build complete subs, if they could even do it at all.
As for the ability of Australian industry to help reduce production bottlenecks, I honestly have no idea. Not sure where the production bottlenecks are, or what would be needed to overcome them,
If Australia can get some/more of the maintenance covered, that should help the USN maintain the number of SSN's in service, as well as possibly cutting down transit times for deployed subs to/from a maintenance facility to far flung patrol areas. That could reduce some of the pressure on getting new/replacement boats commissioned into the USN, which could make it easier for the US to arrange SSN's for the RAN, but there still an awful many moving parts involved which could impact where and how everything goes.
I'm thinking that's the benefit. The Americans will focus on available platforms at sea rather than the number of boats they own. It doesn't matter if boats at sea is obtained through extra new hulls or quicker maintenance.
The current USN SSN maintenance backlog is poor, with boats regularly tied up waiting for a maintenance berth, and others tied up waiting for parts. I'm sure we could assist here.
I don't think it is unreasonable that the FBW/Henderson future capability could result in an additional 1-2 boats at sea for the USN. There are in the order of about 12-16 Virginias operating out of Hawaii, Guam and Japan, all of which could use the FBW facility as required.
Australia is starting to feed into the parts supply chain as well. A few weeks ago I saw that HI Fraser was certified for SSNs. They make high end safety critical, medical and aircon air and gas systems. I imagine the supply depth will progressively grow over the next few years.
U.S Marine Corps Selects Design for New LSM Landing Ships - Naval News
Lo and behold, the US has selected the Damen LST100 for their landing ship. Austal will love that outcome. They want 35 of them.
Shock horror. I wonder how much they will ruin it by Americanising and Navseaing it.
As a late edit, the Americans apparently want to start building in 2026 with the first in service in 2029. NAVSEA has promised not to meddle with the specification. Maybe they will have them before us.
Lo and behold, the US has selected the Damen LST100 for their landing ship. Austal will love that outcome. They want 35 of them.
Shock horror. I wonder how much they will ruin it by Americanising and Navseaing it.
As a late edit, the Americans apparently want to start building in 2026 with the first in service in 2029. NAVSEA has promised not to meddle with the specification. Maybe they will have them before us.
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devo99
Well-Known Member
Would you say NAVSEA's standards are unnecessarily high? There are many who would point to semi-recent cases of USN ships surviving major damage to suggest the opposite.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
I suspect it is a matter of perspective. The USN philosophy towards damage control is somewhat different from many other navies, likely with additional requirements in a vessel's design as well as construction and increasing the overall crew size due to having dedicated damage control crewmembers. OTOH the last combat loss of a USN vessel, despite there being multiple instances of USN ships getting damaged due to hostile actions, dates back to either the Korean War or WWII.
That to me makes it look like the USN has accepted the trade offs of potentially more design and build work required, as well as more crew, in order to boost the survivability of a vessel.
In terms of considering the DC philosophy, it might be worth trying to determine how well a RAN Adelaide-class FFG and crew would have handled incidents comparable to the Exocet AShM strike upon the USS Stark, or the sea mine detonation that damaged the USS Samuel B. Roberts, both being examples of Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates.
I think the NAVSEA standards are very good. Ships built to them are very tough. I think the Arleigh Burkes are the pinnacle of this program. That said it comes with tradeoffs such as large crews and high price tags. I also think trying to retrofit it to another alternative design is difficult (case in point the Constellation).
Having served in European designed ships and USN designed ships, I also don't think other standards are deficient. ANZACs were well built to cope with damage.
I remember HMS Nottingham that ran itself onto Lord Howe's rocks in 2002. The underwater damage was extensive and the flooding was near catastrophic. However the ship was able to survive and refloat.
I have a view that the USN could have accepted the FREMM baseline hull, propulsion, electrical and DC design for the Constellation without too much of a problem and without too much of a loss of capability. Sheer stubbornness and inflexibility meant that they didn't. And the end result was they got nothing.
I think NAVSEA is incompatible with small crew ships, and concepts like the Mogami are not possible under that framework. I believe in the age of crew shortages this will become a major problem for the Americans.
In regards to the USN landing craft, their first attempt at this was effectively a NAVSEA designed platform. They were forced to cancel this program due to unsustainable costs. The second attempt has resulted in the Damen LST100. I would consider the Americans total nutcases if they subsequently chose to modify the Damen design to align with NAVSEA. My consideration is that it is good enough, and good enough is far better than nothing.
About the only thing that I align with Hegseth on is his crusade against exquisit platforms and his move to simple designs that can be mass produced.
There is nothing wrong with NAVSEA standards. Like Sammy I’ve served in ships designed and built in the US and in those designed in the UK, and I’ve been involved in building ships designed in the US, Spain and Germany. In Australian service there is little to choose between them. They do have differences in the way they approach things, including DC. However, the RAN has had to adapt, and has adapted, to those to variations a number of times since we acquired the CFAs in the mid 69s. Where I think the USN has a problem in this area is that it has difficulty seeing equivalences and adapting to them. Given their size that is possibly understandable but they will not be able to take up a foreign design and use it unmodified unless they do find a way to work with different approaches - and that may be a bridge too far.
How would an RAN FFG ship’s company have dealt with a Stark situation? At least as well. While we don’t have people who specialise only in DC as the USN does, everybody is trained and practised in DC, and the Dusties who, with the XO, have the lead, are usually very, very good at it.
How would an RAN FFG ship’s company have dealt with a Stark situation? At least as well. While we don’t have people who specialise only in DC as the USN does, everybody is trained and practised in DC, and the Dusties who, with the XO, have the lead, are usually very, very good at it.