Page 86 - Australian Defence Magazine May 2022

86 SEAPOWER MINEHUNTING
MAY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
LEFT: Huon-class Minehunter HMAS Gascoyne at sea off the Western Australian coast
RIGHT: HMAS Huon’s Operations Room during a mine countermeasures and diving exercise
BELOW LEFT:
A Gavia AUV is remotely piloted by Australian Mine Warfare Team 16 during an internal training period at Pittwater, NSW
A TOOLBOX APPROACH
Key systems being delivered under Sea 1778 include five 38-foot glass fibre-hulled support boats made by New South Wales shipbuilder Steber International. These feature a top speed of 25 knots, a payload capacity of more
Sea 1778 is also delivering four Bluefin-9 and three Blue- fin-12 autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) from Gen- eral Dynamics Mission Systems. The Bluefin 9 weighs 70 kg and can be deployed and recovered from piers, a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) or other vessels of opportunity.
For Sea 1778 it can be launched by hand or launched from a purpose-built launch and recovery system on the Steber support boats, providing safe operations for Navy sailors in higher sea states.
The Bluefin 9 delivers mission endurance of up to eight hours at three knots and dives to 200 metres. A removable module stores high-definition images, video and sonar data that can be accessed within minutes of the AUV’s recovery.
The Bluefin-12 is 4.5 metres long, weighs 250 kg and for Sea 1778 benefits from a Thales-developed stern launch and recovery system. The AUV can carry multiple payloads
BLUEFIN AUVS
than three tonnes, and (when required), a five-strong crew.
Three are configured as MCM support boats which are used to deploy, operate and recover combinations of the MCM sub-sys- tems, while the other two are configured as Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs).
“SEA 1778 WILL SERVE TO AVOID ANY GAP IN THE RAN’S MINEHUNTING CAPABILITY WITH THE FOUR REMAINING 732-TONNE HUON-CLASS MINEHUNTERS COASTAL (MHC)”
simultaneously for MCM and unexplod- ed ordnance detection, also at depths of up to 200 metres.
Both AUVs feature the same data stor- age module and the same 1.9 kWh re- chargeable Lithium-ion batteries, one on Bluefin-9 and four on the Bluefin-12. This provides the latter with endurance of up to 30 hours at 3 knots, making the vehicle ideal for mine reconnaissance op- erations where large areas of the seabed must be mapped.
These are equipped with a command and
control system that allows them to be op-
erated remotely while towing the AMASS
(Australian Minesweeping and Support
System) multi-influence sweep for detonat-
ing influence mines; operational with the RAN since 1993.
Both AUVs also use the Sonardyne Sol- stice multi-aperture side-scan sonar as standard to search for and classify sea mines. Each of the sonar’s two arrays uses 32 multibeam elements to provide in a single pass un- distorted, high contrast imagery suitable for simultaneous search and classification across a 200-metre swath. Both Bluefin types are also fitted with a monochrome camera
“If you’re in a real hurry and you’ve got to get out of a port, you need a sweep. AMASS is still a perfectly capable system for domestic sweeping of ports and harbours and the like and the USVs will allow the RAN to do that with- out sailors being exposed to danger,” Stephen said.
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