The Collins Class Submarine Story

by Peter Yule

  ing all these was the continued poor performance of the combat

  system.

  In many other areas the submarine achieved the contracted

  levels of performance with comparative ease. Little was heard

  about these because they never became issues between ASC

  and the navy and they never aroused the interest of the media.

  A good example was Collins’ first deep dive on 19 January 1996.

  Geoff Rose tells the story:

  Hans [Ohff] and myself and Graham White went down to

  Cape Jervis and . . . at one o’clock in the morning we went

  down to the boat harbour and we got on the ex-Victorian

  Safety Council rubber duck . . . and we barrelled out for five

  hours out into the middle of the Southern Ocean and met

  Collins and Protector.

  Then we dived and we went past our deep diving

  depth . . . We popped down in 25 metre steps and there’s this

  wonderful guy . . . called Glen Sloan, an ASC naval architect,

  he’s got all these strain gauges on the hull and he’s got his

  computer there and all the rest of it and the submarine

  compressed at exactly the right predicted amount all the way

  down . . . and as we came up it came back to exactly the

  same spot. Exactly. It was like going to test something and

  expecting there were going to be a few problems and

  everything was absolutely perfect. And we surfaced in the late

  afternoon and it was just us and the Protector and no one

  else. You could actually make mobile phone calls and Peter

  Sinclair got on the phone to the Maritime Commander and

  the Chief of Navy, ‘Yeah, we’ve surfaced, we’re fine. It went

  well. Everything was good.’ Then we got in the rubber duck

  and we went into Robe and stayed at a motel. We had to get

  them to keep the restaurant open for us and we had tea and

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  then we got in the car and drove back to Adelaide and went

  home and I thought that in anyone else’s navy there’d have

  been ships and planes and press and stuff everywhere and we

  just toddled out in the middle of the sea there and did it.

  Collins met or exceeded specifications in many areas including the

  contracted speed (with power to spare), manoeuvring, low-speed

  underwater endurance and the performance of the ship control

  system. All through the project reports on Collins’ trials a recur-

  ring theme was the success of the ship control system. As this had

  been a major concern in the early 1990s it was subjected to close

  scrutiny and emerged with flying colours. For example, during the

  full power snort trial in May 1996, ‘the autopilot was engaged . . .

  as it offered better depth keeping performance than the operators’.

  Marcos Alfonso and his engineering team, who bore the brunt of

  the mechanical failings on Collins, found the ship control system

  was excellent and Alfonso insists ‘we should bang the drum about

  how good it is’.

  HMAS Collins was delivered to the navy on 15 July 1996 and

  commissioned on 27 July. She sailed for Sydney on 12 August,

  conducting further trials on the way, but then had to ‘remain

  alongside for the remainder of the month to repair a defect in the

  main motor’. On 3 September she sailed for Western Australia,

  again conducting further trials on passage, during which a num-

  ber of ‘difficulties’ arose: an important component of the main

  propulsion motor came loose; there were problems with the elec-

  trical system ‘resulting from the large rolls in extreme weather’;

  and there was ‘excessive leakage past the main shaft seal’. Collins’

  trials program continued in the west but was frequently ‘disrupted

  by a number of frustrating defects’.10

  The general perception of the Collins class submarines has been

  greatly clouded by the problems shown up during the trials of

  the first submarine. While it is true that the major problems –

  the combat system, the diesel engines, noise – were generic to the

  class, a high proportion of the minor problems that arose during

  Collins’ trials were remedied and did not reappear in the later

  boats. This is clear from the fact that the trials periods and the

  lists of defects were shorter for each successive boat.

  The extent to which the lessons of Collins had been learnt

  was already evident in the progress of the second submarine,

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  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

  Farncomb, which was launched on 15 December 1995 with a big

  ‘Made in Australia’ joey on the fin. During 1994 and 1995 ASC

  regularly reported to the project office that it had made ‘signifi-

  cant improvements in processes and installation activities’ based

  on the experiences with Collins. Similarly, the training and man-

  agement of the crew profited from the lessons of Collins. Whereas

  the crew of Collins had been encouraged to spend time on the

  boat during construction but few actually did so, Mike Gallagher,

  the captain of Farncomb, insisted on it. Further, ASC and the

  project office allowed the crew to work side by side with the ASC

  production crews, which meant they knew the boat backwards

  before it was launched, and also that some faults were picked up

  and remedied at an early stage. A further advantage was that the

  technical departments of Collins and Farncomb swapped half of their teams in late 1995 during Collins’ sea trials so that Farncomb could finish off its training and head to sea with half its technical

  crew already having been at sea on the class and knowing what

  problems to look for and what to expect during trials.11

  Farncomb began its contractor’s sea trials in September 1996,

  and after the first series was completed the project office reported

  that: ‘It is clear that the experience gained from Collins is

  flowing through to later submarines.’12 Mike Gallagher recalls

  that: ‘When we set off, the combat system was still not work-

  ing properly and the submarine had many temporary fixes or

  workarounds, but there were many fewer platform failures than

  there had been with Collins . . . and Farncomb sailed through most of the trials.’

