New Depths in Australia-US Relations: The Collins Class Submarine Project
- Thread starter Francois
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As you know F, I was part of that project.
Although there are some statements of fact in the paper - I do believe that she's actually missed the vital early internal problems which impacted upon and actually were fundamental in turning it into a political football.
Without wanting to appear unkind - it's a pure academic treatise which has some significant holes as far as factual presentation.
The other thing is that it leaves out (and I suspect that she was compartmentalised from the info) the critical tech transfer (acoustic management and Mk/Block 7 ADCAP) thats currently in place. ie its an issue of reciprocity which Govt and RAN was keen to maximise so that it wouldn't be seen as a one sided cavalry assist.
It also leaves out the small but not insignificant detail that the reason why the project was costed in its initial model was based on the grief that the USN had suffered with their own builds. ie even though they had basically transited to a declared cost plus profit model - they fixed the price into an unsupportable model. That was a political decision that was soley the province of Govt accountants and had little bearing on how fluid the pricing was going to be - especially when the combat systems were being developed initially on what was 386 architecture - and we were already cutting software geared for RISC 960's and Intel 486's.
There are also the issues of the quality of the Prescott Report - which if anyine has read is an exercise in cobbling together disparate summaries from various researchers and ghosted as a single source report. JFK looks like a Pulitzer Prize winner in comparison.
As an addit - I've had some persistent discussions in the past with diff people from EB/NG about them wanting to build conventionals - and wanting to build blue water subs based on Collins. At one stage a country that will remain un-named tried a backdoor approach to get a Collins clone rather than the Barbels being offered. That was also through a US intermediary and was around about the time that we offered the USN and RN access to our sig management technology. The USN wasn't too keen on seeing us sell that to anyone outside "the club".
Its a good students paper - its not a good historical document.
(there are a number of errors in this doc as well, so I'm assuming that it wasn't the final draft)
just as a further aside, the consultant mentioned in the combat system assessment is someone who is involved with the sig management system that provided to the USN. He's also an ex Ewarfare specialist - and the bloke who owns the company that developed the tech is an ex nuke driver. This is also the same system that the Swedes contracted us for to fix the NVH probs on Visby. In a twist of irony, we're selling the acoustic management solutions to the swedes to fix a boat that they brag is acoustically quiet. The irony of it all.
Also - if you note the references to the perceived probs with the Mk48 ADCAP - you'll note soon after that DSTO/RAN/USN/NAVSEA joined up to develop the Mk/Blk7 to address the probs with Australian sourced performance data.
Although there are some statements of fact in the paper - I do believe that she's actually missed the vital early internal problems which impacted upon and actually were fundamental in turning it into a political football.
Without wanting to appear unkind - it's a pure academic treatise which has some significant holes as far as factual presentation.
The other thing is that it leaves out (and I suspect that she was compartmentalised from the info) the critical tech transfer (acoustic management and Mk/Block 7 ADCAP) thats currently in place. ie its an issue of reciprocity which Govt and RAN was keen to maximise so that it wouldn't be seen as a one sided cavalry assist.
It also leaves out the small but not insignificant detail that the reason why the project was costed in its initial model was based on the grief that the USN had suffered with their own builds. ie even though they had basically transited to a declared cost plus profit model - they fixed the price into an unsupportable model. That was a political decision that was soley the province of Govt accountants and had little bearing on how fluid the pricing was going to be - especially when the combat systems were being developed initially on what was 386 architecture - and we were already cutting software geared for RISC 960's and Intel 486's.
There are also the issues of the quality of the Prescott Report - which if anyine has read is an exercise in cobbling together disparate summaries from various researchers and ghosted as a single source report. JFK looks like a Pulitzer Prize winner in comparison.
As an addit - I've had some persistent discussions in the past with diff people from EB/NG about them wanting to build conventionals - and wanting to build blue water subs based on Collins. At one stage a country that will remain un-named tried a backdoor approach to get a Collins clone rather than the Barbels being offered. That was also through a US intermediary and was around about the time that we offered the USN and RN access to our sig management technology. The USN wasn't too keen on seeing us sell that to anyone outside "the club".
Its a good students paper - its not a good historical document.
(there are a number of errors in this doc as well, so I'm assuming that it wasn't the final draft)
just as a further aside, the consultant mentioned in the combat system assessment is someone who is involved with the sig management system that provided to the USN. He's also an ex Ewarfare specialist - and the bloke who owns the company that developed the tech is an ex nuke driver. This is also the same system that the Swedes contracted us for to fix the NVH probs on Visby. In a twist of irony, we're selling the acoustic management solutions to the swedes to fix a boat that they brag is acoustically quiet.
The irony of it all.Also - if you note the references to the perceived probs with the Mk48 ADCAP - you'll note soon after that DSTO/RAN/USN/NAVSEA joined up to develop the Mk/Blk7 to address the probs with Australian sourced performance data.
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- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #3
Well, gf, you know me better then that.
And you know how I am involved in that world.
Actually, this paper, even having many blanks and sounding quite biased, needed me to bring it to light to understand two or three things.
It indeed describes the prescot report as a biased document, and even more was the way it was publicised!
The way STN was thrown away although having a far supperior proposal (I am not talking even of other contenders) both on torps and Comabt Sys for political reasons are pretty well described herein.
