Parliamentary transcripts [Archive]

Mercator

12-02-10, 10:32 AM

Progress in Afghanistan? The CDF seems to think so:

Senator TROOD—CDF, I have several matters that I want to raise in relation to your statement. The first is
Afghanistan and your assessment that the tide is turning as you see it. I am a little surprised about this because
most of the material I read, which of course is only the material in the public domain, suggests that things still
remain very difficult there. The casualties, deaths and injuries compared to last year have risen significantly.
President Karzai has yet to confirm a government. The Taliban has moved its forces from the south and now
occupies a large section to the north as I understand it, strategically. The overall outlook from some of the
analyses that I have seen from military and civilian people in the United States seems to me to be pessimistic
rather than optimistic. I am just wondering the source of your cautious optimism?

Is it the result of the view you have reached that there is now in place a strategy which you think represents
a sound basis of going forward—in other words, a prospective expectation about Afghanistan? Or does it
reflect some results on the ground of which I am unaware? There may be things you do not want to talk to us
about, but I would be interested in the basis of your assessment because it seems to be contrary to most of the
material that is in the public domain on this matter.

Air Chief Marshal Houston—Thank you for that question. If we go back to the middle of last year, Dr
Gates appointed General McChrystal to command the ISAF coalition. One of the first things that General
McChrystal was tasked with was to do a full-blown assessment of the circumstances on the ground. Out of that
came an approach, I will call it the McChrystal approach, which has been embraced by both the President of
the United States and the Secretary General of NATO. This is a fully integrated military-civilian strategy
which has at its centre a proper counterinsurgency approach to the business of fighting the campaign in
Afghanistan. Fundamentally, I think General McChrystal has been able to enunciate and articulate what is
required in terms of the strategy on the ground in Afghanistan. His campaign strategy, I think, is a very good
one. I think he has a very clear idea of how he needs to lead the coalition and, importantly, I think the strategy
has been fully resourced. In the past we have always been dealing with what I would call an economy of force
operation, where there simply were not enough soldiers on the ground to achieve any form of effective
counterinsurgency operations.

Going back to last year, you will recall that when he came to office President Obama announced an increase
in American forces of 30,000. That has been followed up with his announcement at West Point in December of
a further increase of another 30,000 troops on top of that, so that is 60,000. In addition to that, NATO has
increased force levels through last year, and there will be another 7,000 as we look forward—so about 37,000
coalition troops. In addition to that, what we are seeing in prospect in the coming 12 months is another 50,000
or so Afghani national security force personnel trained for operations in Afghanistan. So we now have the
resources starting to be put in place.

I am confident that we are headed in absolutely the right direction. We have the right strategy; we have the
right leader in General McChrystal and his major subordinate commander, General Rodriguez; and we have
the resources being put in place to break the back of the insurgency in Afghanistan. It is a very focused
campaign. I think you will see a lot of activity in the south in the coming weeks which will be aimed at the
centre of gravity of the Taliban insurgency. I am very confident that we will start to see a turnaround on the
ground in Afghanistan.

The other thing is that I think the coalition is engaging Pakistan in a much more constructive way than we
have seen in the past. As you would be aware, the Pakistanis have also been very active in working against
dissident elements within their society. We saw the operation in the Swat valley; we have seen operations into
Waziristan. I think that as we go forward things are looking better than they have in the past.

Senator TROOD—You are clearly confident that the right strategic approach is now in place, but we have
yet to see any, shall we say, comforting results from that strategic approach. You are expecting that there will
be some results from it in the near future, but it has yet to yield the kinds of results that you are expecting it to
yield.

Air Chief Marshal Houston—You are talking in terms of results. If you have a look at what is happening
on the ground in Afghanistan, I think you will see that good things are happening. If you have a look in our
province, you will see that we are making substantial progress. A large part of General McChrystal’s
counterinsurgency approach is to protect the population and work on Afghanising the security forces. In
Oruzgan, you see us expanding the area that we dominate in and that, as we expand, that ground is being held
by the Afghan National Army people that we mentor and train with our Dutch colleagues. As we go forward, I
would anticipate that the Afghan National Army, in particular, and the Afghan National Police will get more
and more capable and more and more proficient and will be able to take over the business of securing
Afghanistan. We are starting to see the genesis of that in our own province. The people that we are mentoring
and training are coming along quite well and, over a period of time, after we have trained them, they will be
capable of independent operations in their own right.

Mercator

01-04-10, 03:45 AM

Tuesday's committee transcript is now up:

JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE Defence Subcommittee - 30/03/2010 - Department of Defence annual report 2008-09

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommjnt%2F1 2801%2F0001%22

Mercator

01-04-10, 03:57 AM

Classic Hornets:

Air Vice Marshal Thorne —The centre barrel program is largely complete. We have done seven of the planned 10 aircraft. Although at one stage we planned to do up to 49 centre barrels, we have been able to do some modelling and testing through DSTO and Air Force to confirm and be comfortable with safety factors around just doing 10 centre barrels. Through to a life of 2018 through 2020, we are quite confident that we will not need to do further centre barrel work for fatigue reasons. The reason we are quite confident about that is that, currently, our fleet leaders are at about 4½ thousand flying hours. If you compare that with the US, flying their A/B/C/D classic Hornets, they have about 61 per cent beyond 6,000 hours and about 12 percent beyond 8,000 hours, so we are well off that lead. There are some issues. I am talking fatigue now, and centre barrel was all about achieving life of type by dealing with fatigue. Hornet, because of the environment and whatnot, also encounters corrosion issues. There will need to be some further work done to address corrosion on the Super Hornet. We are investigating that at the moment. We can perhaps invest some of the savings from centre barrel in corrosion management on the classic Hornet to achieve 2020.

Mercator

01-04-10, 04:03 AM

JSF noise:

Air Vice Marshal Harvey —We did extensive testing in the US of the JSF to make sure we have a good fact based approach to the noise for the JSF. Based on that data, we looked at expected use at bases around Australia. The key outcome for the JSF is: if it is in afterburner for take-off it is noisier than the current generation aircraft but in the circuit and approach it is less noisy. So there are those effects as well.

Mercator

01-04-10, 04:15 AM

Wedgetail:

Mr King —We have made good progress on the project. It is late—49 months late. In summary we have taken initial delivery of the aircraft, which has allowed the commencement of flight crew training. The delivery of the mission capability is actually triggered by what we are calling initial acceptance. We are expecting initial acceptance in late April, early May. Boeing is forecasting final acceptance in December. We are not as comfortable as Boeing about that date but we are not talking years; we are talking months. The final acceptance relates to electronic support measure acceptance, so between initial acceptance and final acceptance is the remaining piece of the capability that needs to be corrected or brought up to the final operational state.

I think the end is in sight. We are certainly pleased to get the first two aircraft back here and operating with a flight crew. Improvements are going on all the time with system stability, radar performance and so on. That is the summary of it. We have made a commercial settlement with Boeing on matters relating to the late delivery and also matters that I think I brought to this committee’s attention, which was a shortfall in one area of radar performance and coming to an agreement for compensation for that but also a structure so that over time that capability can be brought up to the standard we had hoped in the first instance.

The point was: we had an independent group, Lincoln Laboratory from the US, look at that radar. They advised us two things which were very important: one was that the radar was a sound basis for moving forward; and the second was that existing technology could not deliver that element of capability at this time. So our compensation is one to allow us over time to introduce that technology and get that capability; in fact, we are hopeful it will even improve the capability beyond the original specification.

Mercator

01-04-10, 04:26 AM

CHAIR —I make the observation that the arrival of the four into Amberley just a couple of days ago received a lot of very positive popular news coverage and support. I notice the local mayor, the Mayor of Ipswich, who has previously been asked about noise problems, simply refers to it as the ‘sound of freedom’

Mr FITZGIBBON —That does wear thin for some people.

CHAIR —He is in Ipswich.

What are you trying to say Mr. Chairman?

Milne Bay

01-04-10, 04:40 AM

Some interesting tid-bits:

Mr BALDWIN —But, as I understand it, with the Super Hornet it was not a black box upgrade between block 1 and block 2; it was more an engineering upgrade and that is why the retrofitting back to block 1 of the equipment in block 2 cannot occur.
Air Vice Marshal Thorne —That is true. You need to understand that the block 1 to block 2 Super Hornet was not representative of what normally happens with air combat fleets either. The introduction of the Super Hornet was a unique program in that, through an ECP process, essentially they increased the size of the aircraft by 30 per cent and increased its payload, range and a whole range of things. To some extent that was block 1 and then the upgrade to block 2 was a fairly radical refit on that. In fact, block 2 largely took the avionics fit from the unsuccessful Boeing JSF bid and introduced that to the Super Hornet. It was not really representative of the kinds of block upgrades that you will see. In fact, the future with Super Hornet will be very similar to what Air Vice Marshal Harvey just described: each two years we would expect to see a mainly software dump go into the aircraft and possibly every three or four years some minor hardware changes, but in the main the same sort of philosophy.
MRH90
CHAIR —We will take the opportunity here, as I mentioned earlier, while General Fraser is here, to raise other matters in respect of helicopters. So, if there are no more questions on the Tiger, we will go to the MRH90. I will kick off. I am sure you are familiar with the press coverage a month or two ago. There is an article I have in front of me from the Sunday Age saying ‘Defence’s new choppers are duds’. The first sentence says:
AN INTERNAL German army report has revealed serious deficiencies in the European-designed helicopter that will replace Australia’s military helicopter fleet in a $4.2 billion deal.
What can you tell us about that?
Mr FITZGIBBON —You are allowed to name the journalist, Mr Chair!
CHAIR —Well, the reputable paper that it is—a record of history, the Sunday Age—it was Lindsay Murdoch.
Major Gen. Fraser —The MRH helicopter has excellent potential from what we have seen to this point—and the program is about 20 per cent complete. We have accepted 11 aircraft, six of those in the current financial year. So in your annual report period we had accepted five; we have accepted six this current financial year. Five of those are in the intermediate level, with a next level of software load in particular that addressed some concerns we have had with it. It is true that we have not achieved the flying rate with this aircraft that we would have liked. The aircraft is still developmental, and some of the systems are portraying that developmental status. But then you match that with the demonstrated performance on the first-of-class flight trials. For example, last year, where we embarked a helicopter on a ship, its fly-by-wire controllability of this new technology gave it a wind envelope that was double the size of what we are currently using for Army’s operations and against Sea King. So it has double the wind envelope of the aircraft that it is replacing—not the pitch-and-roll limits but double the wind envelope. So the controllability was outstanding. But there are some system reliability issues that we are continuing to work through with the contractor. As to some of the issues raised in that media reporting, we share German’s concerns, and we are taking action with the contractor and the multiple organisations that make up NATO helicopter industries to get these addressed.
CHAIR —Presumably we are in contact with our colleagues in the German defence force, who would have precisely the same interests.
Major Gen. Fraser —We are indeed. We rely on Germany to provide us a base level of certification. There are many countries that make up the certification. Some of the workload is shared in order to get it completed in the fastest possible means. Germany in this case carries the baseline certification requirements. We have been in communication with them. For Australian purposes that then gets passed through the French DGA, the DMO equivalent in France, who provided us an outstanding level of service to introduce Tiger and assisting us similarly with the introduction of the MRH into service. Then we bring it to Australia for certification. We have done some of the testing ourselves on the Australian-unique parts—there is a very small amount in MRH that is Australian-unique; most of it is consistent with the German baseline aircraft. We have that tested and ready to go, but we are not on schedule to achieve in the middle of this year the Navy milestone. We will complete it by the end of this year, though.
CHAIR —On the outstanding issues that have been identified in those German studies, can you give the committee some information about the magnitude of the problems, the complexity of the fix? Saying that ‘there are problems’ can range across a raft of degrees of difficulty from ‘easily attended to’ to quite complex matters that could require the creation of new materials, new technologies, new integration systems. What are we looking at?
Major Gen. Fraser —The primary one of those would be the floor. We had concerns about that floor in 2008. We shared that information with Germany and other potential users at that point in time. So we require industry to take action. We have indicated that that is unacceptable for Australian requirements. How they got there with that was that the aircraft was reduced in weight in order to increase performance and, in its early design stages, the floor was designed too thinly. Whilst it is strong enough to work, it deforms. So we are requiring them to improve it for the combat status of the aircraft.
Some other areas do pose some technical challenges for us and for industry in particular to work through. I do not see any of those preventing us from meeting the navy’s requirements this year for the first flight of sea. They are more an issue for us operating on procedural issues with army in particular next year. The major milestone for army is next year. There are things like the door gun mounts and where they are physically located. The majority of them are work related issues as opposed to technical challenges. But we should not underestimate the engineering challenges that are there. If I take the engine performance, for example, the engine performance and lifting characteristics have been outstanding—1,000 pounds above what were forecast, which is 400 kilograms above what was forecast. Yet we will rectify an engineering or technical issue that will arise in the developmental aircraft and then something else will arise. That is the nature of it at about this 20 per cent point. We have proven and the contractors have proven that with Tiger than they can rectify these and achieve the targets. So we are confident that they have the right approach. We just need to make sure that they keep focused on this and rectify them.
CHAIR —Is the tailgate floor strength issue being rectified by using a different material altogether or simply strengthening what is there?
Major Gen. Fraser —It was a redesign. We trialled a new floor just recently. Over the last two weeks, we have trialled a new fit floor. We consider that unacceptable. It does not meet our requirements, so there is more work to be done. All the helicopter work is a combination of keeping the weight down as much as you possibly can. As you have seen in Afghanistan, the Chinook has taken on a major role for troop carrying because it performs so well above 5,000 feet—that 5,000 feet to 10,000 feet region—particularly at the low speeds use for landings and takeoffs in a high dust environment, where the power margins are really needed. What gives us confidence with the MRH90 in particular is that this engine is performing exceptionally well in the UK Apaches at the higher level compared to some different engine performance in some other craft. The aircraft performance is good in that sense, but we still need to keep the weight down as much as possible so that they can undertake the operations that we expect them to do in the future.
CHAIR —Will there be retrofit issues for us?
Major Gen. Fraser —I expect that there will be some retrofit—on the floor in particular. There will be another floor yet that will need to be modified. Our position that there are 529 aircraft ordered at the moment. Our issue with industry is, ‘Fix it now, roll it out as fast as you can and that will save you all the grief from all future customers.’

Mercator

01-04-10, 04:40 AM

Jltv:

mr baldwin —okay. Just going back to the jltv, how disadvantaged do you think the australian defence industry is given that the us has had a massive head start and you are expecting vehicles to be delivered in the third quarter of this year?

Vice adm. Tripovich —test vehicles for us to test?

Mr baldwin —yes. How disadvantaged do you think australian industry will be in catching up?

Mr king —it may be better for me to comment on that a little bit. We need to provide some advice to the minister, clearly, but we have had a look at a number of things. We have been more greatly informed on the manufactured and supported in australia option. It took longer because there was a large number of submissions of high calibre. We think there are some very serious options there, which is excellent for australia. We are also now aware that there are changes in america from just the broad number of vehicles that are being produced, and the jltv intention after the technology demonstration phase is actually to re-tender. That is quite interesting. They are pursuing that, of course, because they are looking for something like 60,000 vehicles. So, although they have developed these three vehicle streams under the technology development stream, they will re-tender and it is possible that another manufacturer can also come into the emd phase. The manufactured and supported in australia options we have—and i obviously cannot go too far down that path—also represented different levels of maturity.

What is now happening is that, depending on the vehicles that are chosen to go forward in the jltv and the emd phase and depending on which vehicles are chosen in the manufactured and supported in australia phase, there is the potential for those to line up much more closely than we first anticipated. That should provide—as i said, it depends on choices that are made—a far closer, more aligned program than we first anticipated.

Vice adm. Tripovich —i think that might also give you a level of assurance, perhaps, or comfort that, if we just follow the jltv program, around the middle of the year they will make a decision about progressing to the emd phase and, as mr king said, they will re-tender. A whole bunch of new companies may come in to pick up the requirements that we get from this test development phase and build brand new prototypes that might look nothing like the ones that we did the original work on. And around middle to late 2013-ish is when they expect to get to the end of the emd phase to make a choice on the vehicle to buy. So if you take that as one stream, quite different but parallel, if the government proceeds with the msa australian version, there is a peg in the sand down here around 2013-14 where america will have got to the end of its development and will go: ‘this is our vehicle.’ so, if you like, that is a choice down here and that is a time line for the manufacture and support in australia to also achieve some level of development so that the government of the day could make a comparison between what australia is able to produce and what the american line produces. In around 2013-14 they will have a very good idea alternative to look at, provided the msa can develop a vehicle that meets the requirements clearly.

