by Peter Yule
ing all these was the continued poor performance of the combat
system.
In many other areas the submarine achieved the contracted
levels of performance with comparative ease. Little was heard
about these because they never became issues between ASC
and the navy and they never aroused the interest of the media.
A good example was Collins’ first deep dive on 19 January 1996.
Geoff Rose tells the story:
Hans [Ohff] and myself and Graham White went down to
Cape Jervis and . . . at one o’clock in the morning we went
down to the boat harbour and we got on the ex-Victorian
Safety Council rubber duck . . . and we barrelled out for five
hours out into the middle of the Southern Ocean and met
Collins and Protector.
Then we dived and we went past our deep diving
depth . . . We popped down in 25 metre steps and there’s this
wonderful guy . . . called Glen Sloan, an ASC naval architect,
he’s got all these strain gauges on the hull and he’s got his
computer there and all the rest of it and the submarine
compressed at exactly the right predicted amount all the way
down . . . and as we came up it came back to exactly the
same spot. Exactly. It was like going to test something and
expecting there were going to be a few problems and
everything was absolutely perfect. And we surfaced in the late
afternoon and it was just us and the Protector and no one
else. You could actually make mobile phone calls and Peter
Sinclair got on the phone to the Maritime Commander and
the Chief of Navy, ‘Yeah, we’ve surfaced, we’re fine. It went
well. Everything was good.’ Then we got in the rubber duck
and we went into Robe and stayed at a motel. We had to get
them to keep the restaurant open for us and we had tea and
T H E T R I A L S O F C O L L I N S
217
then we got in the car and drove back to Adelaide and went
home and I thought that in anyone else’s navy there’d have
been ships and planes and press and stuff everywhere and we
just toddled out in the middle of the sea there and did it.
Collins met or exceeded specifications in many areas including the
contracted speed (with power to spare), manoeuvring, low-speed
underwater endurance and the performance of the ship control
system. All through the project reports on Collins’ trials a recur-
ring theme was the success of the ship control system. As this had
been a major concern in the early 1990s it was subjected to close
scrutiny and emerged with flying colours. For example, during the
full power snort trial in May 1996, ‘the autopilot was engaged . . .
as it offered better depth keeping performance than the operators’.
Marcos Alfonso and his engineering team, who bore the brunt of
the mechanical failings on Collins, found the ship control system
was excellent and Alfonso insists ‘we should bang the drum about
how good it is’.
HMAS Collins was delivered to the navy on 15 July 1996 and
commissioned on 27 July. She sailed for Sydney on 12 August,
conducting further trials on the way, but then had to ‘remain
alongside for the remainder of the month to repair a defect in the
main motor’. On 3 September she sailed for Western Australia,
again conducting further trials on passage, during which a num-
ber of ‘difficulties’ arose: an important component of the main
propulsion motor came loose; there were problems with the elec-
trical system ‘resulting from the large rolls in extreme weather’;
and there was ‘excessive leakage past the main shaft seal’. Collins’
trials program continued in the west but was frequently ‘disrupted
by a number of frustrating defects’.10
The general perception of the Collins class submarines has been
greatly clouded by the problems shown up during the trials of
the first submarine. While it is true that the major problems –
the combat system, the diesel engines, noise – were generic to the
class, a high proportion of the minor problems that arose during
Collins’ trials were remedied and did not reappear in the later
boats. This is clear from the fact that the trials periods and the
lists of defects were shorter for each successive boat.
The extent to which the lessons of Collins had been learnt
was already evident in the progress of the second submarine,
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T H E C O L L I N S C L A S S S U B M A R I N E S T O R Y
Farncomb, which was launched on 15 December 1995 with a big
‘Made in Australia’ joey on the fin. During 1994 and 1995 ASC
regularly reported to the project office that it had made ‘signifi-
cant improvements in processes and installation activities’ based
on the experiences with Collins. Similarly, the training and man-
agement of the crew profited from the lessons of Collins. Whereas
the crew of Collins had been encouraged to spend time on the
boat during construction but few actually did so, Mike Gallagher,
the captain of Farncomb, insisted on it. Further, ASC and the
project office allowed the crew to work side by side with the ASC
production crews, which meant they knew the boat backwards
before it was launched, and also that some faults were picked up
and remedied at an early stage. A further advantage was that the
technical departments of Collins and Farncomb swapped half of their teams in late 1995 during Collins’ sea trials so that Farncomb could finish off its training and head to sea with half its technical
crew already having been at sea on the class and knowing what
problems to look for and what to expect during trials.11
Farncomb began its contractor’s sea trials in September 1996,
and after the first series was completed the project office reported
that: ‘It is clear that the experience gained from Collins is
flowing through to later submarines.’12 Mike Gallagher recalls
that: ‘When we set off, the combat system was still not work-
ing properly and the submarine had many temporary fixes or
workarounds, but there were many fewer platform failures than
there had been with Collins . . . and Farncomb sailed through most of the trials.’
