Submarine news

[gf0012-aust]

How France sank Japan's $40 billion Australian submarine dream | Reuters

looks like the French knew how to play the game better than every one else, hiring the ex Chief of Staff for the former Defence Minister was the game changer or so it appears.

as an observation, in the photo in the link, you can understand why RAN went to the USN to fix our propeller problems.

that prop looks suspiciously like a merchant vessel design.... its not exactly a naval switchback....

I'd be loathe to publicly comment as there are still some probity issues around the finalisation of the CEP - but the article does hilight what I've said elsewhere re weighting and AIC involvement

a correction needed on that article - DCNS courting Lockmart and Raytheon has no bearing on the decision as the choice of vendor to deal with the FMS and ITARs issues is done by US State Dept. The US owner of the combat system then has the right to accept or challenge State Dept's choice. State Dept however is the owner and manager of all US tech as soon as its exported (IP, FMS and ITARs provisions)

 

[Bluey 006]

there was an ex RAv VADM who was vocally anti-japanese to the point where some thought it was disproportionate.

hard to say, there are ex O and Collins drivers who were anti-japanese, there were people like my old boss who was an ex T, O and RN nuke driver who was pro japanese. I know of one who was anti-German (prob because he held the same view pre-Collins selection)

I'd add that the ex T, O and nuke driver also had a business which dealt with modifying conventionals to have lower acoustic numbers, so had experience way beyond being just a driver

c'ext le vie, c'est le guerre

Appreciate that no one will likely comment publicly on this but, when i was was thinking about out of the box reasons why France might have got up I kept coming back to the fact the perhaps their is knowledge within the ADO of compromises to the Japanese and German companies security (digital or physical) by foreign powers. It is also not unreasonable to think ( we are talking $50 billion here) that country A used its intelligence services to in some way sabotage country B's bid.... ( something particularly the Japanese likely weren't prepared for)

Example:
2011 link
Link 2


These are wild and baseless allegations but the point is that, as has been mentioned by Defpros several times, we don't know what the selection committee considered and likely won't for 30+ years by which time many of us will be more focused on our bodily functions.

It is also possible that it was the best overall solution based on the information in front of the committee - who knows, but it is done what is important now is we set the right terms, milestones and deliverable's to keep the french accountable. If we do that.... at the end of it all hopefully we should! get a very capable "nuke" killer.

Its not all doom and gloom:

Overall as a nation we have much more engineering experience with submarines, more experience with major projects/contracts, better technology, greater access to information, more experience dealing with European primes, better manufacturing capabilities and all that, than we did when the Collins was selected

Glass half full I say - focus on what you can change not what you can't - we can negotiate a good contract and favorable terms, we can train engineers to develop solutions to difficult problems, we can leverage experience of knowledgeable people, we can invest in state of the art technology .... etc etc etc

That's what we should be talking about in my option...

Wonder if we'll see some money in the budget for higher education and trades training geared toward the marine space?

GF any interest in becoming a teacher? LOL

 

[gf0012-aust]

That's what we should be talking about in my option...

failing everything fall over at contract negotiations in the next 12-18months, then its all done and dusted.

in absolute terms, "onward - upward"

bearing in mind that even O class boat mission specific capability is still classified, then it leaves any discussions around the technical options, the issues surrounding CONOPs, evolving doctrine have some bearing on future Block releases, but ultimately the current reqs will be addressed over the next 18 months

project management will be defined by the negotiations.

one of the things that some comments coming up in the RAN thread was a clear misunderstanding of what the CEP did. It was never a tech acceptance process - it was a down select against the primes based on acceptable risk to the commonwealth and around broad requirements

there has not been a tech solution defined or accepted - this occurs over the next stage - and although contract negs have a 12 month window, the actual tech selection and definitions will take much longer.

the CEP was not a normal process and really was a new injection into the acquisition process designed to cover off some Govt faltering on what the assessment process actually was. - so I can appreciate why some are confused and seem to think that the french offer is definable and articulated already. Its not - and thats what the next 12 months will seek to do

Normally, you have a definition document outlining what the service wants - all interested parties respond to that tender doc, then all the responses are received. A down select happens where all obvious non compliant bids are removed, and then a tighter evaluation is done of remaining responses. at a certain point the final competitors are identified and the harsh assessment against all the requirements is done - and against all remaining bidders at once. part of the assessment teams includes service people (users), senior sirs, defence export controller staff, australian industry eval teams, financial investigators, schedulers etc.... at the final leg the decisions and risk assesments for the decisions against all bidders goes up the tree.

as an example, on a $250m project I worked on the evaluation process against 3 last standing competitors was 2 years - and thats before final selection was made. So this process is really really different and compressed.

