Page 35 - Australian Defence Magazine April 2020
P. 35

 ble for designing and integrating the com- bat system; and the then-Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) as owner-participant, retaining overall responsibility for delivery.
Five months on and still well in advance of a decision on ship design, the Com- monwealth signed a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract with the US government for three Aegis combat systems. This included FMS engagement of the US Navy and USN sub-contractor Lockheed Martin as the En- gineering Agent for the core Aegis system.
In June 2007, to general surprise, Can- berra announced the selection of Spanish shipbuilder Navantia’s in-service F100 Al- varo de Bazan-class frigate design in pref- erence to an incomplete evolved design by US naval architect Gibbs and Cox based
“THE AWDS CONSIDERABLE WEAPONS AND SENSORS FITOUT PROVIDES CAPABILITIES WELL BEYOND THE SHIPS’ PRIMARY LONG- RANGE AIR DEFENCE ROLE.”
on a scaled-down US Navy Arleigh Burke Flight II guided missile destroyer.
“The evolved option was still a work in progress, so that’s where the great majority of risk reduction resources were focused,” commented Warren King, AWD program manager for the DMO from 2004 to 2007 and then its general manager programs to 2011 (and subsequently DMO CEO through to 2015).
“Navantia thought they were a stalk- ing horse but General David Hurley (then Chief of the DMO’s Capability Develop- ment Group), Steve Gumley (then CEO of the DMO) and I were all very much of the opinion that the F100 was viable and we needed to ensure that Navantia took it seri- ously. It’s fair to say the selection of Aegis as the combat system put the Aegis-equipped F-100 in a much stronger position,” he said.
October 2007 saw signature of a three- way pain-share gain-share Alliance-based Target Incentive Agreement (ABTIA) be- tween the DMO, ASC subsidiary AWD Shipbuilder Pty Ltd, and Raytheon Austra- lia, for ship construction and delivery.
Navantia declined an invitation to join the Alliance and signed a separate Platform
35

























































































   33   34   35   36   37