Mercator

01-04-10, 04:57 AM

Major Gen. Fraser —The armed reconnaissance helicopter project is about 80 per cent complete at this point. We have accepted 17 aircraft and 10 of those are in the mature configuration. The plan is to have all aircraft accepted either at the end of this year or early next year. Some will undergo a retrofit program, but, importantly, we achieved the end of September milestone, referred to in last year’s annual report, where they were ready for operational test and evaluation, which means the aircraft were then migrated into the operational unit to allow then to conduct the collective training—the multiple aircraft type training—and develop their war-fighting skills.

CHAIR —So the weapons integration and everything else has gone well?

Major Gen. Fraser —The weapons have been excellent; they are all certified. I think we have discussed the Hellfire previously. I recall from your visit to Oakey last year that we looked at the simulator and the weapons systems in Tiger. The effectiveness, in particular, of the integration of the US Hellfire system into Tiger with an effective range out to eight kilometres is exceptionally accurate by day and by night. The cannon are performing exceptionally well. We have fired 19 Hellfires to this point.

CHAIR —In terms of operational capability, when do we anticipate that we will have full operational capability?

Major Gen. Fraser —We are approaching a critical point here now where DMO is making a recommendation that we have achieved deployable troop capability for a benign environment—and I need to stress that—so there will be capability. That will go to Chief of Army to agree or not agree and to enable him to make his position soon. The objective is to then build up the operational capability, the war fighting status, gradually as we continue to develop aircraft and these systems.

CHAIR —In the configuration that we have acquired in that configuration, with appropriate training of crews will they be able to be deployed to higher threat environments or does that require additional add-ons?

Major Gen. Fraser —Some additional work is being done at the moment particularly on the helmet-mounted sight and display. We have done the testing on that and it has proven to be very capable. They will start training on those in about a month’s time. We will train the trainers and then train the crews in particular for the night operations. As you would understand, much of the work over there is by night. That new helmet-mounted sight and display, once integrated, will provide the full capability.

One of the areas that we would still like some work to be done is in improving the logistics support for the aircraft. We have done the certification and the aircraft is working well but we would like the logistics supply to increase above what we are currently doing, and that is where we are working at the moment.

CHAIR —Are we continuing to work with the French and the Germans just to see how their variants are going, and also in terms of the use of the helicopter? In many respects it is a new capability for the ADF.

Major Gen. Fraser —We are, Chair. We are working very closely with the French in particular. They have deployed three aircraft across to Afghanistan and you might have seen the media reporting on those. They are performing exceptionally well according to that reporting, and Army has a program to gain appropriate observation and passage of information on those lessons, and we in DMO through the technical side are also gaining that information on the aircraft themselves. There are a couple of contractors in theatre to assist the French with the aircraft and that work is being passed back through the contractor.

Mr ROBERT —How long have the Tigers—the French—been in theatre?

Major Gen. Fraser —The French have been there since August last year.

Mr ROBERT —What have we learned from that?

Major Gen. Fraser —That the weapon system in particular is exceptionally capable and that the sighting system, more importantly, enables them to observe in its reconnaissance mode—and Australia has bought an armed reconnaissance helicopter so a lot of it is in reconnaissance mode, and that management of information is very important—and those sensors have worked particularly well.

As to the support of it, the reliability of some elements of it has been much better than were forecast. Some others elements still need some work. It is still a new aircraft, relatively, in testing but the French are exceptionally pleased and I think, overall, we are all pleased with the performance of Tiger on operations in Afghanistan.

Mercator

01-04-10, 05:34 AM

Fourth AWD (?):

Mr BALDWIN —When does it become financially unviable to pick up a fourth Air Warfare Destroyer?

Mr King —We have not done any particular costing work on that. One of the substantial drivers in a fourth Air Warfare Destroyer would be the cost of the fourth Aegis system from America. They are very expensive. America has just announced it is going to restart its DDG 51 construction, and that would lead to them buying more Aegis combat systems. As our fourth one at that time would have been the very last Aegis after a break, it would have been potentially quite expensive. But it is possible now that the Americans will restart the Aegis production line the costs of that will come down. On the other side, you start to introduce inefficiency on the ship construction side of it. We have not done any detailed costing work on that for some time.

Mr BALDWIN —What is the time line—is it in three months, six months, 12 months or two years when you get to the point where buying a fourth Air Warfare Destroyer comes at a stand-alone cost rather than picking up the financial advantage of the other three?

Mr King —I have not really analysed it, but I would think we still have a couple of years probably because we are still ramping up into the fabrication phase and we will be delivering these ships right through till 2018. I cannot give you a firm date, but my sense is there is still opportunity.

buglerbilly

01-04-10, 05:41 AM

Some VERY interesting snippets in there Merc............thanks for that!

Mercator

01-04-10, 06:05 AM

Still got a third to go, but I'm intermittently attempting to do real work.

Mercator

01-04-10, 06:18 AM

Overall recruiting:

Air Chief Marshal Houston —In terms of recruitment and retention I think things are going very well. Currently, we have 57,212 people in the Australian Defence Force. Our long-term target, as you know, is 57,800 and, to a large extent, we are overachieving in terms of authorised funded strength. Our recruitment has been very successful. Year-to-date recruitment is running, essentially, at 96 per cent. Our target, as at 1 February, was 4,288. We achieved 4,113, by 1 February, which is 96 per cent of the target. Just to give you a feel for how that is compared to the past, it was 86 per cent at the same time last year. So that is a substantial improvement in recruiting performance.

The number of inquiries in our recruitment process is up 15.3 per cent. The number of applications is up 14.8 per cent and we have the lowest separation rate that we have had for years. It is very pleasing indeed that Air Force is running at an all-time record of 5.1 per cent separation rate. That compares to 6.9 per cent this time last year. Army is running at 8.1 per cent, compared to 10.6 per cent this time last year and Navy has had a dramatic turnaround, at 8.6 per cent, as compared to 11 per cent last year.

Overall, our separation rate is 7.5 per cent. If you go back to where we were in March 2007, we are running now four per cent lower than we were then because at that stage our separation rate was 11.5 per cent. I would say that in terms of recruitment things have turned around quite well. Our retention is much better. Whilst I would say there are external factors that are probably assisting us, I think that the global financial crisis has probably assisted our circumstances but at the same time we are doing okay at the moment. Whilst we still have a number of critical employment categories, there has been a marked improvement in that area as well. I will not go into the detail of each category, but the trend is all in the right direction. I am very pleased with how we are going.

Mercator

01-04-10, 06:42 AM

That's it. It got pretty boring towards the end.

Gubler, A.

01-04-10, 07:41 AM

Quote CDF "The trend is in the right direction..." What? The ADF can only meet its recruitment and retention requirements when there is a massive global economic downturn? Since these tend to happen one out of every 10 years what about the other nine?

battlensign

01-04-10, 02:31 PM

Milne Bay

01-04-10, 11:06 PM

These comments concern me.......seems as though no-one in defence is even actively considering the issue. How can they then provide advice to government? This appears to place the impetus in the hands of politicians, and I don't like it because we all know what that means (plus side - Rann back in SA?).

Brett.

There has been some discussion previously on the old T5C of the possibility of using the AWD hull form along with AUSPAR as a substantial and much more capable Anzac replacement.
However, from this transcript it does look like a fourth AWD is a non event.
MB

Gubler, A.

02-04-10, 01:10 AM

These comments concern me.......seems as though no-one in defence is even actively considering the issue. How can they then provide advice to government? This appears to place the impetus in the hands of politicians, and I don't like it because we all know what that means (plus side - Rann back in SA?).

That's not the case and its not Warren King's job to consider new ships. King's job is to build them, its up to the Navy and Capability Development Group to specify what ships the Navy needs - and they want a 4th or more AWD - its then up to Cabinet to work our how much will actually be spent which in the end determines how big the fleet is.

battlensign

02-04-10, 07:21 AM

I fully accept your points in relation to the drivers in making determinations on desired force-structures. No one is suggesting that Warren King is 'the Guy' on this decision. However, whilst I am sure you have good reasons, on what basis would DMO's General Manager - Projects not be involved in at least some component of the decision? I can think of at least three areas of direct involvement/oversight.

1) Advice in relation to Project Risk Profiling (i.e How happy is Government with the project? Sufficient to have confidence in ordering a 4th?),

2) Industry Strategy (Alliance Partner Build Schedules)

3) Advice in relation to the business case for a 4th AWD (based on an assessment of the timings to achieve efficiencies).

The point I was trying to make was that all of the above information would appear to be necessary in making any decision on a 4th AWD. Surely Mr Kings ambit of responsibility would place him in a rather central position as the most appropriate person to turn to on some of these questions. Therefore, the fact that he is not even considering the issue would appear to a lay-person to be significant.

Brett.

Gubler, A.

02-04-10, 07:44 AM

Therefore, the fact that he is not even considering the issue would appear to a lay-person to be significant.

Youre just reading this into your viewpoint. The case for the fourth AWD was made a few years ago. It hasn't gone away despite being declined (by both LP/NP and ALP) at that time. But what has changed since then is the start of actually building them. So WK has a lot more on his hands than updating a plan that is in the Govt's back pocket. Nor has the plan slipped from the back pocket because when it comes to Governments those pockets are huge. Of course it hasn't been brought forward to something to consider again soon. Which is I think the one thing you can take from this discussion in estimates.

battlensign

02-04-10, 08:02 AM

Fair enough. I am very keen on the RAN getting a 4th AWD and it is entirely possible that I am letting that influence my analysis. You're right that the case for the extra AWD was probably done a while ago. I guess I just wish there were more visibility (public discussion/comments) on the matter. The absence of the discussion was my concern - but I am happy to see it is still being raised at jfadt.

Brett.

Gubler, A.

02-04-10, 08:14 AM

I'm not saying the 4th AWD is a goner. Just that it was considered before and declined. Not cancelled just not now. That now (the last time) was during the peak of the global financial crisis... As WK says with the USN keeping the AEGIS production line going the fourth or more AWD can always be reconsidered. Realistically for force generation and warfighting the RAN needs eight AWDs and eight ASF (Anti Submarine Frigate version of AWD) plus the 20 odd new corvette/frigate sized MRVs (Multi Role Vessels).

Mercator

02-06-10, 03:21 AM

The Hansard transcripts of the last three days of Senate Estimates are starting to dribble out:

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/s-news.htm

I don't have time to read these until the weekend, so if somebody else wants to start mining them for juicy nuggets, feel free.

Gubler, A.

02-06-10, 03:42 AM

The first upload (Monday to 1500) was mostly SRP and overhead announcements about deployments. There is some stuff in there about the early technology exploration projects and concept definition for SEA 1000. But not much.

ADMk2

02-06-10, 05:58 PM

More are up now, including the Chief of Army reading out a 2 page letter from the RSM of the Army, telling anecdotes about why our kit is so good. Basically RSM-A's position is that our kit is the best in the world, because no-one has told him to his face that our kit can't do the job...

So here we have a private with 12-18months service being confronted by the RSM-A and the Chief of Army. "G'day son, how's everything? Very good thanks sir. Food good? Yes sir. Kit good? Yes sir. How's the work? Good sir. Did you get paid recently? Yes sir."

There you go, Army can justifiably state that there is not a problem in the world. From it's view of what the world is... Except there IS a problem. Army's way of dealing with people who complain, is one of the biggest ones and leads into the kit problem. Should someone dare to comment openly to the Chief of the Defence force about a shit piece of kit, they've just made a CLM. What the hell are they expected to say without being put on a charge as soon as the bosses are out of sight? So they have RODUM's. These are of course ignored so frequently as to have become a joke. Even when DMO actually accepts them, there is the aforementioned "bundling together" of RODUM's because we can't have the reviewing officer being "too busy, loaded up with all these RODUM's..."

When kit issues ARE identified, Chief of Army issues an order that issued pouches etc MUST be worn. This is justified based on a Comcare decision in relation to potential liability should non-issue kit be utilised. Well why the hell is SOCOMD allowed a "kit allowance" to purchase whatever they want? Either the kit is good or it's not. If SOCOMD need something "fit for purpose" which is different to the rest of Army, why is such not chosen and issued according to Government and ADF procurement policy? Doesn't this create a potential OH&S liability? Why is each sub-unit given a budget specifically to acquire non-issue kit and how does Army manage this liability? Why the hell are boots immune from "non-standard issue kit" liability and yet a direction from Chief of Army exists AND authorises the purchase at one's own expense, of privately acquired non-issue boots? Is it impossible to injure feet and lower limbs?

This whole system has become a joke. It is so f*cked up, they don't even know how to fix it now or where even to start...

buglerbilly

03-06-10, 02:11 AM

Which is why having the former CEO of Medicare heading an investigation into RODUM's is a complete waste of time almost certainly................unless he reads comments here?

Raven22

03-06-10, 05:11 AM

Army's way of dealing with people who complain, is one of the biggest ones and leads into the kit problem. Should someone dare to comment openly to the Chief of the Defence force about a shit piece of kit, they've just made a CLM

Actually, the big brass is pretty receptive to criticism of kit and things to their face. There's never any real damage done to the complainee unless there are civilian press around. The problem is the big brass will nod his head, his adjutant will make a note of it, and then nothing will ever happen. I remember one of my diggers asked that we get one particular piece if kit, and the CDF promised us, using that word, that we would get that piece of kit. Its two years later and we still haven't got that piece of kit (didn't matter at the time though, we just asked the local Stryker battalion for a few, and they gave them to us. Gotta love the Yanks).

Its the same for the RODUM system. At the user level, the RODUM system is fine. The form is easy to fill out and submit. The fact that they collate them isn't much of an issue either, as long as they keep track of how many individual RODUMs that get submitted to give an accurate sense of scale. It's just the black hole they get put into where there is absolutely no feedback or action that is the broken part. Everybody in the loop seems like they want to make a difference, its just that the processes that need to be followed wont allow any action in a timeline that actually benefits anyone.

As for the whole inherant contradictions in the SCOPE ban, non issued boot list and SOCOMD being SOCOMD, the less said the better. The fact that defence is trying to comply with civilian norms is killing the army on so many levels.

Gubler, A.

04-06-10, 12:19 PM

Much of the Defence hearing at this estimates has been on combat clothing - and rightly so - but I've just scanned the rest of it and pulled a few snippets in relation to new capability acquistions:

AIR 5077: Warren King (DMO GM Projects): We have also started early engagement with CEA, an Australian SME, on [Wedgetail]. We have hopes for not just achieving the original technical specification on the radar but possibly exceeding it may be even earlier than we thought. It is promising, but, as you know, I am fairly cautious and we will take that one step at a time. I think that part of that process is very encouraging.

SEA 1448: Warren King (DMO GM Projects): On the antiship missile defence, that is the upgrade using the Australian indigenous radar on the Anzac ship class, I am pleased to be able to report that today we installed the new foremast successfully, which takes the new radar, and this afternoon we expect to install the aft mast.
The finally factory acceptance testing at CEA of their first operational system is completing at Fyshwick. We have been set back a couple of weeks. I do not think that is surprising for a highly technical project like this. We have got I think until 23 July to get it shipped anyway to not impact the program at all. On balance, I am comfortable that we will make that delivery.
Of course, that goes through the one plus seven strategy then, which is we install it in the first ship, trial it and if that is successful we will then go back to the government and ask for the additional money required to install it in the remaining seven ships. I think as I have reported before, that program will develop a worldclass affordable lightweight phased array radar that is second to none in the world.

LAND 121/4: Dr Gumly (DMO CEO) As you are aware, we have the JLTV option, which is between three American manufacturers in the United States. We did a market test on the manufacture and support of an Australian option, which had to be at least 50 per cent Australian value added in this country. Twelve or 13 people responded. We got that down to a final three, and those three are all very competitive with each other. Certainly the Thales is one of those three, but there are also two other very competitive options.
There is no evidence that the Hawkei fits the MIO specification at this stage. There is a lot of marketing from that particular company, and I accept that; however, there are other options out there, and one of the principles of government procurement is government neutrality, which we have followed in this case.
VADM Tripovich (CMD CDG): You asked about the other two companies. They are offering vehicles based on existing designs. General Dynamics Land Systems is offering a vehicle based on their MOWAG Eagle IV vehicle, which is already in production. They will be proposing a number of changes to it to meet our specific requirements. Force Protection Europe is offering the Ocelot vehicle, which is already in existence and is part of a UK Ministry of Defence tender for their light protected patrol vehicle program. As the managing director of Thales said in a recent news article on the weekend, their vehicle is highly developmental. There are lots of good signs and it is well down the path, but each of them offers their own. Importantly, the requirements for this vehicle are different from the requirements for Bushmaster.
It is much smaller, so there are different challenges for them to meet to meet the blast shock protection and the like. What we are doing is appropriate to second pass activities. We are making a modest investment, which is exactly what we should be doing. It would be a grave mistake for us to sole source at this stage. Each of those three and the joint light tactical vehicle program carry all their own risks, which we are carefully investigating so we truly know the risks, costs and schedule implications of all of those options each time we go to government.

