The Collins Class Submarine Story

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The Collins Class Submarine Story Page 2

by Peter Yule


  [5 July 2006]

  Paul-E P ˚alsson, President of Kockums 1987–91 [18 November

  2006]

  Olle Person, diesel engine consultant, Kockums and Hedemora

  [13 November 2006]

  Forbes Peters (Commander RAN), submariner; engineer; navy

  supervisor of Waller refit [31 March 2006]

  Bob Phillips, scientist, DSTO

  John Prescott, Managing Director of BHP; co-author of

  McIntosh-Prescott Report; Chairman of ASC [12 April 2006]

  Robert Ray, Minister for Defence 1990–96

  Peter Reith, Minister for Defence 2000–01

  Dick Riddell (Rear Admiral USN), submariner; chief US naval

  research and development adviser to allied navies

  Simon Ridgway, engineer, ASC [31 March 2006]

  Chris Ritchie (Vice Admiral RAN), Chief of Navy 2002–05

  John Ritter, scientist, DSTO [21 March 2006]

  Juergen Ritterhoff (Professor), head of IKL design team

  [22 November 2006]

  Terry Roach (Commodore RAN), submariner; leading

  submarine policy maker [17 May 2006]

  Trevor Robertson (Commander RAN), first CO of HMAS

  Collins [8 February 2007]

  Mick Roche, head of DMO 1999–2004

  Geoff Rose (Commodore RAN), submariner; third Project

  Director 1993–97 [20 August 2006]

  L I S T O F K E Y P E O P L E

  xiii

  Bill Rourke (Rear Admiral RAN), Chief of Naval Materiel; early

  advocate of building in Australia [2 March 2006]

  Jeff Rubython, executive, Wormald and ASC

  Hans Saeger, headed HDW bid [22 November 2006]

  Alan Saunders, ASC engineer, ex-Cockatoo Island

  Kevin Scarce (Rear Admiral RAN), DMO division head for

  naval project & support [30 March 2006]

  Bill Schofield, DSTO scientist, head of aeronautical and

  maritime research laboratories

  David Shackleton (Vice Admiral RAN), Chief of Navy

  1999–2002 [17 May 2006]

  Rick Shalders (Commodore RAN), head of submarine squadron

  [8 August 2006]

  David Simcoe, DMO naval engineer [19 June 2007]

  Peter Sinclair (Captain RAN), CO of HMAS Collins during sea

  trials [16 June 2006]

  Tony Smith (Commander RAN), submariner; worked for ASC,

  Boeing and Raytheon [1 February 2006]

  Keith Snell, consultant involved at many times during project;

  principal SMA [27 July 2006]

  Roger Sprimont, Swedish submariner; head of Kockums’ bid;

  chairman, ASC 1987–89 [10 November 2006]

  Karl Bertil Stein, combat system and weapons engineer,

  Kockums [20 November 2006]

  Pelle Stenberg, Swedish submariner; executive, Kockums

  [16 November 2006]

  Greg Stuart, project senior platform engineer [21 August 2006]

  Tore Svensson, design engineer, Kockums [17 November 2006]

  Ebbe Sylven, Swedish submariner; Swedish representative on

  Australia-Sweden government steering committee

  [14 November 2006]

  John Taylor, welding engineer, ASC

  Rod Taylor (Vice Admiral RAN), Chief of Naval Staff 1994–97

  Jock Thornton, ASC engineer; ex-RN submariner

  Ted Vanderhoek, software specialist with SWSC and submarine

  project [16 August 2006]

  Patrick Walters, national security correspondent for major

  metropolitan dailies [7 August 2006]

  Graham White (Captain RAN), first Project Director 1982–85

  [5 August 2005; 6 August 2006]

  xiv

  L I S T O F K E Y P E O P L E

  Hugh White, staff member to Defence Minister Kim Beazley;

  Deputy Secretary under Defence Minister John Moore

  [27 March 2006]

  John White, ran campaign to build in Australia and the

  unsuccessful HDW bid [20 March 2006]

  Don Williams, Managing Director, ASC 1988–93

  Jim Williams, head of research, BHP Wollongong

  David Wyllie, DSTO scientist; chief of the Maritime Platforms

  Division in 1998 [5 May 2006]

  Sandy Woodward (Vice Admiral RN), Falklands War

  commander and Flag Officer Submarines

  Alan Wrigley, Deputy Secretary, Department of Defence

  1979–85; queried basis for submarine project;

  Director-General of ASIO 1985–88 [15 November 2006]

  Charles Yandell, production manager, ASC; ex-Cockatoo Island

  John Young, Chairman of the Management Board, Atlas

  Elektronik [31 January 2006]

  L I S T O F A C R O N Y M S

  ACTU

  Australian Council of Trade Unions

  AMS

  Australian Marine Systems Pty Ltd

  ASC

  Australian Submarine Corporation Pty Ltd

  CBI

  Chicago Bridge and Iron Inc.