Farncomb’s crew had some interesting experiences during the
trials. The first time they tried running the three diesels on full
power simultaneously the sonar stopped. They did many checks,
then tried the diesels again and the sonar stopped again. They
did more checks and by pure luck they discovered that as the
diesels started, the significant vacuum formed in the submarine
caused a pressure differential in the sonar cabinets. The cabinets
had breather holes in the casing, but the vacuum still sucked the
door in a bit and then the door would pop open, triggering a
safety switch and shutting the whole sonar down. The remedy
was simple once the diagnosis was made.
The crews of Collins and Farncomb were frustrated at what
they saw as ASC’s reluctance to fix the problems that appeared in
the submarines. Mike Gallagher told a story to illustrate this:
T H E
T R I A L S O F C O L L I N S
219
Back aft we only have three people on the Collins submarines
compared with the Oberons which had ‘a cast of thousands’.
On one occasion . . . at deep diving depth I found we had
three white-faced engineers back aft. During some depth
changing manoeuvres, the engine room hatch had made an
uncustomary and alarming metallic ‘boing’ noise. Such an
effect gives obvious cause for concern and after being invited
by the ASC staff to ‘. . . let’s just try that again . . .’ we
surfaced and went back to ASC to investigate. With a transit
time of almost 24 hours and any time spent alongside, this
obviously presents a substantial delay to the intended trials
program. When we arrived back Hans Ohff, no doubt
frustrated with more delays, was storming up and down the
wharf – the only way to deal with Hans was to be direct.
Hans said to me, ‘You gutless bastard, you get the submarine
back to sea’. I just replied ‘Here’s the keys’.
The simplest thing to do would have been to take the
hatch off and have a look, but what ASC did was to put
strain gauges on it and go out and trial it. They did the
standard tests and it made the noise again – all readings were
within tolerance and they could not work out what it was. It
was around the same time that the hydraulic couplings were
causing a lot of grief and these could only be fixed by taking
the submarine out of the water with many of them below the
waterline. It was suggested to ASC that while the submarine
was out of the water they might take the engine room hatch
off to investigate the outstanding issue. When they did it
made the now familiar ‘boing’ noise – it turned out that a
couple of the stud bolts were slightly out of alignment
causing the hatch coaming to ‘stick’ as pressure was
increased with the subsequent noise arising as the submarine
came shallower and the hatch recovered to its normal
position. It was easy to fix in the end but could have been
completed a lot sooner and without the need for unnecessary
trials.
Farncomb’s trials were delayed by extraneous events – failures
on Collins, which needed to be checked, and (unfounded) alle-
gations by an ex-ASC employee of lapses in safety and quality
assurance – but it nonetheless obtained its licences and was pro-
visionally accepted into naval service in December 1997.
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T H E C O L L I N S C L A S S S U B M A R I N E S T O R Y
At a project progress review in June 1997 John Dikkenberg,
the former squadron commander who had become operational
test director in September 1996, presented two papers on the cur-
rent performance of the submarines from the perspective of the
crews.13 In his first paper Dikkenberg emphasised that ‘in the
macro sense’ the submarines had achieved their aims:
We have at sea, potentially, the finest conventional submarine
in the world. Its manoeuvrability, levels of automation, diving
depth, diesel and electric endurance, atmosphere control and
habitability are unequalled by any conventional submarine in
the world. Its potential to grow is enormous and when its
teething problems are behind it, it will have proven to be one
of this country’s more outstanding achievements.
In operations to date the fundamental platform has
exceeded our expectations in every sense. Its acceleration is
impressive, its sustained speeds and endurance unequalled . . .
At PD [periscope depth], the automatic pilot [nicknamed
Sven] maintains depth to a standard a man is unlikely to
match. Automation in almost every function has removed the
mystique of snorting.