Gubler, A.

04-06-10, 12:21 PM

Now if HMAS Perth has had its new masts fitted down at Henderson this begs the question why hasn't one of our Sandgropper friends gone down there to take a photo of it!

The picture on Google Maps is a bit out of date but Henderson looks like a busy place...

buglerbilly

04-06-10, 01:22 PM

The picture on Google Maps is a bit out of date but Henderson looks like a busy place...

There is a lot of Gorgon and other Project activity down there and there will be even more later this year and for the next 5-10 years..............at least!

ADMk2

14-06-10, 08:56 AM

Its the same for the RODUM system. At the user level, the RODUM system is fine. The form is easy to fill out and submit. The fact that they collate them isn't much of an issue either, as long as they keep track of how many individual RODUMs that get submitted to give an accurate sense of scale. It's just the black hole they get put into where there is absolutely no feedback or action that is the broken part. Everybody in the loop seems like they want to make a difference, its just that the processes that need to be followed wont allow any action in a timeline that actually benefits anyone.

just reading through the transcript from 1 June 2010, on a day off. On page 72, Senator Johnson is asking Brig Horrocks, about the RODUM's in relation to MCBAS. Only 28 RODUM's apparently. Until one looks at the fine print. That's 28x "consolidated" RODUM's, involving 716x complaints about the body armour in a single year....

Raven22

14-06-10, 10:55 AM

I know one of the CTs a few of my colleagues worked with in Afghan put in a RODUM for each soldier about the MCBAS for every single patrol they conducted. As part of their post-patrol admin they would each fill out a new RODUM for submission, then go off and ice their bruised shoulders. I wonder how many RODUMs that would equal? It was an infantry lead CT though. The paperwork probably never left the clerks desk...

Riđđu

11-11-10, 09:14 AM

Here´s a French National Assembly report: http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/13/budget/plf2011/b2857-tIII-a11.asp#P2516_131301

Just go to page 56 to see tables concerning equipment availability figures. Here are some underachievers: Tiger helicopter 40%, Puma and Cougar 49%, Super étendard modernisé 50%, Lynx 39%, nuclear attack submarines 52%..:pistachios

buglerbilly

11-11-10, 12:36 PM

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

What You Can Learn Reading Parliamentary Reports

Posted by Christina Mackenzie at 11/10/2010 9:04 PM CST

While reading a rather fastidious word-by-word and blow-by-blow account of a parliamentary hearing which took place on October 20 in preparation of the 2011 defense budget with the director of the DGA French procurement agency Laurent Collet-Billon in the hot seat, I discovered a few interesting tit-bits which I deliver to you pell-mell:

“The Franco-German relationship where armaments is concerned is somewhat flat. An impulsion group was set up in September at the request of both defense ministers to try and relaunch bilateral cooperation; the openings with Germany unfortunately remain small at this stage ... We hear talk of a drop [in the German procurement budget] of €8 to €9 billion between now and 2014; if this is the case, the already slender margins of Franco-German cooperation in this field are probably not going to improve ... . We have undertaken a similar relaunching of our cooperation with Italy which is the country with which we have the greatest number of projects currently underway...”

“The process of replacing the current director of the European Defense Agency should be complete by the end of the year; the new director will have to give new dynamism [to the agency].

Regarding the discussions on the A400M which were successfully concluded on November 5, Collet-Billon said: “There is a delicate technical point concerning the flight management systems (FMS) made by Thales. Airbus and Thales are proposing a solution which would increase the number of standards of the aircraft ... . Contractual financial dispositions, taking the form of retention of payments, are under negotiation in order to guarantee that the manufacturer will upgrade all the aircraft to the successive standards ... . The first delivery of an A400M to the French air force is scheduled for 2013 at the first operational standard. The standards will then move up until 2018; the last standards will concern functions specifically requested by the Luftwaffe [German air force].”

“We are paying extremely close attention to the development of rotary-wing drones which would be remarkable tools to extend our navy's range of action, for example for surveillance of the waters off Somalia.”

“We are actively working with our British counterparts on the project of a second aircraft carrier. At the same time, work on a purely national solution are continuing ... we are studying all options with no a priori.”

“The Scorpion program has been frozen, it has not been cancelled. This program is a major piece of the modernization which the army needs. [The latter] has a particularly pressing need to replace the VAB armored vehicle with the VBMR multirole armored vehicle. This replacement cannot be put off given the state of the VAB fleet ... . The solution we are seeking is a [light] vehicle, around the 20-ton mark, which is all-terrain and would have a maximum unit cost of less than €1 million for the basic version. Our current fleet of armored vehicles is around 3,000. We will need at least as many in the future which is why we are aiming at this kind of unit price.”

Mercator

23-02-11, 08:09 AM

Senate estimates are on today and tomorrow. Transcripts will become available in a few days I imagine.

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/s-news.htm

Mercator

02-03-11, 02:08 AM

The PDF version of the first day of hearings is now available. Some excerpts will follow as I plough through it.

Mercator

02-03-11, 02:13 AM

Amphibious vessels and general naval readiness

AVM Houston: ... Another issue in which I fully supported the approach of the Chief of the Navy was his decision late last year to place both the Australian ships Kanimbla and Menoora in operational pause. He did so on the advice of the Seaworthiness Board, which is an independent capability and quality assurance audit initiative commissioned by the Chief of Navy on 17 June last year. That board provided the Chief of Navy with an objective and independent health check on the material condition of the vessels. They have been in service with the RAN since the late 1990s, after originally being commissioned in the US Navy in 1971, and have been working extremely hard. I fully support the decisive intervention of the Chief of Navy, who demonstrated courage and sound judgment in putting the safety of his people and the seaworthiness of his amphibious ships ahead of other imperatives.

Subsequent examination found that the cost of repairs to HMAS Manoora and the time that that would take, balanced against the remainder of her service life, meant that the most appropriate course of action was to decommission the ship this year. The known repairs that were required to Kanimbla were not as extensive, plus there was further opportunity for a return on investment out to 2014. So it was decided to keep her in operational pause and progress with repairs.

It is currently anticipated that remediation will be completed no earlier than the end of this year, and the ship will be available for operation in mid-2012. Unfortunately, this means that Navy’s amphibious capabilities are now limited, with the first of our two amphibious assault ships not due to come on line until 2014. To mitigate this, HMAS Tobruk, our heavy landing ship, is being carefully managed to ensure heavy sealift preparedness requirements can be met. Additionally, there are several alternatives for maintaining our amphibious capability that are currently under consideration. Obviously, this situation is not ideal and the secretary and I provided advice to the minister on 9 February outlining the many causes of this situation and we, and the Chief of Navy, share his disappointment at the unavailability of Kanimbla and Manoora. We look forward to supporting the independent team of experts led by Paul Rizzo, appointed by the minister, to develop a plan to address the causes of the problems facing the availability of the amphibious and support ships.

I want to now address the state of the fleet more broadly, and begin by highlighting that Navy has met all operational obligations during the past 12 months. To do so, I stress that the Navy does not need to keep all of its fleet at a maximum state of readiness all of the time. In very broad terms, about one-third of the fleet is kept on a high level of readiness. Another one-third is kept on a lower level of readiness for training and exercise and the other one-third is undergoing scheduled and unscheduled maintenance and upgrades. This is a deliberate planning approach and the only way in which we can sustainably generate the capability we require to meet our operational and contingency commitments within allocated funding. As has been made clear to all governments, higher levels of preparedness require higher levels of sustainment funding. Navy maintains a high level of activity. For example, last week Navy had 27 ships or about 50 percent of the fleet at sea at some point during that seven-day period, conducting operations, preparing for operations or undertaking training. This included seven frigates, one submarine, 11 Armidale patrol boats, three mine hunters, one oiler and four hydrographic ships.

[Thereafter Sen Johnston conducts something of an interrogation in an attempt to pin the failure of the amphibious capability on to someone. It's long and not particularly revealing but I thought this next bit was useful.]

Rear Adm. Marshall—The amphibious and afloat support SPO has been staffed with great people over the last 10 years who have worked, in my view, inordinately hard to support the ships that they see themselves personally responsible for. They are very dedicated and have worked extremely hard. In some areas, their competence to manage the complexity of an obsolescence program and the complexity of a maintenance program without the logistics products that would normally be provided has certainly been lacking. For us to expend money to execute maintenance, we need teams of people who can assess materiel condition in conjunction with ship staff who can then compile the work packages, prepare the work specifications for repair and then contract that into industry. In the amphibious and afloat support SPO, we have lacked that competence and the capacity to do that for a good number of years, despite the best intentions of the many people who have been working there, who have sought very hard to meet a rapidly changing operational environment and have sought to manage the risk to keep the ships operational where they have been required to do so. The skills that we lack are the detailed engineering skills and the logistics competencies, probably more so than engineering, because we have engineers there—not enough—but we certainly do not have the deep, specialist logistics skills to manage that program.

Senator JOHNSTON—Is this across the board or just with respect to the amphibious SPO?

Rear Adm. Marshall—We have other SPOs in Sydney who do have difficulty recruiting in some specific skill areas. Just as an example, at the moment, as part of the remediation of the amphibious and afloat support SPO, I have approved them to recruit, since August, 28 people. They have had five recruitment actions where they have had no applicants at all, and they are in the engineering and logistics areas. Conversely, for an APS 5 level public servant position or of a finance and administrative skill set, they have had 57 applicants. So you can see that, in the engineering and logistics field, it is extremely tough for us to recruit people in Sydney.

…

Senator JOHNSTON—… I turn to the document of 9 February, which the minister has asked for, and take up the matters raised in paragraph 8. Of course, that document is the one that is signed by CDF and the secretary. If I can quote, minister: In the DMO, competence in the systems program office had fallen well beyond an acceptable level. In December 2006, the naval technical regulating authority removed the authorised engineering certification from the SPO on the basis that adequate processes to ensure conformance with regulatory requirements were not in place. Please tell us what happened there and why that happened. In 2006, we have sacked the SPO from certifying the seaworthiness of this vessel? Is that not right?

Rear Adm. Marshall—Defence has a policy for the regulation of technical materiel that is established to provide assurance that Defence materiel is safe, fit for service and environmentally compliant. In 2006—late December is my understanding—the Chief Naval Engineer at the time had concerns that the SPO were not following the processes that the Chief Naval Engineer had approved and, therefore, he withdrew their authorisation.

Senator JOHNSTON—This is with respect to LPAs?

Rear Adm. Marshall—This is for the SPO. The SPO at the time had multiple platforms, not just the LPAs. And it still does have multiple platforms.

Senator JOHNSTON—What other platforms did the SPO that has been removed have? What else was he looking after?

Rear Adm. Marshall—The SPO has not been removed. Their authorisation has been removed as an engineering organisation.

Senator JOHNSTON—I stand corrected.

Rear Adm. Marshall—The platforms that they had were the two LPAs, HMAS Tobruk, the landing craft heavies—AND the six LCHs.

Senator JOHNSTON—They are in Darwin, aren’t they?

Rear Adm. Marshall—Four in Cairns and two in Darwin. They were the Army marine platforms, the LCM8s, and other materiel, HMAS Sirius and Success, the two fleet tankers, and the sail training ship Young Endeavour.

Senator JOHNSTON—So that certification capacity was removed because of competence issues?

Rear Adm. Marshall—Because the Chief Naval Engineer was concerned that he did not have the assurance of technical integrity.

Senator JOHNSTON—In common parlance, he did not trust what he was being told by the SPO.

Rear Adm. Marshall—He was concerned that the SPO was not following the processes that he had authorised in making engineering decisions, which is somewhat different from competence issues.

Senator JOHNSTON—Between December 2006 and May 2008, who did the certification of that fleet of vessels that we have just discussed, all those amphibious vessels?

Rear Adm. Marshall—I do not have the exact answer to your question, because I do not know who did the work back then.

Senator JOHNSTON—I am hoping that after lunch you can take a minute or two to tell me who did it— and, if nobody did it—

Rear Adm. Marshall—No, it would have been done.

Senator JOHNSTON—I would like to know by whom, because, in May 2008, we gave it back to the SPO. Why would we give it back to him if we have removed him for competence issues?

Rear Adm. Marshall—To reinstate the authorisation, the Chief Naval Engineer at the time did a review of the processes in the SPO and of the engineering delegations within the SPO and assessed the people to be competent, the delegations to be appropriate, the engineering management plan to follow due engineering process and that they had quality management systems in place.

Senator JOHNSTON—And now we have taken it off him again.

Rear Adm. Marshall—Correct.

Senator JOHNSTON—And obviously it is because of these last three months events.

Rear Adm. Marshall—When the Chief Naval Engineer in May 2008 completed his audit of the SPO and reauthorised the SPO, he nominated that the SPO was to be audited again in May 2011, this year. The now head naval engineer conducted an audit in December and, following that audit and some supporting documentation, he has again withdrawn that authorisation.

Mercator

02-03-11, 02:48 AM

Possible Bay Class Acquisition

Dr Watt—As you are aware from the minister’s comments, the government is considering the possibility of purchase or lease of a UK Bay class amphibious vessel. The government has this issue before it, and the UK has made it very clear that one of its vessels is either going to be sold or stood down. The people who are working on the potential for acquisition or lease are doing it very clearly informed by the LPA decision.

Senator TROOD—That is also reassuring.

CHAIR—Is that a lease or purchase option, or both?

Dr Watt—The government is working on both. The UK has made it clear that both possibilities are on the table.

CHAIR—Right.

Dr Watt—At least so far.

Senator TROOD—What is the lead time for that decision?

Dr Watt—There has been a bidders conference, which Mr King attended a little while ago. If memory serves me correctly, the countries interested have been asked to submit their expressions of interest, or whatever the appropriate term is, in mid-March. The decision will be made and announced by mid-April. I think that is right

Mr King—Yes, that is correct—by 17 March we have to have a proposal submitted to be considered. They have indicated about a month, but of course it is very much at the discretion of the UK government how long that decision-making process takes.

Mercator

02-03-11, 04:14 AM

For those interested in submarine issues, there's a pretty good stoush going on a few pages either side of page 67. It is far too long and detailed to extract just one piece of it, but it turns out it costs something like $688 million a year to have two Collins class available. Good Lord.

Mercator

02-03-11, 04:48 AM

Wedgetail

Air Vice Marshal Deeble—I want to add a little bit about the work that we have been doing with Boeing and Northrop Grumman in recovering some of the radar performance that we settled on over a year ago. The work has been a collaborative endeavour. We have worked with Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Over the last year we have been able to achieve a number of improvements in areas that were shortfalls for the radar. Those areas include clear performance, false alarm rates, and we have some good work ongoing at the moment in terms of recovering clutter performance. At this point in time, based on the negotiations that we are having with Boeing and Northrop Grumman, I feel confident that we will substantially recover the capability with respect to the radar to an operationally acceptable level for Air Force. I think that work and being able to work with Northrop Grumman and Boeing has been very successful. The one challenge I have at the moment with respect to Wedgetail is the electronic support measures and that relates to the reliability, maintainability and supportability of those systems. We are working with Boeing. We have re-engaged with BAE and also with Elta, the original supplier of this system, and we hope to have those issues resolved by the end of the year.

Mercator

02-03-11, 04:57 AM

Anzac frigate upgrade

Mr King—C1448 Phase 2B is the Anzac frigate anti-ship missile defence project. This is one that is definitely progressing along the revised remediation path and achieving its milestones. I will remind you that this is a very big step forward for Australia. Senator Johnston talked about this. The supplier of the radar system for this program for the Anzac ships is an Australian company, CEA Technologies. It is what is called a phased array radar. It is world-breaking in its performance for its cost and it had challenges early in the program. The program, with government approval, is now do the first ship, if successful we will do the remaining seven ships. I am very pleased to report that industry has responded very well on this program, particularly CEA. We have completed acceptance trials on the first ship in Perth. I had an email a little while ago to say we are at sea with the radar and initial tests are very encouraging. We will have about an eight- to 10-week technical testing program to make sure that this radar can track targets. The important thing about this radar is that it has to also control missiles in flight for a missile engagement. This project was one which looked like it would fail when it became a project of concern and it now looks like a project that will succeed. I am very pleased with the results.