 

[StingrayOZ]

Well, that may explain why option J failed, but I still can't understand why German lost the game. Their marketing is in par if not better than the frogs.

Have I know we are getting a french Sub, I would rather have the "captain's pick" got through.......

It was quite likely if that had happen the liberals would have lost the election. Important front bench liberals like Chris Pyne would be out of politics, for good. Not just that, but Xenaphon would have most likely have built a sizable addition to his party. In fact, Xenaphon probably would be the controlling power in Australian politics. He might have ended up choosing the sub for Australia. Certainly the captains pick was never going to fly into reality. The potentially resulting situation was so bad, Labor and Liberals started to band together, literally started to endorse each other. There is a real fear that minor parties are destabilizing Australia.

Abbott was rolled pretty much directly because of submarines and what was happening in South Australia. He had underestimated the shock wave this would have particularly in South Australia.

Obviously the Japanese didn't see it coming until it was too late. They should have.The person they had a hand shake agreement with as prime minster, was now dancing at his farewell party as ex prime minster. Australia would be pretty massively concerned if Abe was axed because of his handshake agreement.

Which is why we really needed 3 serious offers, all viable. For any number of reasons things can head south, not just due to technical reasons.

 

[Volkodav]

There has been a suggestion that the Soryu plus may well have ended up being more of a Collins Soryu hybrid if it was to have even met RAN requirements, let alone exceed them. Imagine a more streamlined than Collins shape with a more reliable generator set and refined propulsion system but merely evolved Collins sensors, combat and auxiliary systems and you apparently would be close to what Japan was offering.

There is a school of thought that option J was more about lifting Japans baseline design in areas that the Collins is still superior, than providing the RAN with an advanced new submarine. i.e. a synergy within a strategic alliance that would give Japan an insight into why the Collins, even with its propulsion difficulties, is still so competitive, dragging MHI, kicking a screaming, to the next level.

I am not suggesting that the Japanese boats are anything other than superbly built, that the production and quality processes are perhaps the best in the world (they should be as they have a decades old continuous build) or that the design is anything other than a superbly fettled evolution of an extremely sound design, using the highest quality materials and components. What I suspect however (and it has been stated / hinted by others) is that while excellent in many or most areas the Japanese boats were decidedly old school in others, which has limited how far they can actually evolve.

The hull is an evolution of the Barbel, the generators were originally German, the internal layout of the forward sections is 60s USN SSN. Everything about the design is an extremely well fettled and sorted evolution of other peoples tech that delivers superb performance as a result. If the RAN were to get what they need from Japan, Australia would have to help them get there, including fighting Japanese engineers, designers and admirals, every step of the way.

Anyone who has worked with a Japanese"leader" in any field knows what I am talking about, the cultural resistance to innovation, the determination to incrementally improve rather than revolutionarily change, or even try something different and the dismissal of anything different as somehow flawed or inferior.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Collins with japanese metallurgy, some drivetrain input and acoustics mods would have been signficant

Collins even as it currently stands is superior to some of the boats built by others 15 years after the last of class was launched

eg in some of the peformance dynamics we knew Collins was superior to the Scorpene.

its just a damn shame that AustGov lacked the courage to stand up to some of the silly negative comments that were regularly and still trotted out by some of the broadsheets

in fact I was reading the compressed scrapes of Oz media that are provided daily, and there was a journo doing the "woe is me" on Collins capability - but it was something addressed 20 years ago - but he was writing as though it was a current "truth"

that kind of thing just drives me to distraction - and then we end up with all these "experts" in the public arena who take such articles as a gospel truth

 

[kaz]

What I suspect however (and it has been stated / hinted by others) is that while excellent in many or most areas the Japanese boats were decidedly old school in others, which has limited how far they can actually evolve.