Dikkenberg identified several faults that had been fixed, notably
with fuel and the propulsion motor. And he emphasised that ‘the
improvements in the boats, in a difficult 12 months, are astound-
ing and each time we go to sea, I know the boat is in better shape
than it was the last time’.
However, Dikkenberg was remorseless in pointing out the sub-
marine’s deficiencies. The most serious continuing problems he
identified were the unreliability of the diesel engines and the com-
bat system. Noise was not mentioned as a specific problem, but
Dikkenberg noted that one of the forthcoming challenges was a
series of noise ranging tests.
C H A P T E R 19
‘They were problems we
didn’t expect’
The general public perception of the Collins class submarines is
that they have been an enormously expensive disaster. The authors
have not encountered a single person without links to the military
who has a positive view of their performance. Most people are
convinced they are noisy and many express surprise that they are
still in service. Almost everybody recalls newspaper headlines such
as ‘Dud subs’ and ‘Noisy as a rock concert’, and there is a universal
belief that the project ran far over budget.
The totally negative view of the submarines is the result of
a barrage of bad publicity they received, beginning in 1994 and
rising to a crescendo in 1997 and 1998. In February 1994 the
Adelaide Advertiser ran a front page story claiming that Collins had ‘lumps in its hull which could seriously impair its performance’ and also giving credence to ‘persistent rumours that
HMAS Collins is plagued with serious problems’ including hull
leaks and poor quality steel.1 As with most media reports during
the mid to late 1990s, this report was a mixture of truth, exagger-
ation and fiction. It also began a pattern of media reports based
on leaks from ASC, the navy and the government, reflecting an
increasing disharmony in the project.
221
222
T H E C O L L I N S C L A S S S U B M A R I N E S T O R Y
While the public view of the Collins class submarines is over-
whelmingly negative, in naval and defence circles they are gener-
ally viewed far more favourably. However, even within the defence
community there are widely differing views on the nature and
extent of the problems the submarines suffered in the 1990s and
who was responsible for them.2
The one thing almost all the experts have in common is that
none expected the problems that occurred in the new submarines.
While with hindsight many say that they were normal first of class
problems, the evidence of the schedule and the budget suggests
that there was no anticipation that time and money would be
needed for repairs and modifications.
While HMAS Collins in particular had many problems of vary-
ing severity, most were not difficult to resolve at a technical level,
although they frequently led to heated debate over the contractual
responsibility for fixing them. The areas of greatest controversy,
where it was widely (but not universally) believed that there were
generic problems for the whole class, were the diesel engines, flow
noise, propeller cracking and cavitation, and th
e combat system
including the periscopes.3
From the day of Collins’ maiden voyage, the diesel engines were
a source of difficulty and frustration, and for many years it was
rare for any of the submarines to have all three diesels in work-
ing order. The reason for any particular engine failure might have
been broken pistons, seized fuel pumps or fuel injectors, broken
gear trains, broken generator couplings, a damaged crankshaft,
or a similar mechanical failure, while the causes included contam-
inated fuel, the design or operation of the fuel system leading to
salt water entering the engines, excessive vibration, and manufac-
turing defects.4
The design and operation of the fuel system lay at the heart
of the problems with the diesel engines, and this was an issue on
which there was a strong divide between the Swedish designers
and the Australian operators. In order to meet the requirement
for long range the submarines carry a large amount of fuel in
15 separate fuel tanks. To avoid unbalancing the boat these have
to be emptied in a prescribed sequence. As the fuel is emptied from
the tanks it is replaced with salt water to keep the weight of the
submarine constant. The fuel system was meant to be operated so
‘ T H E Y W E R E P R O B L E M S W E D I D N ’ T E X P E C T ’
223
that the final tank never had any water in it, to avoid water being
drawn into the engines.
However, in operation substantial amounts of salt water
entered the engines, causing myriad further problems. The crews
and the navy blamed the design of the fuel system. Greg Stuart
traces this back to the environment in which the Swedes operated
their submarines. The Baltic Sea is small and both calmer and less
salty than the oceans. With less distance to cover their submarines
carried less fuel. They did not do much snorting in their normal
operations and when they did they were less likely to have rough
seas. Further, the fresher water of the Baltic was less corrosive than
the salt water of the oceans if it did get into the engines. Conse-
quently, the Swedes did not place a high priority on keeping salt
water out of the engines when designing the fuel system, relying
primarily on gravity separation. When the submarines operated
in the rough, salty waters of the Southern Ocean, the fuel was agi-