Senator HUMPHRIES—You may be removing this project from the projects of concern list in the future?

Mr King—We have a little way to go. It is a very challenging program. We are doing things in this country that are world leading edge on this technology. We have planned this eight- or 10-week program. There is a pessimist in me that says we may encounter problems that we have not anticipated, so it may take a little longer. However, if it succeeds in all of those trials—and I know the Chief of Navy is very keen to take it to the Pacific Missile Facility off Hawaii to operate it there—I can see no reason why they would not recommend to the secretary, CDF and obviously the Chief of Navy to take to the minister a recommendation to remove it. With that we will have to have a parallel piece of work, which is government approval to do the remaining seven ships.

ADMk2

02-03-11, 07:28 AM

There is some interesting stuff in there. The amount of "it's not my fault because of..." that goes on is unbelievable.

It's quite clearly more important to work on covering your arse than it is to work on delivering an actual project. An they want to "commercialise" DMO. Ha! It wouldn't stand a chance of success in a commercial environment...

Mercator

03-06-11, 02:52 AM

The transcripts of the recent Senate estimates hearings are now starting to become available:

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/s-news.htm

just PDF versions for now.

I'll post some excerpts when I get a chance.

Mercator

03-06-11, 03:02 AM

Army's Airborne Insertion Capability

AVM Houston: ...I want to make the committee aware of a significant transition that is about to occur with Army's airborne insertion capability. For those not familiar with this capability, the primary task of this unit is to go into an area first and either seize or assist in seizing military access points for follow-on forces. Through various initiatives, such as the Hardened and Networked Army, Enhanced Land Force and Adaptive Army, Army has been looking at how this capability can be employed more efficiently and flexibly. A key judgment of all reviews was that this can best be achieved by transferring the capability from the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, to Special Operations Command. Earlier this month this decision was endorsed by the Chiefs of Service Committee, and Army is now developing a detailed transition plan for special operations command to undertake a phased assumption of the airborne insertion capability, probably over the course of 2012. Members of the committee will be interested to know that, although this was not a decision driven by budget constraints, it will generate savings estimated at approximately $600,000 in the first year followed by $1.45 million per annum thereafter. However, most importantly, this transition will provide the ADF with greater flexibility in terms of rotations for current operations, force availability for contingencies and the development of the future ADF joint amphibious capability....

Mercator

03-06-11, 03:59 AM

Some sort of anti-IED measure (spooky, no doubt):

Senator JOHNSTON: In a press release on 1 February 2011, the minister said that a 'high-technology anti-IED measure' would 'not proceed'.

Dr Watt: We might have to take that on notice.

Senator JOHNSTON: Nobody knows about that?

Dr Watt: We know about the project. You asked what the cost of it was.

Senator JOHNSTON: Why is it not proceeding?

Lt Gen. Hurley: Can you clarify more detail of the project, Senator?

Senator JOHNSTON: It is a press release by Minister Smith about a joint press conference with Mr Clare on 1 February 2011 on force protection measures, in particular the 'high-technology anti-IED measure' that 'will not proceed'.

Lt Gen. Hurley: That was in relation to an airborne system we introduced in the force protection review the previous year, where we were trying to insert some new technology into a platform that would give us broader coverage in the counter-IED battle. We could not do that; it was just too difficult to do.

Senator JOHNSTON: It was a UAV, was it?

Lt Gen. Hurley: No, it was not a UAV. We have taken that conceptually and moved it elsewhere, but that particular solution we thought we could field we could not field...

Mercator

03-06-11, 04:07 AM

Mercator

03-06-11, 04:18 AM

Camouflage clothing (Crye, particularly):

Dr Gumley: The Crye patent and the uniforms have been progressing at a very fast rate since Minister Clare announced it at the Land Warfare Conference in November last year. You will recall that we got the first 5,000 sets of uniforms, and they are being distributed to people in theatre and those who are going to theatre shortly, and so they have been getting their equipment. We have just in the last week negotiated an arrangement with the Crye company for them to design an Australian version of their pattern in the various materials, and I think Brigadier Phelps has some details on that to share.

Brig. Phelps: We signed a contract on 13 May with Crye Precision for two broad outcomes. First were the licences for the right to manufacture the Crye Precision and field uniforms in Australia—we are acquiring a licence to do that. The second broad part of that contract was for Crye to develop for us a uniquely Australian MultiCam pattern, and we are expecting to get the first prototypes of that in about five weeks.

Senator JOHNSTON: Did we have to do the second part of the contract?

Brig. Phelps: We felt that it was important to do so. The MultiCam pattern is a proven pattern—

Senator JOHNSTON: Sure. It is five colours.

Brig. Phelps: It is seven colours. It works in theatre. The US use it and the UK, you may be aware, use a variant—they have had their own unique variant. There was some discussion, I believe, in the media and maybe in here last year, about the need to be identified uniquely as Australian soldiers. Therefore we have taken a step to have a uniquely Australian MultiCam pattern. When they are developing that they will also be looking at the broader environments in which we operate to see if we cannot accommodate more than just Afghanistan in that pattern and make it more broadly applicable but without losing the effectiveness that it offers us in Afghanistan.
...

Brig. Phelps: We have to go through the process of developing the MultiCam pattern. I would anticipate that that will not be finished until early next year by the time we go through a thorough review and development process.

Senator JOHNSTON: It is an experimental project, isn't it, for Crye?

Brig. Phelps: Not really. They have done this before for the United Kingdom. They are doing it for us and we just want to make sure that it is done robustly and objectively tested in a number of environments before we do the final acceptance. I am not anticipating that it is a risky project for Crye at all.

Senator JOHNSTON: That is good. Will it accord with all of the technological developments we have in our current DPCU?

Brig. Phelps: Yes, it will.

Senator JOHNSTON: Very good. So we have got the IP. We are going to have the licence to produce our own colour and we are going to have a contest for an Australian producer to be able to compete onshore?

Dr Gumley: That is correct, Senator.

...

Senator JOHNSTON: So when I land in Camp Holland will I notice the difference between a US soldier and an Australian soldier?

Lt Gen. Hurley: Only by their accent at the moment.

Senator JOHNSTON: Just to look at them.

Brig. Phelps: The performance requirement is that they have to be distinctly different at five metres, so close-up you can see them. The reality with these camouflage patterns is that the further you get away the more they blend in with the environment and it is difficult to become uniquely distinguishable.

Senator JOHNSTON: I think that is good. This is sounding good. When is this a contest going to be on?

Brig. Phelps: I cannot give you an exact time for the tender yet. We are working with Army Headquarters staff now on the transition plan to move us from the current suite of DPCU-DPDU across into the Crye Precision, when and in what at numbers. Certainly the operational deployments will have that, and then we have to just work on the broader rollout. We do not actually have to wait. Once we have the licence to manufacture the uniform we could manufacture those in DPCU-DPDU. We have the right to do that—we own the licence to do that.

Mercator

03-06-11, 04:36 AM

Land 121 Phase 4 (and/or JLTV):

Senator JOHNSTON: Right, so let's talk about phase 4. We have a contest between three onshore and we have spent $40 million with the Americans and we are up for another 60 because they have just cancelled that—is that right?

Dr Gumley: No, there is the EMD phase of the American program, which we are negotiating with them now as to what it will cost us and what we get for our money. It will be a couple of months, I think, before we get some clear advice on that to be able to offer government. Whilst that is happening—and this pretty much evens up the competition—the three MSA vendors in Australia are having their prototype vehicles tested at the Monegeetta test ground and we are doing some explosive testing as well, at another place, to see how well those vehicles fare. We hope to have that testing program, the actual physical testing, finished by about the third week of July. From then it has to go into a scientific analysis as to what those results actually show us. I would hope that somewhere around September we would have some idea as to how well the three local vehicles compare with the American products as well.

Senator JOHNSTON: To be in the American project has cost us $40 million so far.

Dr Gumley: It is of that order. The exact figure is US$30.6 million, which will be paid at a lower exchange rate when we pay that money out, so let's say of the order of $40 million.

...

Dr Gumley: That project [the US JLTV project] has moved out of its very first phase, and now, as I said, we are negotiating. The Americans are analysing their data, and they are looking at what happens with their engineering phase, which comes up next. The US are expecting to have a request for proposal to US industry in late 2011—later this year.

Senator JOHNSTON: That is not what we anticipated, though, is it?

Dr Gumley: They do seem to have slipped somewhat.

Senator JOHNSTON: Isn't it a fact that we had a $40 million investment in a contest, and we were looking for a vehicle that could be mass produced so we could get into the supply chain at a really low average unit cost?

Dr Gumley: That was the intention of the program, yes.

Senator JOHNSTON: And we burnt the $40 million.

Dr Gumley: No, we have achieved a large amount of data about how the project is going.

Senator JOHNSTON: But none of them were acceptable.

Dr Gumley: There were a large number of criteria they had to meet, and on each of them it has been found that you could have done better on it. I am pretty sure that when we do the three Australian MSA ones we are going to say the same thing.

Senator JOHNSTON: Right; but let us deal with the problems. The problems were that each one was about 8½ tons.

Dr Gumley: The US are coming over a bit heavy because of the protection. We have been this through many times—that you get mobility versus protection and that there are compromises. In fact, it is a very similar story to the body armour one we have just been talking about.

Senator JOHNSTON: The threshold is 7½ tons for a Chinook.

Dr Gumley: Yes; and the U.S. Army want more protection, the US Marines would prefer more mobility and those discussions are going on in the United States at the moment.

Senator JOHNSTON: What do we have to show for our $40 million?

Dr Gumley: A large amount of information and knowledge about what are the—

Senator JOHNSTON: About unacceptable vehicles.

Dr Gumley: Most of the vehicles are acceptable but not against every single criterion, and there is another prototyping phase to move through to get to something that can be manufactured in large quantities.

Senator JOHNSTON: And all the while we think that the next phase is going to be about $60 million, and all the while we are disclosing extreme confidence in that process by running our own competition onshore.

Dr Gumley: A couple of years ago I characterised the reason we are running our own competition onshore as (a) good for Australian industry and (b) an insurance policy. Whenever you get into a development project you hope to have your bases covered, and I think it was a good investment for the government to make to get involved with the MSA program—the Australian one—just as it was good for the government to make it again with JLTV.

Senator JOHNSTON: Do you still say it is a good investment?

Dr Gumley: Yes.

…

Dr Gumley: The intent is to get approximately 1,300 vehicles of that order, with a total acquisition cost at the high end of the $1 billion-$2 billion band. That is what is DCP. It will be cost capped, so if the unit price of a vehicle goes up too much it means you buy fewer vehicles.

Senator JOHNSTON: And when is the decision to be made?

Dr Gumley: At this stage what we are trying to do is align the JLTV project and the MSA project so the government gets choices towards the end of this year about whether we commit to the MSA project, the JLTV, both or neither. It is up to government to make that decision.

Gubler, A.

03-06-11, 05:07 AM

The Crye patent and the uniforms have been progressing at a very fast rate since Minister Clare announced it at the Land Warfare Conference in November last year.

I thought we announced it here, in October last year...

Mercator

03-06-11, 05:44 AM

AWD/LHD: (there's a lot on this, but I'm concentrating stuff that hasn't been previously reported in great detail)

Senator HUMPHRIES: What precisely is the arrangement with respect to BAE Systems? What are they now not going to do at Williamstown that the other two shipbuilders, in Newcastle and Adelaide, are going to be doing?

Mr King: I will ask Mr Cawley to answer that question.

Mr Cawley: Last year when it emerged that with initial shipbuilding production we were not achieving the productivity we were looking for, the team had been working with BAE about their workload, mindful of what BAE call their five-ship plan—two LHDs, three AWDs—and as we got to the end of the year the alliance took the decision to reallocate three blocks for each ship away from BAE to Forgacs. So at that time they had 12 blocks per ship; it was reduced to three blocks per ship.

Senator HUMPHRIES: That was at the end of last calendar year?

Mr Cawley: Yes. Those rearrangements took place in January. What we have done since then is work with BAE to further look at their five-ship plan and see what capacity they do have to do LHD and AWD in their shipyard. The way that pattern works out broadly is that the three AWDs are in sequence, as you would imagine, for block construction and the two LHDs sit right over the centre of that to create this triangle of work. The discussions with BAE at the moment are that, on 9 May, BAE proposed they would need to reduce their workload on AWD blocks further. The proposal was with ship 1 to reduce from nine blocks to seven blocks, reallocating two.

Senator HUMPHRIES: How many blocks per ship?

Mr Cawley: Thirty-one in total, so nine blocks at BAE, reduced to seven. The proposal was also to look at the delivery dates for those so that there was harmony with integrating the ship in Adelaide. For the second ship, BAE proposed that some of the blocks would be reallocated to reduce their workload substantially at the time when peak work on LHD was occurring. There is a discussion to be had about the third ship's blocks as to what needs to be reallocated, which will be taken later in the project when it is clear what workload and what stability have been achieved across the three shipyards.

Senator HUMPHRIES: Are we saying that certain types of blocks required for the ships' superstructure are being built at only one of the three shipyards at any given point in time, so that you need the contribution of all three shipyards in order to get enough blocks to build one ship?

Mr Cawley: Yes, that is exactly right. Broadly, one-third of the ship is manufactured—fabricated—in each of the three shipyards. The keel blocks, heavy steel and large superstructure plate are being done in Melbourne; the aft end of the superstructure is being done at Forgacs; and the central superstructure, which contains the combat system, is being done in Adelaide. The plan was to do the same blocks for each ship so that you got a learning effect in each shipyard.

Senator Feeney: For the sake of completeness, there are also three sonar blocks that are being constructed overseas.

Senator HUMPHRIES: In Spain.

Senator Feeney: And in the UK.

Mr Cawley: Shipbuilders call a sonar assembly a block, and a mast they also called a block. The sonar assembly has a steel component which connects, essentially, the fibreglass. The fibreglass is being made in the UK by a company that makes it for most navies, and then the steel interface assembly is being made at Navantia.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: But five other blocks are going back to Navantia as well—is that right?

Mr Cawley: That is the plan announced last week. The alliance is going to allocate up to five blocks to Navantia to take that peak pressure off the Melbourne shipyard.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: As a matter of clarification, is this work that went to Williamstown and BAE the work that was publicly going to be awarded to a Cairns shipbuilding company before it was pulled at the last minute?

Mr King: Yes, it is that work.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: The reasons were fairly public—not valid in my view, but that is another question. How many blocks was Cairns going to do?

Mr King: The original number that Williamstown was going to do, so that is three times 12.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: That is 36.

Mr King: Yes, 36.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: They went to Williamstown, which by that time had already had the contract for the LHDs.

Mr King: That is correct.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: We now find a year or so later that BAE was not capable of doing all of those extra blocks in Williamstown within the time limit.

Mr King: It was not able to do all the extra blocks in the time frame; that is correct.

...

Senator HUMPHRIES: So to summarise what you have said to us about BAE: you are concerned about its capacity to deliver the original number of blocks it was supposed to build. Presumably the number of blocks has been reduced in order to allow it to catch up with what the other shipyards are doing in respect of delivery of blocks.

Mr King: That is correct. And I want to take to task a report that said something along the lines that the AWD project is paralysed at the moment. It is not paralysed. I will get Andrew Cawley to once again correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that BAE in Melbourne is running two shifts, six days a week. We are running 5½ and six days a week in both other shipyards. This is not paralysed; this is taking action to make sure things do not deteriorate.

Dr Gumley: I believe that BAE has acted very maturely in working with us to rectify this problem. They had the very important project of the LHDs. There have been many discussions. One is: do you do the superstructure of the LHDs in Spain? The answer is no. Because of the very large amount of systems integration that Mr King referred to, it makes far more sense technically and programmatically to do that work in Australia. BAE has acted responsibly on behalf of both projects, and we thank them for it.

...

Mr Cawley: The experience and the capacity issue comes to shipbuilding productivity, which is your ability to turn out tons of fabricated blocks. The inputs, the drawings, the inputs of materials, the inputs of workforce—it is a trade workforce, a supervising workforce, a production engineering workforce—its facilities and tools: in all of the shipyards for AWD there has been a substantial investment in facilities and machinery and tools, workforce recruiting is on the rise and it has a long way to go. The situation with BAE estimating what they might be able to do when they bid those two jobs is based upon their cost estimating ratios, their productivity ratios, which are a product of facilities, data, materials, and it has not got to the level that would need to to complete this work in time. It is not principally one cause. The word 'design' is in there. The fundamental engineering design of these ships is proven. Four are at sea and a fifth is under construction. The exchange of 2,400 technical queries is a system of exchanging questions and answers about anything on the project. It might be to do with drafting errors in a document pack. It might be to do with material supply—more or less is needed. It might be to do, as one was, with a clarification of which orientation a piece went into the block, because it was not entirely evident. The engineers do those checks, and it is done in a disciplined way and capped. Then there are PARs, as they are called, exchanged between the engineering and production of ASC.

