The Collins Class Submarine Story

by Peter Yule

  emphatic conviction of navy chief David Shackleton of the impor-

  tance to the navy of collaboration with the Americans.

  Shackleton became chief of the navy in mid-1999 and the com-

  bat system replacement project had been under way for some

  months before he became concerned about the security implica-

  tions of buying a European combat system for the submarines and

  ‘the way the submarine force would evolve if we were to go down

  the European route’. He concedes now that:

  What [the Department of Defence] got wrong was that we

  didn’t establish what the strategic position ought to be. To

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  ask the question, how do we take a lot of American sourced,

  very sensitive intelligence, put it into a submarine, connect it

  to a weapon, do what we think we have to do with a

  submarine, and still have the full confidence of our American

  friends?14

  Shackleton feared that it would not be possible to have a Euro-

  pean combat system, where Europeans would be involved in the

  support and maintenance, on Australian submarines without the

  ‘leakage of classified information’, and he felt he ‘simply couldn’t

  countenance that in terms of the relationship we had with the US’.

  As he saw it, the crux of the issue was:

  Classified information processing requirements are as

  important as the way in which information is displayed. The

  technical requirements for storing and processing top secret

  material are stringent to say the least. The STN system was

  not designed with that in mind. The US system was.15

  The evaluation team argued that this problem had been foreseen.

  They had arranged to purchase all the source code and to include

  an ‘Australian eyes only’ support facility in Australia for the sys-

  tem. In addition Lockheed Martin was part of the STN team and

  would provide all the weapons software, which the evaluation

  team believed would have avoided any difficulties with US infor-

  mation being given to the Germans.16 Shackleton was not con-

  vinced.

  Shackleton denies that he was pressured to reject a European

  solution:

  There has been this conjecture that the government said

  you’ve got to have an American solution. The government

  never said that to me. In fact, it was David Shackleton who

  came to the conclusion . . . that, if the American system

  would do what the submariners wanted, then in a strategic

  context in terms of further growth of the submarine

  capability – by which I mean everything, doctrine, tactics,

  weapons, technology, the complete evolution of the

  submarine force – then I saw a strategic link with the US

  Navy as being extremely valuable.17

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  Consequently, when Greenfield’s evaluation team decided that

  STN Atlas was the preferred supplier, Shackleton insisted that

  there be further discussions with the Americans on the security

  and strategic implications of this decision. He recalls that: ‘People

  said to me that the Americans were just waving a big stick, that it

  was just the US Navy helping US Incorporated. I said, “Well that’s

  easy for you to comment, but I’m the one that’s got the risk and I

  want to de-risk this as far as I can go”.’18

  A joint working group with the US Navy was set up to study

  the issue and Shackleton went to America to talk to Skip Bow-

  man. Shackleton found Bowman ‘was more than blunt and said

  that he didn’t think what we were about could be done’. Shack-

  leton explains that Bowman was referring to the idea that highly

  classified information could be ‘black boxed’ – that is, handled

  in a totally discrete fashion in the combat system. The Americans

  argued that this could not be done without reducing the oper-

  ational effectiveness of the submarines. While insisting that the

  decision was ‘always going to be Australia’s to make’, Bowman

  made it clear that if Australia chose a European combat system

  then there would inevitably be limitations placed on the coop-

  eration between the American and Australian submarine forces.

  Shackleton is emphatic that he did not see this as a threat, but as

  ‘an important reality check on my aspirations for the Australian

  submarine force in the future’.19

  At the time, the decision to override the evaluation process and

  buy an American combat system was almost universally opposed

  by Australian submariners. The most immediate reason for this

  was the delay involved in getting the new combat system onto the

  submarines. In late 2000 it was hoped that the replacement com-

  bat system would be at sea ‘during the 2004/05 financial year’.20

  This date was already compromised by the delay in the decision,

  but it was pushed into the distance by the choice of Raytheon.

  While STN Atlas had a system ready to install, choosing the Amer-

  ican solution meant beginning another development project with

  no more than a hoped-for delivery date. In the meantime the six

  submarines had to make do with several variations of the original

  Rockwell system and the augmented ‘fast-track’ system, none of

  which offered a significant improvement on the updated Oberon

  combat system.21 For those who had seen the STN Atlas system

  in action on the Israeli submarine this was a bitter pill.