The hull is an evolution of the Barbel, the generators were originally German, the internal layout of the forward sections is 60s USN SSN. Everything about the design is an extremely well fettled and sorted evolution of other peoples tech that delivers superb performance as a result.

How exactly did we arrive at this conclusion, that the Soryu evolved from the Barbel? The Soryu evolved from the Oyashio, a submarine design which, according to literature, was quite radically different from the Harushio it replaced.

 

[gf0012-aust]

How exactly did we arrive at this conclusion, that the Soryu evolved from the Barbel? The Soryu evolved from the Oyashio, a submarine design which, according to literature, was quite radically different from the Harushio it replaced.

the legacy design issues stem from common internal design layouts

eg control room (bastardised bridge), combat room, weapons layout. weapons loading stemmed from the Barbels

the legacy timeline of the inherited internal designs is:

barbel - uzushio - yushio - harushio - oyashio - soryu

its not about literal hull shape although the uzushios picked up some of the acoustic mods made to barbel including drivetrain management (and appendage management)

just to add, the soryu is closer to the seawolf/virginias in a few areas - probably the only sub with the same littorals sensor design equivalence are the Astutes (its the kind of underwater truck that is ideal for specops and littoral grey and greenwater ISR in addition to normal deep bluewater roles. am not referring to absolute depth when I talk about deep bluewater, but in the long range fleet sub role

however, they can dive as far as nukes and when I was working acoustics, we knew that they could hunt and kill some russian nukes. (basically the barbel role as well)

apols for the drip by drip concatenated edits, but bits and pieces come dribbling back the more I think about it

 

[Volkodav]

I recall back before Rudd took the leadership Beazley was pushing for extra infantry battalions, the early replacement of the F-111, the formation of a paramilitary coastguard / border protection force and series production of submarines, starting with an evolved Collins. Some of these policies actually dated from the late 90s early 2000s and with the exception of the evolved Collins being the starting point for subs and the use of different terminology all have come to pass.

The reason I bring this up is to take it to the next point, an evolved Collins following straight on from the original six would have seen the original fleet delivered on time and budget with all the fast track improvements, plus more, rolled into the second batch. Collins likely would have been scraped at her first FCD and Kockums crucified for their poor workmanship on the faulty sections and salvageable items being used to create a rotable pool to expedite the FCDs of the other boats. This would have led to far more favorable terms on the IP and a smother transition for ASC from builder to designer, in partnership with EB and Raytheon, on a new class, vastly superior to any other conventional, entering service around now.

This is what should have happened and likely would have without all the political bs. Fast Track, RCS and HWT being pushed through in the 2000s cost as much as building evolved subs incorporation these improvements and other features that couldn't be incorporated into existing boats and would have removed the urgency of having to keep O boats for longer and having to extend builds and FCDs to incorporate all of them. There wouldn't have been the redundancies and degradation of skills, while the robust and experienced work force would have been improving throughout. The RAN would have had more hulls available to generate qualified crews as well as meet the training requirements of the fleet and cover operational deployments.

Yes I can easily see that a continuous build and evolution of Collins would have seen us with both far more capability and better value for money than has occurred in reality. End result we would currently be building subs that were, if not more capable than the Soryu, definitely more suitable for the RAN and costing us less than we currently plan to spend and maybe we could be exchanging tech with Japan to each improve our individual sovereign capabilities and designs.

 

[Punta74]

With the continous build process that is being implemented, are we going to ensure there is also a "future" design team in place, looking at continuous improvement from batch to batch. This also goes for Frigate and OPV.

Last thing we need is for boat 1, to be the same as boat 12....Taking into account the french are likely to have a gap after their SSN build with only 6 on order. You would assume they would not put funding into process.

 

[Redlands18]

With the continous build process that is being implemented, are we going to ensure there is also a "future" design team in place, looking at continuous improvement from batch to batch. This also goes for Frigate and OPV.