CHAIR: Dr Gumley, I heard you say that you do not accept the justification put in the press by BAE—if it was BAE—for the delay. I hear Mr Cawley saying that perhaps the overall complexity of the work that is required over time was not properly comprehended by BAE at the time and that is the actual cause of the delay. Is that the net of what the two of you are saying?

Dr Gumley: Yes, I think that is close to the mark.

Mercator

03-06-11, 06:51 AM

Largs Bay

Senator IAN MACDONALD:... Dr Watt, you said in your statement that you expect the ship to arrive in Australia by the end of 2011?

Mr King: All the planning is to make that happen. The basis of our bid was to acquire the ship in what we called 'hot condition'. The ship was still an operational ship when we made the bid for it and it was under certification of Lloyds. Part of the reason that we made the offer that we did and the time lines that we put on it was in order not to have it power down and come out of certification. That has been achieved. The ship has now been moved to the refitting entity in Falmouth in the UK, and the Lloyds recertification—it is a five-year cycle of recertification, which was about to expire—has commenced without a breach of the certification. So we now enter into a period of recertification and some known refit work that had to be done because it was at the end of the five-year cycle. That planning is proceeding on schedule. The aim is to put it into the Navy's hands in order for the crew to become familiar with its operation and to take it through operational sea training in the UK, where of course they are very familiar with the ship class and how it should be used, and to bring it to Australia in December this year.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: You said it was an operational ship. What refitting is necessary?

Mr King: There is a planned program for these ships: every year some work, and every five years a major piece of work. They also discovered, which was declared to us as part of the bidding conference, that there were a number of modifications that they had learned from the four ships of the class that they highly recommended be undertaken. One of those in particular is relevant to our operation, and that is operations in warm water and warm climates. These are routine works that are identified in a ship class life, fully declared to us.

...

Senator IAN MACDONALD: Just for my understanding, what is the size of the crew of the Manooora as against the crew of the Largs Bay, in numbers?

Vice Adm. Crane: Largs Bay final numbers are still being looked at, as we get further information on the operation of the ship. But, in the broad, there are about 120, so it is about half the size.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: Sorry?

Vice Adm. Crane: About half the size—half the ship company's element in Largs Bay as opposed to Manoora.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: So Manoora was twice the size.

Vice Adm. Crane: Yes, broadly.

ADMk2

03-06-11, 10:07 AM

That last IED exchange wasn't particularly important. (This whole estimates have been pretty darn boring so far). I just thought it was interesting to catch a glimpse of some of the things you aren't always supposed to see.

Chinook or C-130 based I am guessing. What other aircraft do we have in the Ghan, if this is not on a UAV?

Mercator

04-06-11, 01:54 AM

P3 maybe.

ARH v.3.1

04-06-11, 06:36 PM

P3 maybe.

I've read elsewhere that the P3's have been popular for over land surveilance.

Mercator

05-06-11, 02:22 AM

When I read this part of the interview, with airborne platforms in mind the first thing I thought was multispectral cameras or (more implausibly) ground penetrating radar, because that's what the US did (amongst other things) when they start to get serious about tackling IEDs:

Lt Gen. Hurley: That was in relation to an airborne system we introduced in the force protection review the previous year, where we were trying to insert some new technology into a platform that would give us broader coverage in the counter-IED battle. We could not do that; it was just too difficult to do.
In the world of realistic measures Australia could pursue, one of the fancy new cameras on a P3 or King Air is possible and of course has been done before by the US and possibly the Brits (with similar platforms or UAVs).
This second comment makes me think that it is still a live possibility down the track:

Senator JOHNSTON: It was a UAV, was it?

Lt Gen. Hurley: No, it was not a UAV. We have taken that conceptually and moved it elsewhere, but that particular solution we thought we could field we could not field...

This is just my personal guess, of course. I have no special insights into their thinking anymore. I've been out of the game for almost 10 years now.

JimWH

05-06-11, 04:22 AM

ADMk2

05-06-11, 05:23 AM

Do we know exactly what this means? To me it sounds as though a new unit will be stood up in SOCOMD-A to provide the Airborne Combat Team which forms the core of the airborne insertion capability, and 3RAR will (finally) loose its parachute role. Alternatively the role might be passed to 2CdoRgt.
Does anyone have any insight into this?

It was announced a while back that 4RAR (Cdo) now 2 Cdo of course, would be taking on the role of maintaining the Airborne Combat Team capability.

3RAR has been fighting a rear-guard action trying to preserve it's role, but Army and Government have been keen for a long time to lose the "para battalion" and have 3RAR provide a proper light infantry battalion capability to ease the strain on the other battalions...

buglerbilly

05-06-11, 06:10 AM

It was announced a while back that 4RAR (Cdo) now 2 Cdo of course, would be taking on the role of maintaining the Airborne Combat Team capability.

3RAR has been fighting a rear-guard action trying to preserve it's role, but Army and Government have been keen for a long time to lose the "para battalion" and have 3RAR provide a proper light infantry battalion capability to ease the strain on the other battalions...

Some of this has been puzzling me for a while. Is this push to re-role them back into Light Infantry a cost-cutting move OR a genuine swap of roles between 4 & 3RAR? If it is why re-role why not just move 4RAR into the LI role, it would be an easier jump for them would it not?

IF its a cost-cutting move under another guise, then use what cranial power is left in the hierarchy and view somewhat differently..............you don't NEED to train Para-capable troops out of a Herc, buy a C212, even a second-hand C212, and train them out of that..........cheap to run and provides a Light capability we don't have following Caribou retirement. Hell, you don't even need a C212 for all of the basics you can lease that from any number of clubs, but you do need to bring something similar in for static-line jump training.

All you would have then to do is carry out 2-3 Herc jumps per annum, and review if you are going to go to Globemaster II jumps and training subsequently.

ADMk2

05-06-11, 07:21 AM

Some of this has been puzzling me for a while. Is this push to re-role them back into Light Infantry a cost-cutting move OR a genuine swap of roles between 4 & 3RAR? If it is why re-role why not just move 4RAR into the LI role, it would be an easier jump for them would it not?

IF its a cost-cutting move under another guise, then use what cranial power is left in the hierarchy and view somewhat differently..............you don't NEED to train Para-capable troops out of a Herc, buy a C212, even a second-hand C212, and train them out of that..........cheap to run and provides a Light capability we don't have following Caribou retirement. Hell, you don't even need a C212 for all of the basics you can lease that from any number of clubs, but you do need to bring something similar in for static-line jump training.

All you would have then to do is carry out 2-3 Herc jumps per annum, and review if you are going to go to Globemaster II jumps and training subsequently.

There are a few things. One is the cost. Special Forces as part of their skillset have to be para-qualified anyway so giving them the ACT role doesn't cost anymore. 3RAR only ever had a company level para-insertion capability, the whole battalion was never able to insert by parachute and 2Cdo can cover this level of capability within it's existing resources. It may need to conduct some more company level collective training activities, especially in relation to combined arms operations more akin to a conventional infantry battalion, but apparently Army sees this as less of an issue than 3RAR maintaining such a capability itself.

2. Removing the role from 3RAR will dramatically decrease the training injury burden 3RAR has and allow 3RAR to take it's proper place within the RAR and take it's full share of operational deployments as well as easing the burden of maintaining Army's full level of training and skillsets.

One of the problems with large amounts of deployments is that skillsets not needed for the operational tasking begin to fall by the wayside. Army's primary role is to conduct the full range of land based warfare in the defence of Australia, but it's operational deployments are basically light infantry only patrolling or mentoring ops. Army has seen a decrease in it's overall capability because of the focus on preparing units for operational deployments in the narrow range of roles we are actually conducting on operations.

Tying up an infantry battalion on preparing for an insertion method that has such a huge injury toll even in training let alone on ops and one we have ever used and are unlikey to, is seen as a waste when there is much more productive uses of a battalion that are urgently required by Army, supporting ops and contributing postively overall to Army's collective warfighting capability, rather than reducing it through 90+ major injuries per year (broken limbs etc) that effectively rule out an entire battalion's ability to contribute to Army's whole capability rather than one narrow aspect of it.

JimWH

05-06-11, 09:42 AM

Okay, this is all very much within what I would have guessed to be the case. I don't think that 3RAR having a para role has made any sense for at least the last two decades, and has made even less sense since 2Cdo stood-up. This'll effectively add an extra two light infantry combat teams to the ORBAT (the on-line ACT and the one next in line to be ACT), which will make it much easier to assign one or two combat teams to the Amphibious Ready Element. It might also help to further differentiate 2Cdo from the SASR.
The only major downside I can see is that 2Cdo might not be able to field the the same number of operators for enduring operations as they will need to do more collective training exercises. Also the 3RAR mafia* are going to go utterly crazy.

*In my current posting, my CO, COY OC, OPSWO, and RQMS. I'm going to have to keep my mouth shut on this.

Gubler, A.

05-06-11, 09:57 AM

IF its a cost-cutting move under another guise, then use what cranial power is left in the hierarchy and view somewhat differently..............you don't NEED to train Para-capable troops out of a Herc, buy a C212, even a second-hand C212, and train them out of that..........cheap to run and provides a Light capability we don't have following Caribou retirement. Hell, you don't even need a C212 for all of the basics you can lease that from any number of clubs, but you do need to bring something similar in for static-line jump training.

The PTS has been using a leased C212 for years. It looks quite nice painted in grey with the Army rising sun badge on the back. One of the biggest cost savers from bringing 3RAR back to earth is medical costs. They knock of lots of ankles and legs producing their unusable ACT capability each year.

Gubler, A.

05-06-11, 09:59 AM

Chinook or C-130 based I am guessing. What other aircraft do we have in the Ghan, if this is not on a UAV?

Super King Air. Not quite on the books the same way the other SKAs are...

buglerbilly

05-06-11, 02:39 PM

Thanks for the responses guys, clears up my little "confusion" in an area usually of little interest to me.....................

JimWH

05-06-11, 02:51 PM

ne of the biggest cost savers from bringing 3RAR back to earth is medical costs. They knock of lots of ankles and legs producing their unusable ACT capability each year.
I'd back that. My OC tells the story of how on one of his jumps many years ago he hit the ground and realised, instantly, that he'd fractured his leg. However, he being a 3RAR old-and-bold wasn't going to let that get in the way of 'winning' the exercise, so he limped off and manned his position. Sometime after the LZ was secured he took himself off to the RAP, and when the para-boot was pulled off his leg dutifully swelled up to the size of melon. He had a spiral fracture of tibia...

More generically we actually plan for Talisman Sabre as though we will have one fatality during the jump and another two seriously injured. We've got away with it for the last three (from memory) without a fatality, but that has only been through the expedient of putting a surgical team within stretcher distance of the LZ. Which I think says big things about the sensibleness of parachute training for 3RAR.

Still want to get jump wings though, mostly to impress my girlfriend...

buglerbilly

05-06-11, 04:26 PM

Shave your groin, that'll impress her more.............and a Hell of lot safer too.............just don't put aftershave on there when done!

Mercator

07-06-11, 11:03 AM

Transcripts from Senate estimates continue appearing (see the earlier link to the PDFs).

Here's a quick one on the Collins class submarines. There's a lot more and frankly much of it is a horror story (sustainment is running at just under half $1 billion a year), but here's a possible bright note:

Collins Class Submarine

Senator JOHNSTON: The Submarine Workforce Sustainability Review's recommendation was to increase submarine crews from 46 to 58. I am told that this has occurred.

Vice Adm. Crane: That is correct.

Senator JOHNSTON: And it is working well.

Vice Adm. Crane: The feedback I get from the submarine community is that it is working very well.

Senator JOHNSTON: The crews that have been set out in the media are crews of 58.

Vice Adm. Crane: Yes, 58 plus a submarine support group.

Senator JOHNSTON: Is there not some intent to scale that 58 back?

Vice Adm. Crane: It is certainly not my intent.

Senator JOHNSTON: So when we are sitting here this time next year we should have four crews of 58 available.

Vice Adm. Crane: That will depend on who is in the chair. That is certainly—

Senator JOHNSTON: In the same report it was indicated that a study would be commissioned into a Sydney based submarine crew. Where is that going?

Vice Adm. Crane: That study is yet to begin. We are looking at how we might be able to align that study with the C1000 work that needs to happen. We are certainly interested in how we might be able to access a crew from the east coast for the Collins class submarine, but we have not progressed that at this stage. I might add that at this stage I am confident that by the end of this year we will be able to form the fourth crew. In the last 12 months in the submarine community we have been able to train more submariners than we have ever been able to do in the past and that community is growing very strongly. We have still got work to do and, whilst that is a broad statement, we do have some isolated areas where there are continuing shortages, but in the broad it is going very well.

Unicorn

07-06-11, 12:50 PM

I can second the comments regarding the problems with drop training..

Years ago I was at Nowra when the Para's were doing a multi-aircraft drop into the training area.

The Herc drivers misjudged the wind and the sticks dropped off-area and into a forest.

We ended up scrambling a number of helos to medivac the injured to Nowra hospital.

That was years ago, but the capability is still inherently risky.

.

Mercator

08-06-11, 06:04 AM

SEA 1000 (Collins Replacement)

Senator JOHNSTON: When do you want to have the boats in the water?

Rear Adm. Moffitt: The notional design life of the Collins class submarines is 30 years. The first of those HMAS Collins notionally—and I do stress notionally because these are tools and the design life of the tool is impacted significantly by use during its life—has a design life of 30 years. The first HMAS Collins reaches the end of its notional design life in about 2025 and the subsequent submarines through until about 2031. In terms of replacement that is what we need to be looking at, but there is another critical issue as well and that is how quickly the government seeks to grow the submarine capability to a total force of 12. That is critical because if we simply replace one Collins class submarine with one future submarine it will take us far longer to get to a fleet of 12 submarines depending on the rate of delivery of those submarines than it might do were we to add new submarines onto the Collins class capability, if you see what I mean.

Senator JOHNSTON: Do you have a critical path step-by-step analysis of where we need to go against the timeline you have just described.

Rear Adm. Moffitt: Until such time as I have agreement from government about some of those critical issues that are not covered in the white paper, such as when do you actually want to have 12, clarification around the specific roles that the government foresees the submarine being used for and therefore what type of submarine with what capacity of capabilities is required it is impossible to answer that question without going beyond the very broad conceptual statements that I gave you at the beginning about a 25-year or so construction program, roughly speaking, almost regardless of submarine. Further questions to be answered include what we intend to do with the Collins class in terms of replacing them with a future submarine and whether that is to be future on top of Collins or future one-for-one with Collins to reach 12 eventually. Those questions need to be decided by government. We have not placed those questions before government as yet.

Senator JOHNSTON: When will you be doing that?

Rear Adm. Moffitt: You would understand that I am preparing and have been ready to a take a submission to government on those questions, I have to fit in with a whole lot of Defence business going to government and Defence has to fit in with a whole lot of other departmental business going to government. I will be ready to go when I am called in.

Senator JOHNSTON: Are you ready to go now?

Rear Adm. Moffitt: I believe I am pretty ready to go on some of these questions, but the important point is that, from the point of view of the committee and the public, I have structured the program and its activities such that a visit to government is not crucial to me continuing productive work on this program. It is a moment in time, a very important moment in time absolutely, and a visit to government will clarify the steps that need to be taken, but in the meantime there is lots of productive work going on getting to understand the sorts of technologies that are going to be of great interest to us and when they might be likely to need to be factored into our future plans for a program of this type, which fundamentally differs from every other defence acquisition in modern history. It is not one which will necessarily begin and end in any government's lifetime. It certainly will not, it will be running to deliver 12 submarines for a very long time, longer than is in our normal consideration.

...

Senator JOHNSTON: Has there been any indication whatsoever as to when a first step from government will be taken?

Rear Adm. Moffitt: My understanding is that a visit to government for SEA1000 is relatively imminent. By that I understand that the likelihood is this year sometime, it might be early next year. From my point of view it is not particularly relevant until it goes into the calendar and become firm, because that drives the steps through which I have to get the cabinet submission. I am ready to start that process whenever we find ourselves on the schedule.

