Page 54 - Australian Defence Magazine Nov 2020

54 C4I SUBMARINES
NOVEMBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
of type of the Collins fleet. Beyond this time, the Subma- rine Combat System integrated into the Navy’s new Attack class boats will have the AN/BYG-1 at its heart and will also undergo continuous spiral development under the ACP.
The parallel torpedo program under the ACP frame- work has resulted in the development of the digital Mk.48 Mod.7 ADCAP weapon to replace earlier analogue ver-
TECHNICAL INSERTION/ADVANCED PROCESSOR BUILD PROGRAMS
Under the ACP, combat system development can be divid- ed into two main components; a Technical Insertion (TI) primarily to update hardware, and an Advanced Processor Build (APB) to upgrade the software.
The tech insert assures the supportability of the combat system from a hardware perspective, harnessing improve- ments in computing power for example, whereas the regu- lar software drops under the APB maintain the evolution- ary improvement of the system as a whole.
Each component is on a two-year development cycle, with the hardware upgrades released in even years and software in odd years. The US Navy’s attack submarines and the Collins class boats are regarded as variants within a common fleet, in terms of combat systems, with Austra- lia’s submarines referred to as Variant Eight - (v)8.
The TI/APB upgrades are incorporated into the Col- lins submarines during either their mid-cycle docking or full-cycle docking intervals and, to maintain the us- age upkeep cycle required by Navy, Australia only takes every second upgrade cycle, taking a TI/APB approxi- mately every four years. Due to the size of the US Navy’s
ABOVE: The Collins fleet is being upgraded while the attack class build takes place.
“THE ACP WILL CONTINUE BEYOND COLLINS AND INCORPORATE THE COLLABORATIVELY-DEVELOPED SUBMARINE COMBAT CONTROL SYSTEM INTO THE NEW ATTACK CLASS SUBMARINES.”
sions, and this work will con- tinue into the future, with the Mk.48 torpedo set to become the primary kinetic weapon of the Attack class submarines.
“The AN/BYG-1 is the core of our combat management system, it’s the element responsible for compiling all the data from the submarine’s various sensors and, through localisation algorithms, performs track motion analysis, to develop tracking solutions for
contacts,” RAN Captain Adam Lindsay, executive director Submarine Combat Systems explained to ADM.
“The combat system uses these contact solutions to produce a representation of the tactical environment around the submarine, what we refer to as the tactical picture, to allow the commander to use the information to inform command decisions and, in the event of con- flict, to undertake an attack on an adversary.”
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