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  Peter Sinclair recalls:

  I went back to the squadron immediately after [the decision]

  to be squadron commander and I have to say that we

  struggled for six months to convince the entire submarine

  arm that we were doing the right thing by selecting the

  system from the United States and going into another

  development program . . . By this time they had without a

  doubt a fantastic platform, but they were let down by the

  combat system selection . . . It’s incredible to think that we

  were pressured that greatly by the US to put a submarine to

  sea that still to this day hasn’t got a proper combat system.

  For John Dikkenberg it was a mistake to embark on another devel-

  opment project when the German combat system could do 90 per

  cent of what was wanted without modification. Peter Hatcher

  agrees, saying: ‘Of course they’d have been far better off buying

  the German Atlas combat system – a proven system tailored for

  a conventional submarine – but the Americans managed to con

  them on the security business.’

  However, the arguments are by no means one-way, and many

  people closely involved in the project now argue that the deci-

  sion to buy the American combat system was correct. The central

  planks of the case are the value of the American alliance for the

  navy and the submarine force in particular, the advantages of par-

  ticipating in what has become a continually evolving combat sys-

  tem development program, and the te
chnical merits of the system

  that has been developed.

  David Shackleton sees events since early 2000 as justifying his

  decision:

  I guess the strategic outcome I hoped for is that there is an

  extremely tight working relationship now between the RAN

  and the USN. We have Australian submariners inside the

  American tent. And you shouldn’t underestimate just how

  closeted the submarine world is. I mean, if you talk about

  security, these guys are paranoid! So to let anybody in is an

  amazing feat on its own and we now put Australian

  submariners and American submariners together on

  commanding officers qualifying courses . . .

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  So the degree of sharing now is just extraordinary and I

  just don’t see how we could ever have reached that had we

  gone with a European solution. The technology might have

  worked, it might have done most of what we wanted, but I

  simply don’t think that the rapport that we have with the US

  navy could have happened – and it’s not a father-son

  relationship, it’s much more of a brother-brother.22

  The decision to buy American rather than German paved the way

  for a formal agreement on cooperation on all submarine-related

  matters, which was signed in Washington on 10 September 2001.

  Admiral Phil Davis analysed the agreement and its consequences

  from the American perspective:

  Shackleton recognised that the relationship begun between

  the chiefs of the navies in Chalmers’ time needed to be kept

  going and he felt that this way of doing business should be

  codified and formalised. This would make sure that its future

  did not depend just on the personal relationships at any

  particular time. Shackleton was responsible for the

  agreement between Australia and the USA which meant that

  on submarines we were so closely bound together. It was

  signed in the Pentagon the day before the attack on the

  World Trade Center. It put in writing the commitment of

  unqualified support, but it went far beyond that to take

  down all the barriers between the submariners of the two

  navies and now they do everything together . . .

  It was the personal involvement of Shackleton that led

  Australia to get the US combat system and it was because of

  the commitment that the US was locked into that meant that

  it would be committed to support it. It was not like buying

  from a commercial vendor and it meant that Australia would

  be able to stay up with advances in technology, which it

  could not afford to do buying commercially.23

  The decision to buy an American combat system meant the begin-

  ning of a new development project, although many lessons had

  been learned from the failed Rockwell system and the project fol-

  lowed a very different path. Critically, the project was run as a

  joint venture between the Australian and American navies, with

  the Commonwealth as prime contractor, Raytheon and General

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  Dynamics as contractors to the US Navy and DSTO’s submarine

  combat system team playing a central role.

  As the Americans did not have a complete system that met Aus-

  tralia’s requirements, the initial plan was to use the tactical and fire

  control elements of the American system and the STN Atlas sonar

  solution with an interface to the existing sonar arrays. However,

  the total cost was beyond the available budget, so a cheaper but

  less effective option was developed using the sonar component of

  the combat system augmentation program. Bob Clark comments

  that: ‘We should have changed the name of the project at that time

  from Replacement Combat System to something less grand as we

  really only replaced tactical and fire control and augmented the

  sonar.’24

  The tactical and fire control was developed from the Raytheon

  CCS Mk2 system, but even though this had significantly advanced

  from that presented to the original selection process, ‘it was still

  not what our operators would expect in a new system and would

  need significant change to get it to do what we wanted’.25 How-

  ever, given the delays in the decision on the replacement combat

  system and the increasing difficulty in maintaining the original and

  augmented systems on the submarines, it was decided to accept

  the minimally changed Raytheon system on the basis that it was

  capable of rapid and continuing improvement.