Senator JOHNSTON: So relatively imminent for you means sometime this year or early next year?

Rear Adm. Moffitt: That is my understanding of how things lie at the moment but this is really something dependant on the minister, as you would understand, and I am not inside his head on that issue.

Mercator

08-06-11, 06:47 AM

JP129 (Tac UAV)

Mr King: ... JP129, phase 2, is a tactical unmanned aerial vehicle. These are vehicles anticipated for use in Afghanistan. We started this project originally. It was an early application, I suppose, of early indicators and warnings, which have been announced by the minister as a formal process in Defence. The original contract was seen to be not delivering. We had been into the project for about 12 months and it was falling behind. We cancelled it. It was a Boeing-led contract. We have now gone into an FMS case procurement from the US of the Shadow 200 system. We are buying two systems. We went to government aiming for an initial capability to be fielded in 2013, but there was a government direction to accelerate that if we could in order to get it into theatre.

I am pleased to say, on work that we have done and work that the Chief of Army has done with his counterpart in the US and US support—they are a great support to us in a variety of projects we operate—that they have freed up one of their systems for us that was destined for the US Army. Our current planning is that we will be about two years ahead of our originally projected date. We now expect that we will have the first system in Australia in the third quarter of this year. We will be able to train with the Army—the army operators will be able to train— and we will be able to have it in theatre at the end of this year or very early next year. My statement about this is that it is going in the right direction. It is on budget. We are ahead of the schedule that was approved by government, and I believe we will have this in theatre and available for Army use, as I said, either very late this year or early next year. It is a good story.

Mercator

08-06-11, 06:56 AM

JP2070 (MU90 Torpedo)

Mr King: The next project is a disappointment: JP2070, phase 2 and phase 3. This is the lightweight torpedo project. I reported last year that we were completing the final acceptance test and evaluation firings in November. They were not a success. What we have determined since through very thorough analysis is a number of failures of the whole system, not the torpedo, that we have to address. These appear to be minor in a technical sense but major in impact in the deployment of the weapon. They relate to the construction of the torpedo tubes, which need to have a modification carried out. What we found when we did the final acceptance testing—I think I covered this briefly in the last committee meeting—was that the shroud that holds in the balloon that expands once a test torpedo is fired was breaking off early and that was causing torpedo run failures. What we have determined is that it is because of a particular element in the torpedo tubes which was protruding a small amount. It is an element that is required for firing the other torpedo we use, which is the Mark 46, but we have come up with a fix that means we can use that tube both for the Mark 46 and for these MU90 torpedoes.

There were two other matters that contributed to the failures. One was to do with the handling trolleys. It is a very heavy torpedo and the handling trolley is necessary to make it align accurately to the torpedo tube when you insert it into the tube so that you do not do any damage to the torpedo. The third element, which I think I touched on last time, was the connector cable. It is one connector cable but there are actually three different variants of it made. What we have found is only one variant of that cable works 100 per cent reliably on the MU90 torpedo, so we are ordering in that particular cable.

In conjunction with Thales—and this was their idea and it was one raised in a meeting with Minister Clare, me and the company when we were going over projects of concern—what we are doing is some pierside testing before we put this back on the ships in Sydney. DSTO have supported that. We have designed a net to catch the practice torpedoes. These are not torpedoes that run; they are fired inert, but they need to be caught. We have modified the torpedo tubes with these fixes, the new cables, a firing system, and we are going to do a number of firings in Sydney and catch the torpedo—it is very cheap to refurbish and fire again.

Once we are absolutely convinced that everything we have done to test that has solved all those matters, we will then go back to do the final acceptance testing on a ship, which we now estimate to be a six-month delay to what we had projected for the final acceptance testing. Then the Navy will enter into a period of operational test and evaluation. I think I pointed out last time that we have now had a very close cooperation with European countries that use this torpedo and we have about 200 test firings from Europe that we have evaluated and seen. So it is a disappointing project; it has not made the progress we had anticipated. I think the new program is a very good program and I would hope that next time we visit you we can have some positive news.

Mercator

08-06-11, 07:11 AM

MRH

Mr King: We were concerned, and remain concerned, about the performance of the MRH helicopter, the ones acquired under phases 2, 4 and 6. The minister directed that we undertake a gate review, which I did and gave my findings to the secretary, CDF and the minister. We met with project office, the services and industry. It was the first time that we engaged industry in a gate review. Although this project is not achieving the rate of effort and the delivery of the dates that we initially set out to achieve, and it is very challenging for Navy to keep its helicopter capability at sea, my recommendation was that a number of issues needed to be addressed and they might well be better addressed outside the project of concern framework as it had not triggered the key thresholds. These included contract structures for both the supply and maintenance, resuming delivery of the aircraft which is currently halted with acceptance of 13 at our new baseline and a concentration on getting the flying rate up and the Navy capability in particular, although Army is no lesser, into service as soon as possible.

I am delighted to say that the company has engaged actively with us in restructuring those contracts to be a better contract, particularly for Defence and the company. We are looking at a program of resuming acceptance of aircraft at a new, more advanced baseline which is called production baseline 3. I am also delighted to report that the last two months have had the highest rate of effort from these helicopters that we have ever had. There is a long way to go. I also recommended to the minister that we review it again later this year and see if the objectives we have set our team, the services who are the user community and the company are being met and achieved. If that is the case, clearly we would recommend keeping going with that. If they are not being achieved then we would recommend a project of concern.

Senator HUMPHRIES: If we go down the better fork in that road we will get more of these choppers delivered?

Mr King: Yes, we are currently looking at acceptance of the next six helicopters.

Senator HUMPHRIES: Do you have any idea of when that might be, assuming that it works out to be satisfactory?

Mr King: Some time after mid-year we will start that process.

Mercator

15-09-11, 04:57 AM

There's a bit of Parliamentary activity concerning defence going on this week that seems to be producing some defence-related reporting. Just what committee it is, I'm not sure yet, but it's possibly further submissions to this Senate enquiry into defence procurement:

Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee
12/08/2011
Procurement procedures for Defence capital projects
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommsen%2F3 b63028e-6c27-4178-91cd-33e0d8e74119%2F0001%22

That link should take you to the first session that sat last month. Some reasonably interesting commentary involved, but nothing that jumps out at me as news. Further transcripts can be found by clicking on the links to the participants in the top left corner of the transcript.

Whatever is occurring this week won't turn up in the searchable database until next week, so transcripts will have to wait until then.

Mercator

15-09-11, 05:09 AM

Actually, I lied. The first day of proceedings for that enquiry was the day before, the 11th, and here's the transcript for that:

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommsen%2F5 428fe77-3235-4df1-82ce-3eb664244930%2F0001%22

According to the committee's homepage, those two days in August have been the only ones so far. There are another two days planned in October. So I officially have no fucking clue what is going on. Perhaps Sen Johnson is roaming the halls handing out press releases and generating controversy all on his own. It happens, I suppose.

Mercator

18-09-11, 06:19 AM

So I'm pretty sure I finished reading all the transcripts from those two days worth of hearings and I have a question.

Here and there the discussion turns to various hypotheticals about a MOTS submarine and they keep referring to a German possibility, though they maddeningly don't refer to a class. Any clues what that would be?

I thought the Spanish S-80 was a favourite based on what ADM and APDR keep mentioning, but I haven't seen a German type that I can recall. Not a relatively large one, anyway.

By way of observation, it was pleasing to see that the senators all seem to be fairly sceptical about a unique design and they keep asking if there is an 80% solution. Conversely, just about everyone else that fronted the enquiry seems to have a hard on for an Australian specific design and some of them even want Australian naval architects to design it! God help us.

JimWH

18-09-11, 07:13 AM

That's the thing of it though Mercator, it's pretty obvious that the drive for a bespoke solution is coming from Navy and DMO, both of whom are well aware of the the risk inherent in such a proposition. The requirements that led to the Collins class are every bit as relevant now as they were thirty years ago, though this time one lives in hope that the technology of the day might actually be able to deliver.
With regards to MOTS, good to see that Senate is actually doing their job and testing the commitment of DoD and DMO. I genuinely cant think of a German design which comes close, and the S-80 is a way off too. The JMSDF's Sōryū class isn't too far off, though I think there is a lack of political will (on both sides) to make that happen.

Mercator

18-09-11, 07:18 AM

Yeah, if they think the S-80 is too small, the HDW 214 is almost 25% smaller. Surely they can't be talking about that as a hypothetical MOTS solution?

Personally I'm fine with the S-80. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough. But buy every scrap of IP associated with that though. It will still be cheaper than trying to design our own and then fix our mistakes.

Mercator

18-09-11, 07:30 AM

The other thing is that we have to start very soon if we are going to make any headway at all. If they can't reconcile design and capability requirements, and if they aren't certain about the capacity of industry right now, why not go ahead and do a batch of a truly off-the-shelf design like the S 80 and just get something in the water by way of interim capability. It will have the same weapons and combat system as what we are likely to end up designing into our unique capability. A two tier submarine fleet wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing either. A simple, cheap training boat with a decent backup capability has a lot going for it.

Gubler, A.

18-09-11, 09:18 AM

Whenever you have reporters and politicians spruiking for something that’s a good sign it is a simplistic and flawed solution. This idea that an off the shelf European hunter killed submarine (SSK) will be a low risk and cost effective solution for the RAN is un supported by a detailed analysis of the facts. Plus of course well established that it won’t meet the performance requirement set down by the RAN.

Building a MOTS product simply transfers the risk from design failure to technology transfer failure. Wasn’t the AWD solution meant to be low risk? There are many other examples of huge problems brought about via trying to build a proven overseas product in Australia. Of course if you buy it from the existing production line overseas then you don’t have this problem but then you have to try and maintain it in house and lose all the cash of acquisition overseas.

Plus everyone seems to hold up the example of the Collins class as a failure because it was designed to a unique specification for Australian service. But the problems with Collins would have materialised if it was a license build of an established product. All of the mechanical problems are associated with sub-systems not being robust enough. The only inherent design issue was the hydrodynamic noise flow problems and that was the easiest fix of all the problems. Of course the combat system was the big problem but no one is expecting a unique combat system for the FSM. In fact one of the reasons a big Australian specific ship is required is so it can operate the MOTS USN spec combat system.

There is no reason an Australian specific ship developed with the best of overseas input can’t be a success.

Mercator

18-09-11, 09:43 AM

Yeah, but the elephant in the room is something like $10 billion versus $30 billion. Sure, I can buy the argument that the faults of Collins were not necessarily because it wasn't MOTS, but if we are going to potentially re-live some of those experiences, and even if we don't, which pricetag do you prefer? More to the point, because the design would be off-the-shelf, the shipbuilder (the Spanish, the Germans or the French) is more likely to go for something like a fixed-price contract and if there are problems, you can hold them to it. If we go 'son of Collins', I doubt that would be an option. The shipbuilder is never going to take on the same amount of risk. The taxpayer would wear it and I get the feeling that the taxpayer is weary of that. Perhaps in the name of political expediency we should learn (again) to walk before we run. If you don't keep the taxpayer on side, you won't get all that money for the submarines. Or if you've blown it already, the rest of the defence budget will lose out. There won't be any more funds if we fuck it up again.

Now is the S-80 an inferior solution? Absolutely. The question is could the defence establishment live with that? At least until industry can prove a better track record. Remember, the common thread through all of this is that the White Paper is effectively asking us to adopt a permanent submarine shipbuilding capability. That is, continuous design and production. If we accept a MOTS solution now in the name of bounded risk, it doesn't necessarily mean that 'son of Collins' is dead. It might be a hiatus of as little as five years.

Mercator

18-09-11, 09:47 AM

BTW, that 10 billion was the 12 submarines. It would be a lot less, of course, if you chose a smaller batch of MOTS submarines as your opening gambit.

JimWH

18-09-11, 09:52 AM

Gubler, A.

18-09-11, 12:15 PM

BTW, that 10 billion was the 12 submarines. It would be a lot less, of course, if you chose a smaller batch of MOTS submarines as your opening gambit.

Yeah but I don't believe for a second anyone can build 12 S80s or T214s in Australia during the years 2020-2040 for 10 billion. We could probably order them right now from the Spanish yard for that price with delivery at their current schedule which would mean 2017-2028 for 12. Also I don't think anyone would build these boats in Aust. for fixed price.

Gubler, A.

18-09-11, 12:19 PM

Personally I like Abe's solution: cut down Virginia class with bloody massive Li-ion batteries.
One way or the other the trick will be to cut down on our re-invention of the wheel as far as possible: at least we wont be trying to build the CMS again.

The size of the battery in that old Stoker concept was in proportion to current diesel-electric boats, its just in a ~4,000 tonne boat using Li-ion it provided massive performance. One thing about the conventional Virgina option is that it can you could even order front ends from the US line for the first couple of boats to get them up to scratch. The front ends coming with all that combat system stuff. They wouldn't be identical front ends because that's where the SSN has its diesel-electric system (backup but still an engine as big as S80, T214 types) which obviously wouldn't be needed. But you could keep a mostly identical combat system arrangement to leverage a MOTS solution.

Chunder

18-09-11, 12:28 PM

I've just spent 1/2 an hour trolling through the Sea forum looking for submarine stuff and can't find Abe's post. Re that stripped Virginia. In what context was that brought up in?

Gubler, A.

18-09-11, 01:00 PM

I've just spent 1/2 an hour trolling through the Sea forum looking for submarine stuff and can't find Abe's post. Re that stripped Virginia. In what context was that brought up in?

It was an article in a 2008 edition of the Navy League magazine.

JimWH

18-09-11, 01:27 PM

And a fine article too Abe. [not blowing smoke up your arse, it's a good article which covers a diverse range of subjects in a thoughtful and compelling way.]

buglerbilly

18-09-11, 02:41 PM

Gubler, A.

18-09-11, 02:52 PM

Abe, is that the same article as appeared in the April 2008 edition of DTI?

(Just had a quick skim read, that's the one methinks!)

IF it is, it is here..............page 41/42.............loads slowly, at least it does on my WANK ADSL2 connection...............

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aw/dti0408/

Sort of. The DTI article was two pages long just talking about the new sub tech issues for SEA 1000. The Navy League article was 6-8 pages long and covered the whole thing. There was even more about industry issues but that got cut for space.

PS. How does smoke get blown up an arse? Why would anyone do it and why would anyone want it? Its a strange cliche.

JimWH

18-09-11, 03:25 PM

PS. How does smoke get blown up an arse? Why would anyone do it and why would anyone want it? Its a strange cliche.
[Med nerd] Blowing smoke up the arse (specifically tobacco smoke) was one of the 'treatments' for a heart attack in ~18th century. Wasn't hugely effective[/med nerd]
Moral of this story, boys and girls, is that 'complimentary and alternative medicine' is horseshit until such time as somebody puts it through rigorous clinical trials. Because over the course of history, mankind has come up with some truly bizarre 'cures' when not encumbered by the needs of the scientific process.

ADMk2

18-09-11, 03:38 PM

[Med nerd] Blowing smoke up the arse (specifically tobacco smoke) was one of the 'treatments' for a heart attack in ~18th century. Wasn't hugely effective[/med nerd]
Moral of this story, boys and girls, is that 'complimentary and alternative medicine' is horseshit until such time as somebody puts it through rigorous clinical trials. Because over the course of history, mankind has come up with some truly bizarre 'cures' when not encumbered by the needs of the scientific process.

Nothing beats leeches. They're a cure-all...

JimWH

18-09-11, 03:48 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez3BFGXR02A

However, it has to be said they're actually bloody good for wound debridement. Though nurses tend not like them, which makes compliance really bad.

Gubler, A.

19-09-11, 12:41 AM

[Med nerd] Blowing smoke up the arse (specifically tobacco smoke) was one of the 'treatments' for a heart attack in ~18th century. Wasn't hugely effective[/med nerd]

Well I HAD to ask. But I'm not sure that I'm better off knowing the answer.

Moral of this story, boys and girls, is that 'complimentary and alternative medicine' is horseshit until such time as somebody puts it through rigorous clinical trials. Because over the course of history, mankind has come up with some truly bizarre 'cures' when not encumbered by the needs of the scientific process.

Notice how there is no such thing as 'alternative dentistry' - even the most hardcore hippy is off to the dentist for needles, drills and fillings when they get a toothache. Ain't no placebo to make that tooth nerve pain go away.

Mercator

19-09-11, 07:36 AM

Christ almighty. This thread took some wild turns since I last visited.