Last thing we need is for boat 1, to be the same as boat 12....Taking into account the french are likely to have a gap after their SSN build with only 6 on order. You would assume they would not put funding into process.

It's in the WP Punta that a reavaluation of the Sub design will take place in the late 20s, so a possible group 2 or even a new class from boat 5,6 or 7 could happen. Could see something similar with the Frigates but i doubt there will be any major changes with the OPVs over a period of only 12 years. The sheer amount of time between 1st and last subs especially will mean that the first couple of boats will see significant service before the design of the last 3 or 4 is locked in.

 

[rossfrb_1]

the logic of using ASC Osborne SA site for SEA1000

Reading other forums, especially the defence section of the Oz, I notice a lot of bitching about South Australia being selected as the build location for the future submarine.
To me this seems logical as that is where ASC is situated.
Am I missing something, are ASC facilities in Osborne SA going to be so old as to require significant funding that a green site build is just as logical?
cheers
rb

 

[Volkodav]

Reading other forums, especially the defence section of the Oz, I notice a lot of bitching about South Australia being selected as the build location for the future submarine.
To me this seems logical as that is where ASC is situated.
Am I missing something, are ASC facilities in Osborne SA going to be so old as to require significant funding that a green site build is just as logical?
cheers
rb

Mostly just WA bitching because the mining construction boom is over. Moving the project would just be repeating the same old mistakes ago, paying a premium to set up a new facility somewhere to buy some votes with no regard to cost or risk.

 

[aussienscale]

Shortfin Barracuda - Steel Requirements

Just as an interest, don't profess to know much on this side of things, would appreciate any insights that can be given ?

Both the GoA and DCNS have stated that all 12 Submarines will be build in Australia, with "Australian Steel".

So my query is this, what industry improvements and investments will need to be made to achieve this ? The steel industry has been struggling for some time in Australia, so is this viable, and at what cost ?

Not sure if we will get any associated tech transfer from France on what they do for the Barracuda ? It has a public stated depth of 350m, public available info for the Collins has it at 180+, but has never been stated, guessing it is more than this, but by how much, who knows.

Also in comparison even the US Virginia's are publicly stated at 240m.

Now we did make the steel for the Collins in Australia by BHP and Bisalloy, are they still up to the task ?

Cheers

 

[gf0012-aust]

Just as an interest, don't profess to know much on this side of things, would appreciate any insights that can be given ?

Both the GoA and DCNS have stated that all 12 Submarines will be build in Australia, with "Australian Steel".

So my query is this, what industry improvements and investments will need to be made to achieve this ? The steel industry has been struggling for some time in Australia, so is this viable, and at what cost ?

Not sure if we will get any associated tech transfer from France on what they do for the Barracuda ? It has a public stated depth of 350m, public available info for the Collins has it at 180+, but has never been stated, guessing it is more than this, but by how much, who knows.

Also in comparison even the US Virginia's are publicly stated at 240m.

Now we did make the steel for the Collins in Australia by BHP and Bisalloy, are they still up to the task ?

Cheers

apols, missed this

elephant in the room is the french offer of a full ToT
bear in mind that 2 weeks before the announcement that the opposition defence shadmin and xenophon were told that aust industry could not build the type of steel that was required (japanese sub question and local politics re Sth Australian steel works closures)

we then head off into furry discussions and issues
When I worked in acoustics offshore the Japanese were universally regarded as having the deepest diving conventionals in the world - they were the only conventional game in town at that stage which could chase "non western" nukes and kill them at depth.

no other conventionals came close - much to the concern of "non western" sub drivers

so we now have a situation where we can build the french subs with seemingly no technical inability to produce the steel as the french say that they will do a complete ToT

you can only go by the statements, but the metallurgical issues for subs and the acoustic outcomes are in the same realm as LO technology for 5th gen manned and the future 6th gen unmanned combat aircraft, they are literally the jewels in the crown of any sophisticated tech nations defence toolbox

I'd add that when I was contracting offshore in acoustics we modified some french subs in the region for NV and acoustics management - go figure

king and country - aye

 