Was more then the Collins and the program at stake. 5B$ the six boats, they better be good... they may have been better for less.
But again, political missed up the program, as did the choice for the fighter in Skorea (which are far from happy of their -15Ks nowadays!
If the mil had the last world, we would know it, uh?
This sub is one area where I can't speak freely as you know...
And you know how I am involved in that world.
Actually, this paper, even having many blanks and sounding quite biased, needed me to bring it to light to understand two or three things.
It indeed describes the prescot report as a biased document, and even more was the way it was publicised!
The way STN was thrown away although having a far supperior proposal (I am not talking even of other contenders) both on torps and Comabt Sys for political reasons are pretty well described herein.
Was more then the Collins and the program at stake. 5B$ the six boats, they better be good... they may have been better for less.
But again, political missed up the program, as did the choice for the fighter in Skorea (which are far from happy of their -15Ks nowadays!
If the mil had the last world, we would know it, uh?
This sub is one area where I can't speak freely as you know...
It would have been interesting if we'd gone down the HDW path.
we still would have had a resized bluewater sub - but it would have been a 3000 tonne upsized version of the 209.
I hope that by the time we get around to replacing Collins that we are running a co-operative design with the Japanese.
You already know my view about the capability improvements for the Oyashios.
we still would have had a resized bluewater sub - but it would have been a 3000 tonne upsized version of the 209.
I hope that by the time we get around to replacing Collins that we are running a co-operative design with the Japanese.
You already know my view about the capability improvements for the Oyashios.
RubiconNZ
The Wanderer
Oi...
Does anyone else get the feeling the feeling of being left out of the loop?
On the Collins replacement any ideas of how it will turn out? Will we see a drastic increase capability such has the new Amphibs or specifically to the subs VLS cells? Or will it be a phased in replacement that would include the expected improvements of a new design? Of course its a bit subjective at the moment just wonderin...
Does anyone else get the feeling the feeling of being left out of the loop?
On the Collins replacement any ideas of how it will turn out? Will we see a drastic increase capability such has the new Amphibs or specifically to the subs VLS cells? Or will it be a phased in replacement that would include the expected improvements of a new design? Of course its a bit subjective at the moment just wonderin...
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Given the design cycle of these things we probably ought to have started a while ago. That said the cost makes it something the politicians probably don't want to bring up.robsta83 said:Does anyone else get the feeling the feeling of being left out of the loop?
On the Collins replacement any ideas of how it will turn out? Will we see a drastic increase capability such has the new Amphibs? Or will it be a phased in replacement that would include the expected improvements of a new design? Of course its a bit subjective at the moment just wonderin...
At the moment I haven't read anything suggesting anyone within Defence, the DMO or PM&C has the requirement for a Collins replacement anywhere on their radar (I'm sure gf or AMTP will correct me if I'm wrong).
abramsteve
New Member
Probably been discussed before, but what are the chances of Nuclear boats being replacments for the Collins? With Nuclear power becoming more and more a possibility for the country and all...
I dont even know if they would be what we want, but just wondering...
I dont even know if they would be what we want, but just wondering...
RubiconNZ
The Wanderer
Nuke Boats
If we see multiple nuclear power stations been built then I see how to much opposistion could be put agaisnt it though it sure would piss of the Kiwis
It would be nice and I think the ability since we essentially have a 3 ocean and one sea navy it would be dramatically beneficial to our capabilities.
In my own opinion I wouldn't have a problem with itabramsteve said:Probably been discussed before, but what are the chances of Nuclear boats being replacments for the Collins? With Nuclear power becoming more and more a possibility for the country and all...
I dont even know if they would be what we want, but just wondering...
If we see multiple nuclear power stations been built then I see how to much opposistion could be put agaisnt it though it sure would piss of the Kiwis
It would be nice and I think the ability since we essentially have a 3 ocean and one sea navy it would be dramatically beneficial to our capabilities.
abramsteve said:Probably been discussed before, but what are the chances of Nuclear boats being replacments for the Collins? With Nuclear power becoming more and more a possibility for the country and all...
I dont even know if they would be what we want, but just wondering...
Well, there is supposedly a 'discussion' happening in Australia, regarding the merits of nuclear power on land. John Howard is very pro the idea of nuclear reactors for electricity generation. If that ever happens, then nuclear POWERED subs aren't that far fetched.
rb
I've never seen any documentation in the last 9 years on the use of nuclear power in Collins Mk2.rossfrb_1 said:
Some of the tasks currently performed by subs will be done by USV's. In the last 15 months alone, the range time of ROV/USV's has increased by more than 800%.
I can't see a nuke powered sub getting airplay in Oz - and its not for idealogical reasons.
Well, nuclear has been such a dirty word in Australia for a long time.gf0012-aust said:
I wonder what the school of thought might be if Australia had had nuclear generators, say twenty years ago.
If you'd care to expand upon that I, for one, would be interested.gf0012-aust said:
I can't help but wonder, if Howard's play ever gets any legs, then surely there must be some out there who would plug the idea. The RAN could get real comfy with the USN then.
I guess any warm feelings the RAN would need to have toward nuclear subs would take a decade or two to develop. At which point USVs would probably be becoming the preferred tools of choice. Nuclear powered USVs, now that's another kettle of fish...
rb