  CSA

  Computer Sciences of Australia

  CSC

  Computer Sciences Corporation

  DAO

  Defence Acquisition Organisation

  DMO

  Defence Materiel Organisation

  DSTO

  Defence Science and Technology Organisation

  FMV

  F örsvarets Materielverk (Swedish Defence Materiel

  Administration)

  HDW

  Howaltswerke Deutsche Werft

  IKL

  Ingenieur Kontor L übeck

  MTU

  Motoren und Turbine Union Friedrichshafen GmbH

  RAN

  Royal Australian Navy

  RN

  Royal Navy

  SMA

  Scientific Management Associates

  SMCT

  Submarine Capability Team

  SSPA

  SSPA Maritime Consulting AB, G öteborg, Sweden

  SWSC

  Submarine Warfare Systems Centre

  USN

  United States Navy

  xv

  I N T R O D U C T I O N

  The construction of the Collins class submarines was Australia’s

  largest, most expensive and most controversial military purchase.1

  The project had its origins in the late 1970s and the last subma-

  rine was delivered to the navy in 2003. During that period it was

  subjected to an unprecedented level of media scrutiny and criti-

  cism, became highly politicised and on several occasions faced the

  prospect of being abandoned.

  The general public perception of the submarine project is that

  it was a hugely expensive failure and that the submarines are

  noisy ‘dud subs’. These views are not shared by those who were

  involved in designing, building or operating the submarines, or

  by the navy leadership and military analysts who see the project

  as an extraordinary industrial achievement and the submarines as

  potent weapons and among the best of conventional submarines.

  There is much that is unique about the Collins submarine

  project. It was the first class of major warship designed specifically

  for Australian requirements – earlier classes were either bought

  from overseas or built to plans developed for other navies. Aus-

  tralian industry was more heavily involved than with any other

  modern military purchase. It was the largest electronics systems

  integration project ever undertaken in Australia. The lengthy list

  has led advocates for the project to compare it with the Snowy

  Mountains Scheme for its ‘nation-building’ significance.

  No
netheless the project encountered serious difficulties, and

  for many different reasons these were not managed well. Even

  with the benefit of hindsight there is passionate disagreement on

  what went wrong, why it went wrong and what should have been

  done. The only agreement among those involved in the project is

  that the final result is a fleet of excellent submarines.

  I was approached by Cambridge University Press to write this

  book, principally, I think, because I was the only person they

  xvii

  xviii

  I N T R O D U C T I O N

  could find with no preconceptions of the submarine project. This

  was accompanied by an absence of knowledge: I approached the

  project as a blank canvas, to be filled in by talking to as many

  of the protagonists as possible along with surveying the massive

  quantity of documents generated during the project. My training

  is in history and I have attempted to carry out the research and

  analyse the evidence using the methods of a historian, although

  historians are not trained to deal with the strong emotions still

  felt about the project by many of those involved.

  The aim of the book is simply to tell the story of the submarine

  project from its origins to about 2005. It is an extraordinary story

  with heroes and villains, intrigue, lies, spies and backstabbing. It is

  also a story of enormous commitment and resolve to achieve what

  many thought was impossible. There are lessons to be learnt from

  the story, but they are for the readers to discover for themselves

  rather than the authors to prescribe, and different people will see

  different lessons.

  The book deliberately avoids military jargon, ‘techno-speak’

  and the universal euphemisms of military folk – where weapons

  are called capabilities, assets, deterrents or systems, wars are con-

  flicts or contingencies, and all military activities, however aggres-

  sive in intent, come under the umbrella term ‘defence’. We have

  also avoided the military’s compulsive tendency to over-use cap-

  ital letters and acronyms. The style of the book will be foreign

  for those of service background or military enthusiasts, but is

  designed to make the story accessible to those confounded by sen-

  tences like, ‘Raytheon has received a NAVAIR contract to further

  develop the JSOW AGM-154C1 (formerly JSOW Block III)’. Nor

  will the reader find such grandiloquent creatures as CINCPACFLT

  or COMNAVSEASYSCOM. Both are (apparently) familiar

  figures to modern sailors, though Nelson must be shuddering in

  his grave.

  This book is not an analysis of what has been written about

  the project by journalists and academics and has generally avoided

  using secondary sources. It is based on over 130 interviews with

  people involved in almost every aspect of the project, and the doc-

  uments, minutes, letters and diaries generated during the course of

  the project. These include the major evaluation studies of industry

  proposals, the Tender Evaluation Board Report and the Subma-

  rine Evaluation Team Report, the minutes of the Force Structure

  I N T R O D U C T I O N

  xix

  Committee and the Chief of Naval Staff Advisory Committee, the

  Project Quarterly Progress Reports, the Vickers Cockatoo Island

  Dockyard Report on the construction of submarines in Australia

  and many other reports on the strategic and technical justifications

  for the project, and departmental files on specific issues.

  My task was made possible by the advice and guidance of my

  co-author, Derek Woolner, a military analyst long exposed to the

  ways of the Canberra bureaucracy. Derek carried out the docu-

  mentary research in Canberra, wrote chapters 7–10, 15 and 20,

  contributed sections for several other chapters and helped in many

  other ways. Admirals Peter Briggs and Boyd Robinson provided

  constant help and opened many doors, without in any way deter-

  mining the conclusions reached. The staff of the submarine branch

  of the Defence Materiel Organisation assisted in many ways and

  Colin Cooper deserves special thanks for maximising the authors’

  use of the official record by his management of the security restric-

  tions of classified documents.