[aussienscale]

apols, missed this

elephant in the room is the french offer of a full ToT
bear in mind that 2 weeks before the announcement that the opposition defence shadmin and xenophon were told that aust industry could not build the type of steel that was required (japanese sub question and local politics re Sth Australian steel works closures)

we then head off into furry discussions and issues
When I worked in acoustics offshore the Japanese were universally regarded as having the deepest diving conventionals in the world - they were the only conventional game in town at that stage which could chase "non western" nukes and kill them at depth.

no other conventionals came close - much to the concern of "non western" sub drivers

so we now have a situation where we can build the french subs with seemingly no technical inability to produce the steel as the french say that they will do a complete ToT

you can only go by the statements, but the metallurgical issues for subs and the acoustic outcomes are in the same realm as LO technology for 5th gen manned and the future 6th gen unmanned combat aircraft, they are literally the jewels in the crown of any sophisticated tech nations defence toolbox

I'd add that when I was contracting offshore in acoustics we modified some french subs in the region for NV and acoustics management - go figure

king and country - aye

Interesting indeed ! Sorry for the one liner but King and Country are getting a lot of leeway here

Cheers

 

[gf0012-aust]

Interesting indeed ! Sorry for the one liner but King and Country are getting a lot of leeway here

Cheers

It's my fallback position

 

[ngatimozart]

James Holmes (ex USN) has written an article in the National Inquirer suggesting methods for the USN SSN fleet to ameliorate its lack of numbers in the water compared to what it had during the Cold War when it could trail every red fleet sub that sortied. He uses American sports analogies for tactics but he does make one valid point about a cost effective way of increasing the USN sub fleet. That is to go back into SSKs again and he states that cost wise for each new Virginia class SSN the USN could for example, acquire five Soryu class SSKs. Admiral Hyman Rickover would turn over in his grave and really haunt the USN hierarchy for such heresy but practically and pragmatically, it is not such a silly idea. Holmes correctly points out that vested interests such as the nuclear industry and the nuke lobby within the USN would see such a proposal as a threat to the SSN program, however it is still something worth having a good look at especially as sub numbers in the Asia - Pacific region are dramatically increasing.

 

[John Fedup]

James Holmes (ex USN) has written an article in the National Inquirer suggesting methods for the USN SSN fleet to ameliorate its lack of numbers in the water compared to what it had during the Cold War when it could trail every red fleet sub that sortied. He uses American sports analogies for tactics but he does make one valid point about a cost effective way of increasing the USN sub fleet. That is to go back into SSKs again and he states that cost wise for each new Virginia class SSN the USN could for example, acquire five Soryu class SSKs. Admiral Hyman Rickover would turn over in his grave and really haunt the USN hierarchy for such heresy but practically and pragmatically, it is not such a silly idea. Holmes correctly points out that vested interests such as the nuclear industry and the nuke lobby within the USN would see such a proposal as a threat to the SSN program, however it is still something worth having a good look at especially as sub numbers in the Asia - Pacific region are dramatically increasing.

When I saw the National Inquirer link I had a WTF moment! This magazine is grocery store tabloid located at the cashier checkout. Typical stories include "my wife had an affair with an alien", new engine delivers 1200 mpg, etc. When I clicked on your link, it is for the "national Interest magazine", a massively more normal publication.

As for the article, I really can't see 5 Soryu subs for one Virginia, can you?

 

[gf0012-aust]

When I saw the National Inquirer link I had a WTF moment! This magazine is grocery store tabloid located at the cashier checkout. Typical stories include "my wife had an affair with an alien", new engine delivers 1200 mpg, etc. When I clicked on your link, it is for the "national Interest magazine", a massively more normal publication.

As for the article, I really can't see 5 Soryu subs for one Virginia, can you?

a mixed fleet has been discussed in the past - and it has cropped up numerous times in USNI Proceedings every now and then

it turns into a chev vs ford. mercedes vs BMW debate very quickly

in my time when I had dealings with EB and NG they were both highly supportive but were also both highly nervous that their prime customers agitation about diverging from extant force planning attitudes could cause harm

cost build ratio would be closer to 4:1 but would also start coming down once you hit sunk costs and efficiency threshold