As it turns out, I think I found out the "German boat" these senators were referring to as a MOTS contender by way of this excellent article (http://www.australiandefence.com.au/archive/undersea-technology-future-submarine-not-a-pick-n-mix-design-adm-aug-2010) from Gregor Ferguson (not sure how I missed it the first time):

While General Dynamics Electric Boat (EB) is ASC’s submarine ‘capability partner’, it hasn’t designed a conventional submarine for decades and can’t be considered an authority on all of the technology aspects of conventional boats – in particular, Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP); ASC and the RAN are no better off so far as AIP is concerned.

Notwithstanding EB’s submarine domain and technical knowledge, ASC and the RAN will need technology partners among the European conventional submarine builders: Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems (who own both HDW in Germany and Kockums in Sweden), DCNS in France and Navantia in Spain.

All of these submarine builders have established supply chains and technology partnerships with key suppliers of items such as AIP systems, batteries, electric motors and diesel generators.

However, none of them is likely to help launch and sustain a new industry rival, and none of them are suffering the sort of capacity constraints which would justify them forming an intimate, cooperative partnership with an Australian submarine industry from which it could tackle an emergent export market on a joint basis.

If Australia’s strategic intent is to sustain the long-term capability entirely through taxpayer funding (something normally done by a country with a higher GDP), then the benefits of this approach must be clearly spelt out to the Australian parliament and people.

And if this is the model adopted, the local industry still needs to design a safe, efficient, affordable platform.

It will still need to source key configuration items such as the combat system, propulsion motor and AIP system.

Selecting an AIP system from one submarine builder, and propulsion motor technology from another, and perhaps a platform automation system from a third would be impossible: the submarine builders would never agree to having their equipment integrated with a rival’s.

It’s clear Australia will need to select a single submarine builder as a technology source, and then form a close and exclusive partnership with that company.

Returning to the first question, the justification for a bespoke design is generally presented as a unique Australian requirement for range and endurance; this was one of the determinants of the size of the Collins-class boats, and the RAN wants even more than these boats can offer.

The conventional wisdom is that a smaller boat simply won’t be able to meet the RAN’s requirements.

However, although designed for an endurance of up to 70 days, the Collins-class boats rarely exceed 50 or so; smaller European–designed boats have demonstrated operational endurance of 60 days and more.

Interestingly, the head of the Future Submarine project, RADM Rowan Moffitt, told the Senate Estimates committee in June, “One of the military off-the-shelf options available from one of the European manufacturers can come in today at a stated nominal range that exceeds the Collins class range somewhat in a much smaller submarine—two-thirds the size.

“It is not an easy comparison to make, however,” he cautioned, “because it depends totally on the conditions: the climate conditions, the water temperatures, the distances over which the submarine is being asked to perform and exactly how the mission is being executed by the submarine.”

It’s not clear whether RADM Moffitt’s comparison includes a lengthy transit to a distant patrol area, which typifies RAN operations.

Nevertheless, it suggests the Navy is starting to recognise that the capability difference between a bespoke design and a MOTS design might not be as great, or as important, as originally thought.

An evolved MOTS design might provide an attractive balance of risk, reward and value for money.

In which case, it would make sense for the Commonwealth to run a competition to select a MOTS or evolved/enhanced MOTS platform and then encourage the manufacturer to form a close, cooperative relationship with ASC, or some other corporate entity in Australia’s naval industry.

That said, both HDW and Kockums have developed much larger versions of their current submarines designs, the Large Ocean-Going Submarine (LOGS) and Type 61, respectively.

The latter displaces 4,700 tonnes dived, with a 390kW Stirling cycle AIP plant, 41-strong crew, 26 full-length weapons and 70-day endurance.

The LOGS displaces 4,200 tonnes dived with a methanol-reformer fuel cell AIP system, 34-strong crew, 80 days endurance and up to 31 full-length weapons.

Like the evolved and ‘Design to Requirements’ variants of Navantia’s S80, these are ‘paper boats’ at present but could be the basis of an assisted in-country design effort if it is decided that even an evolved MOTS design is too small.

Mercator

19-09-11, 07:47 AM

There's more at that link, BTW.

Also, I saw a reference someone else (but I can't find it in my browser history) to the combat system on the S-80. It turns out it's a Lockheed Martin product that the company is hinting is related to the same system on the US Virginia class. Now I imagine that's an easy claim to test, but not one we can check. If it's true though, it takes even more risk out of that particular vessel, I would think. And yes, maybe it wouldn't be quite as cheap to make them here compared to off the production line in Spain. But still, it's still serious money.

I get the case for the indigenous design and there's definitely some merit to that, but as Gregor says in his article, if we are going to do the lot we need to have a very serious conversation with the Australian people because it is a very serious amount of money.

Gubler, A.

19-09-11, 07:53 AM

Gubler, A.

19-09-11, 08:00 AM

Also, I saw a reference someone else (but I can't find it in my browser history) to the combat system on the S-80. It turns out it's a Lockheed Martin product that the company is hinting is related to the same system on the US Virginia class. Now I imagine that's an easy claim to test, but not one we can check. If it's true though, it takes even more risk out of that particular vessel, I would think. And yes, maybe it wouldn't be quite as cheap to make them here compared to off the production line in Spain. But still, it's still serious money.

The Lockheed combat system is called their OA system or words to that effect. It isn't the same as the Virgina class combat system. That is a USN designed system outsourced to Raytheon and GD to build. Lockheed use the same tech but its a differnt product.

I get the case for the indigenous design and there's definitely some merit to that, but as Gregor says in his article, if we are going to do the lot we need to have a very serious conversation with the Australian people because it is a very serious amount of money.

Yeah sure but doesn't our ADF *love* having conversations with the public? We need the bigger boat. A Euro SSK will be limited to an ASW training target and a handfull of forward deployed missions. It will not be a strategic asset. If that is all we are buying them for we might as well just get 4 ~1,000 tonne boats and leave it at that. There is no point at buying 12 ~2,000 tonne SSKs.

ARH v.3.1

19-09-11, 09:45 AM

Notice how there is no such thing as 'alternative dentistry'.

Not entirely true...

Mercator

15-10-11, 03:27 AM

The enquiry into defence procurement continued last week. Here's a link to a couple of sessions. Just click on the witness list on the left hand side of the transcript to get at each individual session.

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommsen%2Fb 1dde4e3-a590-44f6-9cde-57a9bb4f7f32%2F0004%22

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommsen%2Fb 1dde4e3-a590-44f6-9cde-57a9bb4f7f32%2F0005%22

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommsen%2F6 859ca15-875c-4045-a09e-3034f2ee4e07%2F0001%22

The first day wasn't terribly informative unless you are interested in the workflow of DMO. The last session was a bit better because it managed to drag a few specific programs into the discussion. If you are inclined to read anything, read that one. It will hurt though, I promise you.

Mercator

15-10-11, 03:29 AM

Some extracts:

Offshore Combatant (Sea 1180)

Senator MARK BISHOP: On this exact point, yesterday we had a discussion about the offshore combat vessels. You and your colleagues really outlined in simple detail in the afternoon session that it appeared to be about getting common systems in the different types of capability as a driver of cost saving, or as a result of cost saving to government, instead of having all these specialised units. How does a project get so prescriptively and specifically identified in the white paper and it has not yet been to this options review committee? Then it seems to evolve in this internal consultative process to be something different to what was previously specified?

Air Marshal Harvey: Typically in the DCP and white paper it states they are reasonably broad in terms of: this is the capability we want to deliver, and we think it will be done broadly in this way. So as you go along, you refine that as you go through. At the same time, government also wants options. They do not want to be delivered something that says, 'Take it or leave it.' They want some choice in terms of which way we go. As to the offshore patrol vessels, in this case there is an expectation that a single-type vessel with replacement modules will do the job, which would be dependent upon largely uninhabited vehicles to do a lot of the mine hunting, mine clearing work.

We will go through and analyse that to see whether it is possible to get the right balance there, or probably put an option, maybe have two whole forms [sic -- hull forms?] with common modules that move between them for different tasks. That is our job to look at what is the desired capability outcome, what are the options to deliver it, and what is the best balance of risk to do that.

It is not prescriptive. Often we will put forward what is called an exemplar. If that is the capability you want, we have to cost it against something, and we will have an exemplar capability and we will work to that. We still come forward to government with options that are fully costed, risk assessment, so that we can progress to approval.

Mercator

15-10-11, 03:32 AM

Interesting reflection on the developmental solution for the AWD:

Mr King: Yes; with off-the-shelf we do not exceed budget on average. We operate at about 98 per cent. Very few of our projects go over budget; and on average we are on budget. We find that off-the-shelf solutions are more likely to deliver on schedule. Our analysis shows that off-the-shelf solutions typically deliver ahead of schedule by a few per cent.

Senator XENOPHON: So you take that into account when you are assessing the options? Is that built into the risk assessment?

Mr King: Yes, it is. When I provide the independent assurance to SEC/CDF and government on schedule risk, there is clearly a different schedule for a developmental solution compared to an off-the-shelf solution—even a modified off-the-shelf solution. If I use AWD again as an example—I was then the project manager for that—the advice to government was that the developmental solution would take three years longer and have a significant cost risk.

Mercator

15-10-11, 03:33 AM

Future submarine options

Senator LUDLAM: ... I have one more on submarines. How far has your thinking been allowed to stray outside of the box of what was in the white paper? Have you been given the freedom to explore ideas of purchase of off-the-shelf submarines or modified submarines from elsewhere or are you committed to working within the parameters that were set down in the white paper?

Rear Adm. Moffitt: The parameters that are set down in the white paper are quite broad. They do not prohibit me from examining any option except nuclear propulsion and that is exactly what we are doing. We are involved and we have a plan of work to deeply explore all of the available off-the-shelf options as well as various other option sets, up to and including how we might execute a completely new design.

Senator LUDLAM: A new design and/or basing them somewhere elseâ€•do your thoughts run to that degree? Could we end up with smaller, shorter-range submarines and put them in the Northern Territory or something, for example? Are you ranging that widely?

Rear Adm. Moffitt: Absolutely, including the involvement of outside Australia forward basing options and the implications of doing that, were that to be possible, for the nature of the submarine that might be needed.

Mercator

22-10-11, 09:52 AM

The transcripts from the Supplementary Senate Estimates hearings are now up. They're getting better – these are only three days old.

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Festimate%2F 2098eb1e-b597-4a0f-bc39-405fc2ab6251%2F0001%22

click on the list of attendees in the left-hand column to get to the relevant sections. (You probably don't want to hear the testimony from the The Australian War Memorial).

I haven't read them yet and I'm not sure when I will. Excerpts if I find anything interesting.

Mercator

22-10-11, 10:04 AM

I made a quick start...

ADF mental health report

Gen Alexander: ...We had a 49 per cent return rate across the organisation, so we had in excess of nearly 30,000 responses. So the data is extremely accurate. To give a broad summation of the outcomes, I will divide them up into certain areas of mental illness. The first one to discuss is anxiety disorders, which are the most common disorders. But, before that, one other thing I will comment on is that, when we received this data about six to eight weeks ago, rather than accepting that the data was true and accurate we got an Australian mental health expert panel together, which includes a number of leading mental health psychiatrists and other research specialists from around the country, to critically analyse our data in a number of respects, firstly to determine that it was accurate data, that the study had some degree of foundation. They certainly agreed that it had foundation. Secondly, they were to analyse our data and say, 'What do you feel are the implications of these particular data sets?' And they did that also. I will talk about four particular aspects: anxiety disorders; mood disorders, in other words, depression; rates of suicide; and alcohol use. I will concentrate on those four and talk in broad terms because the minister is releasing the details on Friday. We are looking to discuss it in much more detail on Friday. The most common anxiety disorder within the general community is post-traumatic stress and that is the same within the ADF. Our rates of anxiety and post-traumatic stress are statistically higher than what they are in the general community by a very small amount. We will be able to go through those figures on Friday. There is a slight statistical difference.

When it comes to mood disorders within the general community and us, there is very little difference between the two. It would seem that we are developing some degree of mood disorders earlier in Defence members than in the general community and that is something that we are going to examine further to find out why we have issues with depression in our members earlier than the general population. Some of the research specialists and scientists—we have had, for instance, Professor Ian Hickie from the Brain and Mind Research Institute, who is also going to discuss the report on Friday—have said that is because of the fact that we expose our members to all manners of situations within normal employment and operations. The normal burden of depression within the Australian community tends to increase in middle and later age. He seems to think, and we are yet to prove this through follow-on research, that our curve may be just a little bit shifted to a younger age group because of the work profiles and what we expose our members to. That is quite possible and we will explore that further.

I will finish on two other points. Our rates of suicide within the ADF are significantly lower than in the general community and that is matched for age, gender and work environments. Our rates of suicide ideation—in other words, people who are thinking of committing suicide or self-harm—within the organisation are higher than the general community. We were quite concerned about this. The programs that we have put in place and instituted over the last two to three years, plus the policies of early intervention with self-harm, are impacting upon our actual suicide rates.

The final one in relation to alcohol is that the burden of alcohol disease—that is at the far end of the spectrum, as opposed to drinking, dangerous drinking, binge drinking et cetera—is much less in the ADF compared to the general community. Intuitively that makes sense. You cannot really survive in an organisation like the ADF and perform to the standards in complex employment situations that we require of individuals and have a serious alcohol related illness. If you are looking at the entirety of the alcohol burden within the organisation, we acknowledge that there is some work to be done.

Mercator

22-10-11, 10:28 AM

This is very long, and sometimes tedious, but the whole exchange needs to be there to understand the outcome.

ASLAV upgrade

Senator FAWCETT: The media release the minister put out in June last year was announcing second-pass approval for LAND 112 phase 4, which was an ASLAV enhancement to the value of $302 million. The enhancements were to provide 'increased protection against a wider range of threats—including improvised explosive devices—by improving ballistic, fragmentation and blast protection.' Can the ASLAV 25 still currently be employed without limitation in the full range of roles and tasks stated by the minister last year pending this upgrade?

Gen. Hurley: There are a couple of issues in relation to the upgrade of the ASLAV. We might ask DMO to come up and talk about the whole project. Mr King is there. The issues from our perspective are that we intended to do a fairly significant upgrade to the ASLAV for the whole fleet. In short, when we looked at the technical feasibility of that, we were not able to do that. Mr King can address some of the aspects of that. We then went back and said, 'Okay, what must we do in Afghanistan?' We have made certain upgrades to the vehicle in Afghanistan to make it effective, sustainable and survivable in that environment. The broader future for the ASLAV fleet is an issue that is still being addressed. Again, Mr King can talk about the project in detail. Recall that under the force protection review that was done when Senator Faulkner was the minister we looked to enhance the survivability of that vehicle in Afghanistan and we have done that.

Senator FAWCETT: The announcement talked about an April 2012 delivery date for these enhancements. In fact there was discussion both in international and local media about the fact that that timetable would be brought forward. Is that timetable still on the books?

Mr King: I will split it into two parts. The project for the complete upgrade of the ASLAV was not executable as we originally envisaged it. We ran into technical difficulties with the solution, which basically would have made the vehicles to heavy. When we did a risk analysis of the weight of the vehicles against loss of things like braking distance, accelerating times and manoeuvrability, it became a greater risk than the protection it offered. What we have done is to upgrade both the ASLAVs and PMVs in theatre. I will quote from Major General Campbell, the Commander, Joint Task Force 633, who said:

I write to express my appreciation to you for the excellent work completed recently by your organisation, which has improved the survivability of key MEAO land platforms. I wish to acknowledge the excellent effort of your staff associated with the design and rapid implementation that has led to the success of the PMV and ASLAV survivability upgrade programs.

Of particular note was the mitigation. What we did was add belly plates to the vehicles and a range of quick seat protection—a seat that can take blast impact—and arranged to have them shipped directly from the US into theatre, with the successful integration into the ASLAV being conducted on location. But the upgrade teams successfully completed their task, with minimum impact to operational activities and under challenging circumstances. It was also pleasing to see that the PMV upgrade was completed two weeks ahead of schedule and that, during this time within the MEAO, both teams provided assistance above and beyond their primary tasks, such as developing ASLAV and PMV tyre-changing facilities and supporting other technical maintenance activities. The point I want to make is that, from the operations point of view, the commander is happy with what he has in theatre with the upgrades. It is a MOTS adaptation of a US Marine Corps solution and it is in theatre.

We are revisiting the whole ASLAV upgrade program. The basic issue is that the ASLAVs that we use have a weight, axle and propulsion train limitation, and the ambition target that we set for the protection would have been too great a technical risk and too great a wait.

