Page 80 - Australian Defence Magazine October 2019

DEFENCE
PACIFIC
ATTACK CLASS
RAN and Indian Navy ships conduct a PHOTEX for AUSINDEX 2019.
The Collins-class hulls were constructed from a high-tensile micro-alloy created by Swedish specialist steel manufacturer SSAB but subsequently modified for Australian manufacture and produced by Wollongong company Bisalloy Steels, the country’s only producer of high strength quenched and tem- pered steel plate, and steelmaker Bluescope.
Benefitting from that experience, in Feb- ruary this year Bisalloy received an initial order from Naval Group for 250 tonnes of HLES high performance steel plate as used in the Barracuda class. This will be utilised in the first of up to three qualifica- tion phases which will test the company’s ability to maintain quality in production, having earlier demonstrated that its steel meets the relevant specifications.
Utilising HLES steel, hopefully pro- duced in Australia, will allow some of the structural design of the Barracuda to be re- used without modification for the Attack- class, reducing risk in the design process and benefiting potential certification.
Combat Systems Integration
Although Raytheon Australia had sup- ported the Collins-class combat system for more than a decade, in winning the combat system integration role Lockheed Martin clearly benefitted from its role as sole combat system integrator for the US Navy’s entire submarine fleet, and the reach-back that will provide.
Lockheed Martin Australia executives said the company’s proposal included a technical solution to US security require- ments to fully integrate the AN/BYG-1 tactical and weapon control system into the Future Submarine combat system.
The solution is believed to involve Lock- heed Martin’s ARCI (Acoustic Rapid COTS Insertion) program. The open architecture ARCI design exploits commercial process- ing improvements and would eliminate the requirement for any security interface be- tween its processors and the AN-BYG-1.
Now engrossed in the combat system design phase, Lockheed Martin provides advice directly to NGA on the installation issues and power generation requirements of prospective major sub-systems includ- ing sonar, communications and masts.
NGA then assesses any changes to the hull that might be necessary and the two companies jointly advise Defence of which candidate system in their view best meets the Commonwealth’s requirements, to- gether with any ramifications for subma- rine production.
Sources told ADM that SPA agreement had been reached in December 2018 on an exit clause under which the Common- wealth could terminate its agreement with NGA without cost should delivery of the first of the 12 Attack-class submarines be more than two years late or costs rise by more than 25 per cent.
Design work had meanwhile continued without interruption under the Design and Mobilisation contract signed in Sep- tember 2016.
This included preparations for Attack- class construction at the Commonwealth- owned Osborne North naval shipyard. The first sod was turned in December 2918 and work is now underway on the land-based propulsion test facility and the combat system physical integration facility. Work on the construction halls, blast and pain workshops, warehousing and other facili- ties will start in the second quarter of 2020.
Assuming the conceptual and prelimi- nary design phases are finished in the next three years, detailed design including production drawings and systemic plans should be completed by the mid-2020s, RADM Sammut said.
“In the early 2020s we should be in a position to begin producing the cans (hull sections) because the hull diameter and hull length will already be known – you’re not going to change the hull diameter when you’re into detailed design.
“But we want to get to 85 per cent ma-
turity of production drawings before we start detailed production, probably in about 2024, producing the things that go in the cans. Collins construction got un- der way with only 10 per cent of produc- tion drawings completed.”
Workforce
Although some 1,100 direct jobs are forecast to be generated by Future Sub- marine construction with another 1,700 involved in the supply chain, producing the hull itself would be an automated process taking no more than 30 people in total, Johnson explained.
“You never rush it, you want to make as steady an effort as you can. We’ll try and build as much of the submarine as we can outside the hull, then we’re in a position to start producing the rafts that slide into the cans out to around 2026; Collins was the first submarine where that was done in a really sophisticated way.
“The hull is not the big thing, it’s those rafts and installing, integrating and test- ing the equipment on them before it all goes into the hull. That’s where the real efficiencies are, and the work, and the peo- ple, and the cost.”
Materials
Meanwhile DST scientists have already been working for nearly a decade on under- standing and assessing the materials likely to be used in Attack-class construction.
80 | October 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au