  Farncomb’s crew had some interesting experiences during the

  trials. The first time they tried running the three diesels on full

  power simultaneously the sonar stopped. They did many checks,

  then tried the diesels again and the sonar stopped again. They

  did more checks and by pure luck they discovered that as the

  diesels started, the significant vacuum formed in the submarine

  caused a pressure differential in the sonar cabinets. The cabinets

  had breather holes in the casing, but the vacuum still sucked the

  door in a bit and then the door would pop open, triggering a

  safety switch and shutting the whole sonar down. The remedy

  was simple once the diagnosis was made.

  The crews of Collins and Farncomb were frustrated at what

  they saw as ASC’s reluctance to fix the problems that appeared in

  the submarines. Mike Gallagher told a story to illustrate this:

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  Back aft we only have three people on the Collins submarines

  compared with the Oberons which had ‘a cast of thousands’.

  On one occasion . . . at deep diving depth I found we had

  three white-faced engineers back aft. During some depth

  changing manoeuvres, the engine room hatch had made an

  uncustomary and alarming metallic ‘boing’ noise. Such an

  effect gives obvious cause for concern and after being invited

  by the ASC staff to ‘. . . let’s just try that again . . .’ we

  surfaced and went back to ASC to investigate. With a transit

  time of almost 24 hours and any time spent alongside, this

  obviously presents a substantial delay to the intended trials

  program. When we arrived back Hans Ohff, no doubt

  frustrated with more delays, was storming up and down the

  wharf – the only way to deal with Hans was to be direct.

  Hans said to me, ‘You gutless bastard, you get the submarine

  back to sea’. I just replied ‘Here’s the keys’.

  The simplest thing to do would have been to take the

  hatch off and have a look, but what ASC did was to put

  strain gauges on it and go out and trial it. They did the

  standard tests and it made the noise again – all readings were

  within tolerance and they could not work out what it was. It

  was around the same time that the hydraulic couplings were

  causing a lot of grief and these could only be fixed by taking

  the submarine out of the water with many of them below the

  waterline. It was suggested to ASC that while the submarine

  was out of the water they might take the engine room hatch

  off to investigate the outstanding issue. When they did it

  made the now familiar ‘boing’ noise – it turned out that a

  couple of the stud bolts were slightly out of alignment

  causing the hatch coaming to ‘stick’ as pressure was

  increased with the subsequent noise arising as the submarine

  came shallower and the hatch recovered to its normal

  position. It was easy to fix in the end but could have been

  completed a lot sooner and without the need for unnecessary

  trials.

  Farncomb’s trials were delayed by extraneous events – failures

  on Collins, which needed to be checked, and (unfounded) alle-

  gations by an ex-ASC employee of lapses in safety and quality

  assurance – but it nonetheless obtained its licences and was pro-

  visionally accepted into naval service in December 1997.

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  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

  At a project progress review in June 1997 John Dikkenberg,

  the former squadron commander who had become operational

  test director in September 1996, presented two papers on the cur-

  rent performance of the submarines from the perspective of the

  crews.13 In his first paper Dikkenberg emphasised that ‘in the

  macro sense’ the submarines had achieved their aims:

  We have at sea, potentially, the finest conventional submarine

  in the world. Its manoeuvrability, levels of automation, diving

  depth, diesel and electric endurance, atmosphere control and

  habitability are unequalled by any conventional submarine in

  the world. Its potential to grow is enormous and when its

  teething problems are behind it, it will have proven to be one

  of this country’s more outstanding achievements.

  In operations to date the fundamental platform has

  exceeded our expectations in every sense. Its acceleration is

  impressive, its sustained speeds and endurance unequalled . . .

  At PD [periscope depth], the automatic pilot [nicknamed

  Sven] maintains depth to a standard a man is unlikely to

  match. Automation in almost every function has removed the

  mystique of snorting.