Senator FAWCETT: To go back to the original program, in Canada the London Free Press in July ran an article saying that this was coming from Armatec, the company announced by the minister to have won the contract, and that 'the final round of negotiations was successful'. They were very happy with everything but it has been plagued with delay, after delay in their decision-making. That same company presented a prototype vehicle to the LAV users group in October, and the company is one that has manufactured over a thousand modification kits for both the US Marine Corps and the Canadian forces. Did the prototype presented to the user group contain the belly plates or just the ESKI modification?

Mr King: I cannot answer that. I will see if we can get some additional assistance on question.

Major Gen. Cavenagh: The Armatec is part of an initial contract that we let, and part of that contract was to develop a prototype. Armatec took that prototype to about 80 per cent to 90 per cent, and the prototype that was displayed did not have the belly plate.

Senator FAWCETT: Was testing done to verify the efficacy of that modification against, I am assuming, a functional performance specification around blast protection and did the ESKI modification meet the requirements of the FPS?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: Blast testing was conducted. The blast testing was done to compare it to the belly plate configuration and the ESKI system that was tested in the blast showed that it could actually withstand a certain level of blast.

Senator FAWCETT: Did it meet the FPS requirements?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: Whilst you refer to the FPS, because this was described initially as a military-of-the-shelf procurement as an urgent operational requirement we were essentially buying a package. So we were taking what they had and looking to implement it as quickly as we could. So it was not strictly tested against an FPS. What we were doing was verifying that it could withstand a certain level of blast that we considered was the minimum level.

Senator FAWCETT: Let me rephrase that question. Was there a fatal outcome for the crew using the ESKI modification against the level of blast tested?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: No, there was not.

Senator FAWCETT: And you said it was a comparative test with the other solution. Was there a fatal outcome for the crew?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: I would have to check on the tests for the Marine Corps belly plate, because you are not comparing apples and apples here. The belly plate, as its name suggests, is designed to be an additional level of protection that is essentially bolted on underneath the LAV to provide some protection against mine blast. With the ESKI system, it was a very intrusive modification of a vehicle. That had, in addition to what was included underneath the vehicle or in the base of the vehicle, additional side armour and a whole range of internal systems within the vehicle being shifted or modified in one way or another.

Senator FAWCETT: The industry perspective is that Armatec has 'a reputation for producing equipment that is combat proven against advanced ballistic, mine, IED, shaped charge and other threats.' Also:

Having performed so well in providing and installing spall liners for ASLAVs in the MEAO, the company--

is—

regarded widely as an ‘incumbent’ in LAV protective enhancements ...

As I say, there are some thousand-odd kits for both the Marine Corps and the Canadians that have been produced. What I am hearing from you is that the prototype that was developed by the company—and that was under contract, I assume, with the ADF—

Major Gen. Cavenagh: Yes, it was.

Senator FAWCETT: How much was spent on the contract?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: I will have to get that number for you.

Senator FAWCETT: I am assuming millions of dollars.

Major Gen. Cavenagh: Yes.

Mr King: We will get that number for you, Senator.

Senator FAWCETT: I presume it has involved a number of vehicles being sent from Australia to Canada.

Major Gen. Cavenagh: Yes, it has.

Senator FAWCETT: That modification did not involve the belly plates but it did pass the blast test in terms of providing protection to the crew?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: It passed the blast test.

Senator FAWCETT: Without the belly plates did the modification come in under the weight budget?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: No, it did not.

Senator FAWCETT: What was the actual weight of the ESKI?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: There are three different types. I will explain. The ASLAV in its standard form has a certain weight budget. There are certain exemptions that were given to take it to a higher level of weight budget for operations and still have it as a certified operational vehicle that was able to carry out its full range of tasks except for swimming. The issue that we had to deal with was this: when you added all of this additional ballistic protection and when you shifted and modified the systems inside the vehicle, did it still perform in a manner that would allow it to be successfully utilised on operations? There are three types of LAV that we are looking to have modified: the first type, type I, the gun car; type II, the PC; and then the variants and so on. Each of those vehicles has a different weight budget. What we were looking at with the type I vehicle was this. It was pushing the absolute limits of what you could consider as safe operation. There are judgments here, so we have been doing our own trials and testing, loading LAVs up with different weights to in fact be able to verify our engineering judgments. In parallel with Armatec going ahead and developing their modifications, we have been doing a range of testing and also engineering work ourselves. On top of that, the type II and the type III—of which prototypes were not developed—had a much heavier weight budget than the type I. Our judgment was that those vehicles could not be viably operated given the changes in performance from carrying that additional weight.

Senator FAWCETT: Is that weight, though, the ESKI modification plus belly plates or is that the ESKI modification alone?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: That was the ESKI modification alone. The belly plate added considerably more weight onto it, so it just made the problem worse.

Mr King: Maybe I can put a broader context onto this. I am currently using this inside DMO now as an example of weighing up the risks of the project. I will be blunt: the company over-represented the MOTS element of this solution. We were motivated, clearly, to get protection into theatre for the soldiers. The company promoted this solution very strongly to us as a MOTS solution, but it is actually a highly integrated solution that involves modifications to the vast majority of the vehicle in one form or another—fuel supplies, electrical supplies, weight, distribution, fittings, support struts. It is a very comprehensive piece of engineering.

The problem was that it was represented to our Defence Force as a very simple solution and one that we could field very quickly. We rapidly found ourselves in an area of a technical risk—the summation of all these pieces of technology which had been proven, or partially provable on one platform or another, coming together in our platform; the amount of time it was going to take to install it, test it, prove it and then upgrade it and get it into theatre; and, finally, we had certain reservations about the company and our dealing with it. All three things in a programmatic sense made it unviable to get that protection, or some protection, into theatre for our people on service. So we took the decision at that point, certainly for the vehicles in theatre, to get the proven Marine Corps upgrade into theatre and protecting our troops. We ran a real risk that we would not get protection into theatre in the time we anticipate before withdrawing.

Senator FAWCETT: I have two follow-up questions on that. Firstly, I am still waiting for the feedback on that answer about whether the alternate solution when blast tested had fatal outcomes for the crew.

Mr King: We will get that answer for you.

Senator FAWCETT: That is a very important thing to establish. Secondly, is the company wrong then in the public reporting to state that through the contract negotiations the Commonwealth was happy with all the aspects—weight, cost and reliability—and that they could deliver not only the 12 April time frame but, if the contract had been signed when they had originally planned, that they were in fact in a position to expedite delivery of that capability?

Mr King: The company view and our view differ, and I have got the responsibility, not the company.

Senator FAWCETT: Has the company actually been advised? I notice that they again in the free press are talking around the fact that they are laying off people, which also affects companies in South Australia. Have they been advised of the termination of that?

Mr King: We have not finalised our completion of the program. What we dealt with was how to protect our people in operations better than they had been. The big issue was getting some additional protection, against none, in a timely fashion for our people. That is what we pursued and we have still got to finalise our advice to government on the balance of the program.

Senator FAWCETT: And that was predominantly for the type I vehicle, the gun vehicle in theatre?

Major Gen. Cavenagh: I am not sure. If you are referring to the modifications that we have made, we have put the belly plate onto all of the operational vehicles in theatre.

Senator FAWCETT: I will put on notice feedback regarding the blast testing.

Mr King: The harder decision, though, was that a protection was better than no additional protection. But we will certainly get the information that we held on it.

Senator FAWCETT: So is that decision around phase 4 of Land 112 currently with the department or with the minister?

Mr King: With us.

Mercator

23-10-11, 10:32 AM

Sub crews

Senator JOHNSTON: Admiral Griggs, we have four submarine crews with 58 submariners stood up by the end of this year according to the former Chief of Navy. Do you stick by that?

Vice Adm. Griggs: No, I do not.

Senator JOHNSTON: Tell me why not. I appreciate your frankness.

Vice Adm. Griggs: Because we do not have enough qualified and experienced people to stand the fourth crew up at this time.

Senator JOHNSTON: What are we doing about that?

Vice Adm. Griggs: We are training our people. We have about 559 qualified submariners. Our target is 699. Over the last two financial years, we have grown the number of qualified submariners by about 40 per year which frankly has been our best result for some time.

Senator JOHNSTON: A significant achievement.

Vice Adm. Griggs: It has been. We have 149 people in the training pipeline; 69 of those are on course, 37 of those are at sea undergoing their qualifications and 27 have completed the course and are about to go to sea—they are waiting for slots as people come off the three crews that are crewing the boats at this stage. The important part of this is that we could stand a fourth crew up right now, but we would be denuding the submarine support group and denuding the shore based support structures. This is exactly what we used to do and what got us into the difficulties that we were in in the latter part of the last decade. This led to Admiral Moffitt doing his review about the capability. I am absolutely determined that we will stand this crew up in a sustainable way. I am not going to stand it up and have it fall over three months later. I cannot give you a date right now. It will not be the end of this year. We have just appointed the commanding officer of the fourth crew. Here is a bit lonely at the moment, but he is going to build his crew through the year as people come out of the training pipeline. We will go forward from there.

Mercator

23-10-11, 10:46 AM

Future Sub

Senator JOHNSTON: ....I am concerned that our original date for Collins was 2025. One learned body of thought that I have been reading says it is a 17-year developmental cycle between beginning to design something to putting it in the water. I note that we have the submarine life extension program running that we discussed this afternoon; it is clear to me that there is a very strong potential and likelihood for a capability gap here. Could you comment on that for me?

Rear Adm. Moffitt: Yes, I am happy to comment on that. I have said publicly, and I stand by, my statement about the completely new design of a submarine. There are a couple of dots here that need to be joined in the right sequence.

To meet the high end of all of the capabilities of the submarine as outlined in the Defence white paper—which is not the only way of meeting those requirements—is to describe a design of submarine that does not exist. There are submarines that can come close; they may or may not be available to us. For example, in terms of size overall—but not capabilities overall—the Japanese Soryu class could come close. But to execute a high end of capability of all of the things described in the white paper is to undertake a new design.

A new design, from the commencement of design activity through to the completion of operational test and evaluation—the point at which you have a submarine at an initial operating capability—is around a 17- to 18-year program of activity. That is consistent advice that we have had from five or six nations routinely involved in that sort of activity.

The caveat is that that is a period of time dependent upon starting with a ready workforce, all of the design tools and the design environment—the design rules that you are going to work to—all of those in place. Clearly, we do not have all those things in place. We would need to make an allowance for an additional period of time. So I have said consistently that for a high-end capability expression of those things described in the white paper we should be considering about a 20-year period. That is a couple of years to get to the point of being ready to start the design activity, seven to eight years of design activity and seven to eight years to build the first submarine—recognising that the next submarine we build will be the first we have built in well over 10 years. Even though some nations would say that it takes you four years to build a submarine, the Americans would say it takes you seven to eight for a first of class. We should expect that the next submarine we build will take us closer to seven to eight years than it will take us to four. Maybe later on we will get close to four, but we should expect it to be a long-ish time to start with.

Then add at least a couple of years for operational test and evaluation. With a complex weapons system like that of a submarine, you cannot expect any crew to take it out and to have a fighting capability the first time they take it to sea. It will take a considerable amount of time of testing to determine exactly what the submarine will actually do—particularly first of class. For the later ones we will need to test that everything is working properly, obviously, so the period should be shorter. So it is about 20 years for the high end. If, on the other hand, we choose to acquire something which is an off-the-shelf existing submarine, we would expect that period of time to be significantly less. Exactly how much less will be determined by what the nature of the submarine is. Typically, the same blocks of activity will need to exist but the time taken for each would vary. We would still expect the build time for the first one to be longish compared with some others. The same blocks will exist; the overall time taken could be considerably less. But that is approaching it from the replacement end.

It is equally important that we approach the question from the Collins end. That is why there is the evaluation of the service life, which is what we are doing at the moment. We are not extending the service life; we are evaluating the service life of the Collins-class submarine because, as Mr King said, the submarine was designed for a certain life if the usage profile was this. The usage profile that we gave to the Swedish firm Kockums, who did the design of Collins, is not a usage profile that we have been able to execute. In addition to that, we have some other problem areas which we will address in the intervening period. That might—in fact, I would say it almost certainly will—have implications for what is the realisable service life of each of the Collins-class submarines. Each of those submarines needs to be assessed individually, because each of them will have been used in a different way during its existing life.

Until we know the answers to those questions and understand what we realisably can get in a service life from the Collins-class submarines and what might be the effect of remediation activities that we may perform in terms of the propulsion system for the Collins class, we cannot give you an answer as to whether there may or may not be a capability gap, because we do not have a clear picture of all of the pieces that need to fit together in a total capability sense, which we need to have. That is why Air Vice Marshal Deeble and I are working hand in glove to make sure that there is a strategic level of planning associated with the entire submarine capability. The other critically important part of the whole equation is: how quickly we seek to have 12 submarines in inventory. That is a part of the conversation that we need to have and will have with government in time too.

Senator JOHNSTON: When will you have a clear picture such that you will be able to answer the question? It was a question that was framed only as to a high probability. When do you think that you will be in a position to address the issue of a capability gap with all of the facts?

Rear Adm. Moffitt: I think we have an expectation that towards the end of next year we will have a view on Collins. That will not be a definitive view, but it will be a view. Perhaps towards the end of the year following that we will have a clearer view on realistic schedule in respect of the multitude of options that exist for the future submarine. But then, of course, there is the question: what is the work we are actually going to do on Collins? So it is going to be an evolving story, I think, for the next few years.

Mr King: If AWD is a sort of guideline here in a simpler form, you probably will not know the entire answer to that until second pass, because at second pass you will have all of that information at your fingertips—or the government of the day will. For example, there might well be a trade-off decision at that time that talks about the MOTS option—the military off-the-shelf option—being available in the shorter build time frame and the bespoke design being the longer time frame. It might have short-term implications for capability at that time, but a government of the day might decide that that is the better option, or not. But there is just so much work to be done. That is the beauty of the Kinnaird process of investing money to do the work so you do not just pluck at answers but actually have engineering data and company data that we can base our advice to government on.

Senator JOHNSTON: One would have to be very concerned given the performance reliability of the current platform that we are painting ourselves into MOTS option corner very, very rapidly as time goes by.

Mr King: Yes, you would be concerned if that was the fact, but I am not sure that is the case. I think we will be a lot better informed within 12 months. I think we will have a lot from the Coles review. I do not want to resile from the fact that I have had strong discussions with ASC and they would know my position on this and it is quite strong. We need them to be an exemplar company. We need them to be one of the leading-edge companies of the world, and I believe that they have got the commitment to do that. But that is going to be essential for both the life of Collins and there is no doubt that ASC, to a greater or lesser extent, will be a core capability in leading into the future submarine. So all of this is an integrated plan. I do not think that it is quite as black as you are saying but we need the data to know.

Rear Adm. Moffitt: Adding to that, I think that it is quite a reasonable proposition to put forward that anything and everything we do with the Collins class from here on in—and in fact a great deal of what we have already done with the Collins class—can mitigate in a way the risk associated with the future submarine. It can take all that forward into the future submarine and in a number of the potential options spaces that is very eminently executable. We can take all the work that we have done, the experience that we have had, the expertise that we have built up and the systems that we have grown confident with through investing in to remediate previous problems, and take them forward into our future acquisitions in much the same way that the Japanese have with their submarine models where very little with each subsequent class of submarines is different from the one before—they change very little as they go. They take all the things that they are happy with and make improvements that are more or less incremental. That is an opportunity which, in some parts of the option space available to us for future submarines, does exist for us.

Senator JOHNSTON: What really concerns me, I guess, is that the white paper specified and injected into our capability a very discreet, heavily described capability requirement. We have done nothing for three years other than wait on the minister and the government to say go. We have certainly prepared for the 'say go' as best we can, but those three years are looming very large, because it will be three years in March or April next year, I think, and our options are becoming extremely narrow in terms of this ageing platform—a platform that has prematurely aged, may I say. We will not go any further dealing with that, because I think that whilst we need facts, anybody who has a passing interest in this particular platform would be alarmed at its reliability.

Rear Adm. Moffitt: In answer to that, I would not characterise it quite that way. Let me assure you that the last nearly three years of my life have been extremely busy doing things in respect of the future submarine. I will make no comment about the reliability of Collins; that is not my remit. But as I think I mentioned last time we met in this forum, it is an inescapable characteristic of the execution of a Defence acquisition of any sort that it will involve visits to government. There are many people who need to get government, not least elsewhere in Defence but also other government departments and I think it behoves all of us to structure our program so that work does not stop when our planned visits to government do not occur on precisely the day we think they should, because it is not like that. Life is not like that.