  However, soon after this decision the US Navy dramatically

  changed its approach to combat system development and largely

  abandoned Raytheon’s CCS Mk2. Its new architecture was based

  on commercial products with an open systems framework to allow

  for continual technological improvements and software updates.

  Australia joined this program as a joint development partner with

  the US Navy so that the new Collins combat system will be based

  on that developed for all American submarines, but adapted to

  suit Australian requirements.

  The unique Collins combination of sonar arrays and its small

  crew means that the total combat system architecture is necessarily

  unique for Australian requirements and requires numerous spe-

  cially designed linkages and interfaces. Australia became respon-

  sible for developing the system’s architecture, providing a design

  approval authority and managing systems integration. Support-

  ers of the decision to go with the Americans point out that this

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  provides more opportunities for Australian industry participation

  than would have been likely with the Germans.

  The new combat system has developed greatly from the pro-

  posal submitted by Raytheon in 2000, taking on many of the

  characteristics of the system that was envisaged at the SWSC in

  the early 1980s. The technology is now available for an integrated

  system with multi-function consoles and other features that were

  advanced in the 1980s but are now mainstream. The system is

  an open system architecture using mainly commercial equipment

  and operating systems, making it flexible and simple to upgrade.26

  Tony Smith of Raytheon points out that ‘the US Navy will want

  upgrades so Australia will get them too, with the only extra cost

  being to add things that are unique for the Australian submarines’.

  Significantly Peter Briggs, who initially strongly opposed the

  decision to overturn the combat system evaluation, now agrees

  that ‘it was probably the right strategic call to go with the Ameri-

  can combat system’, although he adds the caveat that ‘it has cost

  us tens if not hundreds of millions more, injected several years’

  delay and required a high risk developmental project to achieve a

  system that is still less capable than the STN’.

  The replacement combat system was installed on Waller dur-

  ing 2006 and the evolving system wi
ll be progressively installed

  on all the submarines by 2010. The mechanical problems of the

  submarines have long been resolved and with the new combat

  system they will finally be able to perform at the level envisaged

  by the planners in the early 1980s.

  C H A P T E R 26

  ‘We’ll do it and get rid of the buggers’:

  Kockums, ASC and Electric Boat

  The Coalition government came to office in 1996 committed to a

  policy of selling government businesses, and ASC was high on the

  lists of businesses to be sold. Yet in 2000 the government took total

  control of ASC by buying Kockums’ 49 per cent shareholding.

  This situation arose from the complex contractual relationships

  between ASC, Kockums and the Commonwealth, the reappear-

  ance of the German submarine builders HDW in the Collins story

  as the new owners of Kockums, and the decision of the navy and

  the capability team to look to the United States for help with the

  submarines.

  With the end of the Cold War and the decline in submarine

  orders from the major Western navies, a rationalisation of the sub-

  marine industry was inevitable. Kockums approached both French

  and German submarine builders with suggestions of collabora-

  tion. Initially HDW spurned Kockums’ approaches, but when it

  appeared that Kockums might align with the French to make a

  powerful competitor, and was also making headway in the com-

  petition to provide submarines for South Korea, HDW made a

  successful offer for Kockums.1

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  The takeover of Kockums by HDW was completed in Septem-

  ber 1999, immediately raising the question of the future of

  Kockums’ shareholding in ASC. Tomy Hjorth, the chairman

  of ASC, felt the obvious buyer was HDW, as he believed a

  Swedish/German/Australian link could be a powerful force in con-

  ventional submarines. Hjorth says that when a delegation from

  HDW came out to Australia to look at ASC, their reaction was

  that they were doubtful about the business but were prepared to

  buy Kockums’ shares.

  However, Peter Briggs recommended to the government that

  HDW should not be allowed to buy the shares and that they should

  be acquired by the Commonwealth. Briggs judged that the own-

  ership structure of ASC was a major cause of the project’s prob-