Page 31 - Australian Defence Magazine April-May 2021

APRIL-MAY 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
SEA POWER HUNTER CLASS 31
“The HCFP will provide the Australian Defence Force with the highest levels of anti-submarine capability, and will set in place continuous naval shipbuilding as outlined in the Defence White Paper of 2016 and the Naval Shipbuilding Plan of 2017,” according to Defence. “It will secure Austra- lian jobs and further invest in Australian defence industry to build and sustain the industry capability needed to design and construct our major warships over the decades to come.”
Initial Operating Capability for the first of class (HMAS Flinders) is expected to be achieved by end of 2031.
TIMELINE
The program hit a major milestone at the end of 2020 with the first steel being cut for the first prototype blocks.
According to sources close to the program, the Hunter team did not pass the first attempt of the Systems Re- quirement Review in 2019, something that BAE re- futes. There were significant concerns around weight on the UK program (the tendered ship was close to 8,000 and now sitting at approximately 10,000 tonnes), ADM understands. The potential growth margin in the ini- tial design has already been eaten away in the early de- sign stages in both the UK and Australian programs. “We’re now into that semi-production environment where- by we’re testing the equipment and the processes, the whole production team mobilised with a combination of training as well as being able to test with the shipyard designer,” Craig Lockhart Managing Director for BAE Systems Mari- time Australia, explained to ADM. “So we’re working with the Commonwealth and OMT who designed the shipyard. The tests on the design focus on the functions so that we are able to validate them or look for some of the equipment differences in either throughput or reliability and just to get an understanding on how it’s relating to our design. So that’s well underway and going well.
“In terms of 2021 we have a number of major milestones this year, starting in Quarter 1 with Systems Definition Review (SDR) which is where we agree with the Common- wealth, the high level design requirements and the mission systems requirements around the key changes, but also giv- en confidence that as we go through that process we’re still well within the parameters of the ship’s key performance characteristics – stability, range, speed, acceleration, etc.
“We’re travelling at the moment, we’re on target for SDR, so we’re good to get into that design process. We then look at production and prototyping, so we’ve got five blocks in total. We’ve got two blocks of the Type 26 blocks that you would expect would be design mature because they’re already being built in Glasgow. The next three blocks are Hunter blocks and, again, we’re passing them through a design verification and assurance process to make sure that the design informa- tion and the design is mature before we go into manufacture.
“Third Quarter, design separation,” Lockhart explained. “So we will design separate from the UK, which is really a transfer of the control processes, tools and systems by
LEFT: A mock up of the Hunter design from the early days of the campaign.
which we’ll take a slice of the reference ship design, we’ll take the configuration control at that point and then we’ll transfer under Australian control. So at that point the Australian entity then becomes wholly responsible for the design and will manage the configuration from that point forward. In the runoff to Quarter 3 we’re vigorously testing the tools and the systems and the control processes that en- able us to do that scenario. We’re testing right now to make sure that when we make that cut, we’re then able to exactly control the configuration changes to the design thereafter. That’s a big milestone for us in Quarter 3.
“In Quarter 4 we close off, we’re maturing the combat systems around the systems definition. Combat systems is on a critical path and, again, we’re unpacking that in terms of what we gain from the US and Aegis, how we then gener- ate and develop the Australian interface and we’re working on that with Saab, and how that fits within the whole ship.”
COMBAT SYSTEM
The interface between the US made Aegis systems from Lockheed Martin and the Saab Australian Interface is one of the unknowns in the program as such an integration ef- fort has not happened before, although Saab and Lockheed Martin have demonstrated back in 2018 their ability to in- terface between the systems.
Saab Australia has two key roles on the Hunter class frigate program; as a Combat Systems Integration partner delivering engineering design for the
complete combat system and the de-
sign and delivery of the Australian In-
terface. Nearly 30 Saab employees are
working alongside BAE Systems Mari-
time Australia, Lockheed Martin Aus- THE END OF 2020 WITH tralia and Defence, embedded within
the Combat Systems Integrated Project Team, to deliver the engineering design and integration for the complete com- bat system of the Hunter class frigate.
As the Combat Management System
Enterprise Partner to Defence, Saab is also responsible for the delivery of the Australian Interface to the Aegis system on the Hunter class frigate program. Saab’s in-house team is actively progressing the design for the Australian Inter- face, which leverages its ‘Next Generation’ capability and over three decades of successful development and integra- tion of combat systems into a range of Navy platforms in Australia and world-wide.
Interfacing with the Aegis system, the Australian Inter- face integrates Australian, non-Aegis, sensors and effectors. Over the past 12 months, the Saab team has grown by over 100 employees Australia-wide. Saab is also providing common Australian Interface and Combat Management solutions for the Australian Navy and will equip six of the RAN’s classes of vessels with advanced technology, in line with the Australian Government’s commitment to an enter-
prise approach to combat management systems.
“As the lead Aegis Combat System Integration (CSI) part- ner for the Hunter Class program we are working in close collaboration with the customer and our delivery partners
“THE PROGRAM HIT A MAJOR MILESTONE AT
THE FIRST STEEL BEING CUT FOR THE FIRST PROTOTYPE BLOCKS.”