  Dikkenberg identified several faults that had been fixed, notably

  with fuel and the propulsion motor. And he emphasised that ‘the

  improvements in the boats, in a difficult 12 months, are astound-

  ing and each time we go to sea, I know the boat is in better shape

  than it was the last time’.

  However, Dikkenberg was remorseless in pointing out the sub-

  marine’s deficiencies. The most serious continuing problems he

  identified were the unreliability of the diesel engines and the com-

  bat system. Noise was not mentioned as a specific problem, but

  Dikkenberg noted that one of the forthcoming challenges was a

  series of noise ranging tests.

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  ‘They were problems we

  didn’t expect’

  The general public perception of the Collins class submarines is

  that they have been an enormously expensive disaster. The authors

  have not encountered a single person without links to the military

  who has a positive view of their performance. Most people are

  convinced they are noisy and many express surprise that they are

  still in service. Almost everybody recalls newspaper headlines such

  as ‘Dud subs’ and ‘Noisy as a rock concert’, and there is a universal

  belief that the project ran far over budget.

  The totally negative view of the submarines is the result of

  a barrage of bad publicity they received, beginning in 1994 and

  rising to a crescendo in 1997 and 1998. In February 1994 the

  Adelaide Advertiser ran a front page story claiming that Collins had ‘lumps in its hull which could seriously impair its performance’ and also giving credence to ‘persistent rumours that

  HMAS Collins is plagued with serious problems’ including hull

  leaks and poor quality steel.1 As with most media reports during

  the mid to late 1990s, this report was a mixture of truth, exagger-

  ation and fiction. It also began a pattern of media reports based

  on leaks from ASC, the navy and the government, reflecting an

  increasing disharmony in the project.

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  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

  While the public view of the Collins class submarines is over-

  whelmingly negative, in naval and defence circles they are gener-

  ally viewed far more favourably. However, even within the defence

  community there are widely differing views on the nature and

  extent of the problems the submarines suffered in the 1990s and

  who was responsible for them.2

  The one thing almost all the experts have in common is that

  none expected the problems that occurred in the new submarines.

  While with hindsight many say that they were normal first of class

  problems, the evidence of the schedule and the budget suggests

  that there was no anticipation that time and money would be

  needed for repairs and modifications.

  While HMAS Collins in particular had many problems of vary-

  ing severity, most were not difficult to resolve at a technical level,

  although they frequently led to heated debate over the contractual

  responsibility for fixing them. The areas of greatest controversy,

  where it was widely (but not universally) believed that there were

  generic problems for the whole class, were the diesel engines, flow

  noise, propeller cracking and cavitation, and th
e combat system

  including the periscopes.3

  From the day of Collins’ maiden voyage, the diesel engines were

  a source of difficulty and frustration, and for many years it was

  rare for any of the submarines to have all three diesels in work-

  ing order. The reason for any particular engine failure might have

  been broken pistons, seized fuel pumps or fuel injectors, broken

  gear trains, broken generator couplings, a damaged crankshaft,

  or a similar mechanical failure, while the causes included contam-

  inated fuel, the design or operation of the fuel system leading to

  salt water entering the engines, excessive vibration, and manufac-

  turing defects.4

  The design and operation of the fuel system lay at the heart

  of the problems with the diesel engines, and this was an issue on

  which there was a strong divide between the Swedish designers

  and the Australian operators. In order to meet the requirement

  for long range the submarines carry a large amount of fuel in

  15 separate fuel tanks. To avoid unbalancing the boat these have

  to be emptied in a prescribed sequence. As the fuel is emptied from

  the tanks it is replaced with salt water to keep the weight of the

  submarine constant. The fuel system was meant to be operated so

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  that the final tank never had any water in it, to avoid water being

  drawn into the engines.

  However, in operation substantial amounts of salt water

  entered the engines, causing myriad further problems. The crews

  and the navy blamed the design of the fuel system. Greg Stuart

  traces this back to the environment in which the Swedes operated

  their submarines. The Baltic Sea is small and both calmer and less

  salty than the oceans. With less distance to cover their submarines

  carried less fuel. They did not do much snorting in their normal

  operations and when they did they were less likely to have rough

  seas. Further, the fresher water of the Baltic was less corrosive than

  the salt water of the oceans if it did get into the engines. Conse-

  quently, the Swedes did not place a high priority on keeping salt

  water out of the engines when designing the fuel system, relying

  primarily on gravity separation. When the submarines operated

  in the rough, salty waters of the Southern Ocean, the fuel was agi-