  Many people have read portions of the draft and the authors

  thank them all for their helpful comments. We owe special thanks

  for advice and encouragement to John Jeremy, Ron Dicker, Andy

  Millar, Jim Duncan, Olle Holmdahl, Oscar Hughes, Graham

  White, Greg Stuart and Hans Ohff. My visit to Sweden and

  Germany in November 2006 was made possible by Roger

  Sprimont, who arranged my interview program and helped greatly

  in many ways. I received welcome help and hospitality from Pelle

  Stenberg, Ulf Edman, P ˚ar Bunke, Hans Peder Loid, Karl Bertil

  Stein, Kurt Blixt, Ebbe Sylven, Tomy Hjorth, Paul-E P ˚alsson, Olle

  Person, G östa Hardebring, Roine Carlsson, Carl-Johan Åberg,

  Hans Saeger and Juergen Ritterhoff. The staff of Kockums went

  out of their way to assist me and Gunnar Öhlund, Tore Svensson

  and Bo Benell provided me with much useful information. Simi-

  larly, ASC Pty Ltd (formerly the Australian Submarine Corpora-

  tion) gave me every assistance and I am grateful to Jayne Correll

  for organising interviews with ASC staff.

  Geoff Hook and Peter Nicholson have kindly given permission

  to reproduce their cartoons, which encapsulate some of the more

  acrimonious debates and controversial aspects of the submarine

  saga. The following individuals and organisations have generously

  allowed us to use their photographs to illustrate significant stages

  of the project and some of the key people involved: Peter Sinclair;

  xx

  I N T R O D U C T I O N

  the Royal Australian Navy; ASC Pty Ltd; Defence Science and

  Technology Organisation, Department of Defence; Force Element

  Group, Department of Defence.

  Of the thousands of people involved in designing, building

  and operating the Collins class submarines, no two people fully

  agree on the ‘real story’ of the submarine project. Similarly few

  people will agree with all details in the book, and many will be

  angered by some of the conclusions reached. While the authors

  accept responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation, the

  lack of agreement on many issues remains one of the key features

  of the Collins submarine project, with the noise of the disputes

  still overshadowing the scale of the achievement.

  Peter Yule

  P A R T 1

  Y O U C A N ’ T B U I L D

  S U B M A R I N E S

  I N A U S T R A L I A

  C H A P T E R 1

  ‘The one class of vessel that it is

  impossible to build in Australia’:

  Australia’s early submarines

  T H E N E W S U B M A R I N E S :

  A R E T H E R E FATA L D E F E C T S ?

  This headline appeared in the Melbourne Age, not in the 1990s,

  but on 12 July 1928. It referred not to the Australian-built Collins

  class submarines, but to
the British built O class. In 1925 two of

  these submarines were ordered for the Royal Australian Navy

  from Vickers’ shipyard at Barrow in the north-west of England.

  Delivery was 12 months late due to industrial problems and short-

  ages of skilled workers, but the worst problems were not seen until

  the submarines, Oxley and Otway, had entered the Mediterranean Sea on their way to Australia. Cracks and fractures were found in

  the diesel engines of both boats, and they were stranded in Malta

  for eight months.

  Inevitably the delay and cost led to debate in Australia. The

  government and the navy were accused of buying an experimental

  design that had not been properly tested and of hiding the truth ‘in

  a fog of mystery’.1 Official responses were vague and misleading

  and, failing to quell public concerns, led to ever more extreme

  claims about the boats’ failings.2 The lack of open and public

  3

  4

  T H E C O L L I N S C L A S S S U B M A R I N E S T O R Y

  discussion led to a general belief that the faults were far worse than

  they really were. Further, the debate was deliberately fanned by

  leading figures in the navy and the government who were opposed

  to having submarines at all.

  Submarines have long been controversial in Australia. From

  the earliest days of the navy the same topics have been debated.

  Should the navy have submarines? If so, should they be built in

  Australia or overseas? Does Australia have the ability to build

  submarines? What are the most suitable submarines? Will they

  prove too expensive? Will they perform as intended? The debates

  have been more bitter and prolonged with the Collins class than

  with any other, but most of the issues raised in the controversies

  over Collins have familiar resonances over the century since Alfred

  Deakin first proposed submarines for the Australian navy.

  In April 1904 Admiral Sir John Fisher, the architect of British

  naval policy before the First World War, described an incident he

  observed during British naval exercises off Portsmouth:

  Here . . . is the battleship Empress of India engaged in

  manoeuvres and knowing of the proximity of Submarines, . . .

  so self-confident of safety and so oblivious of the possibilities

  of modern warfare that the Admiral is smoking his cigarette,

  the Captain is calmly seeing defaulters down on the

  half-deck, no one caring an iota of what is going on, and

 

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