The Collins Class Submarine Story
Page 48
16. We are grateful to John Jeremy for this reference.
17. Gorton to Townley, 6 November 1963, in Department of the Navy,
‘Construction of submarines for RAN’, n 12 above. John Jeremy feels that
Gorton, with his known opposition to building in Australia, may have been
careless with the truth in his interpretation of this phone call.
18. Jeremy, Cockatoo Island, n 1 above, p. 148.
19. ibid. , p. 151.
20. ibid.
21. Interview with John Jeremy, 23 June 2005.
Chapter 3. The submarine weapons update program and the
origins of the new submarine project
1. It was only during the 1970s that the term ‘combat system’ came into vogue to describe the suite of sensors, weapons and fire control system installed on a military ‘platform’ – which could be a surface ship, submarine, aircraft, or tank
– and the combat system only gradually came to be regarded as a distinct entity that could be bought and installed separately. Some naval architects strongly resist the combat system/platform dichotomy. John Jeremy, for example, says
that ‘calling ships, submarines and aircraft “platforms” is one of my pet hates because it ignores the fact that a warship is a closely integrated weapons system and the best combat system in the world is useless unless the ship in which it is fitted can float, move and fight’. Email to authors, 14 April 2006.
2. Interview with Ian MacDougall.
3. Interview with Ian MacDougall.
4. Interview with Peter Briggs, 7 March 2006.
5. John Jeremy, ‘Submarine refitting in Australia’, paper read to a meeting of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, 16 April 1980, p. 66.
6. Interview with Rod Fayle, one of the directors of the SWSC during the Oberon update program.
7. Clark probably had the longest involvement in the submarine project of any individual: in 2007 he was managing the weapons and combat system upgrades
for the Collins submarines.
8. This discussion of the submarine weapons update program and the SWSC is
based primarily on interviews with Mick Millington, Andrew Johnson, Orm
Cooper, Rod Fayle, Bill Owen, Frank Owen, John Pascall, Rick Neilson, Peter
Briggs, Ian MacDougall, Keith Snell, Bob Clark and Terry Roach.
9. Acting Captain Barry Nobes, ‘Brief for Chief, Naval operational requirements and plans for the Defence Operational Requirements Committee consideration
of NSR 1114 – new construction submarine’, 24 July 1978.
10. Although this history is resolutely minimising the use of acronyms, it was tempting to refer to the defence operational requirements committee as ‘DORC’.
11. John Jeremy, Cockatoo Island: Sydney’s historic dockyard, 2nd edn, UNSW
Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 156. The formal ties between Cockatoo Island and the
British Vickers company ended with the nationalisation of Vickers in 1977, but informal links between the companies remained close.
12. Vickers Cockatoo Dockyard Pty Ltd, Submarine construction feasibility study, Report No. 6, ‘Executive Summary’, p. 5. NAA CRS M3080 item 10.
13. ibid., p. 5.
14. ibid., p. 9.
15. ibid., p. 23.
N O T E S T O P A G E S 3 1 – 4 2
333
Chapter 4. The new submarine project
1. Interview with Rod Fayle, 26 April 2006.
2. Captain Graham White, Minute, ‘Justification of capability for the new
construction submarine’, 18 January 1985. The recitation of the same
arguments two years later was in response to another attempt by the force
structure committee to redirect the project.
3. Sonars determine the location of underwater sound sources by correlating
results from a number of receivers. Towed array sonars have receivers along a cable towed behind a vessel; flank array sonars are attached to the side of a submarine’s hull.
4. Interview with Alan Wrigley.
5. Admiral Peter Briggs convincingly set out the arguments for conventional
submarines in discussions with the authors, but he was equally convincing in his arguments for nuclear submarines in a submission to the federal government’s
inquiry into the establishment of a nuclear industry in Australia. See the
Melbourne Age, 5 September 2006.
6. This account of the nuclear submarine option is based primarily on interviews with Graham White, Ian Noble, Peter Horobin, Bill Rourke, Rod Fayle and
Eoin Asker.
7. On the other hand, Rod Fayle is emphatic that the planners for the new combat system were trying to take into account the fact that in the early 1980s they were planning a combat system that would not come into service until 1996. He does not think they were ‘shooting for the moon’, but they did not want to be left behind, especially as the procurement system precluded a technology update.
8. Interview with Mick Millington.
9. Rod Fayle notes that the reluctance stemmed as much from commercial
considerations as from fear of the technical challenges.
10. This comment was made by a large oil company after Hans Ohff successfully completed a project for them – the second half of the quote was ‘but he will
always deliver’.
Chapter 5. ‘We can’t build submarines, go away’: Eglo
Engineering and the submarine project
1. Interviews with Hans Ohff, 6 February 2006, 9 February 2007.
2. Eglo Engineering Ltd, Annual report, 1979, p. 6.
3. Arbitration Commission hearing on the Ship Painters and Dockers Award,
finding by Commissioner Merriman, 14 May 1987.
4. This did not include the Soviet Union, which in the early 1980s was not in the business of exporting arms to America’s allies, and Japan, which made excellent submarines but whose constitution prevented it exporting armaments. The
United States has not built diesel-electric submarines since the Barbel class of the late 1950s and has always been wary of exporting submarine technology.
5. This account of the role of Eglo Engineering in the early stages of the new submarine project is based primarily on interviews with Hans Ohff, John White, Graham White and Jim Duncan.
6. Paul Kelly, The end of certainty: Power, politics and business in Australia, rev.
edn, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994, p. 13.
7. In late 1981 400 000 metal workers received a 24 per cent wage rise, leading to an average wage increase of 16 per cent across the whole workforce in 1982:
ibid , p. 51.
8. Margaret Bowman and Michelle Grattan, Reformers: Shaping Australian
society from the 60s to the 80s, Collins Dove, Melbourne, 1989, ch. 13, ‘Laurie Carmichael’, esp. p. 173.
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N O T E S T O P A G E S 4 2 – 5 7
9. John Button, Flying the kite: Travels of an Australian politician, Random House, Sydney, 1994, pp. 44, 72.
10. Commonwealth parliamentary debates, Senate, 17 December 1992,
p. 5411.
11. Interviews with Hans Ohff and Graham White.
Chapter 6. The acts of the apostles
1. Jim Duncan, Diary for 1984. I am grateful to Jim Duncan for allowing me to use this diary and other material relating to the South Australian bid for the submarine project.
2. South Australian Submarine Task Force, ‘Aims and objectives’, 15 June 1984.
3. Hans Ohff recognised Rourke as a powerful supporter of building in Australia: interview with Hans Ohff, 9 February 2007.
4. Quoted in Seapower ’81: Australia’s maritime defence and its relation to industry, Australian Naval Institute, Canberra, 1981, p. 49.
5. South Australian Submarine Contract Task Force, ‘A study of the financial costs and benefits of constructing submarines in Australia’, Adelaide, October 1984.
&
nbsp; 6. Graeme Cheeseman, The search for self-reliance: Australian defence since Vietnam, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1993 , pp. 32–6.
7. The discussion of quality control systems is based on interviews with Andy Millar, Oscar Hughes, Graham White, John Batten and Jim Duncan, and Derek
Woolner, ‘Getting in early: Lessons of the Collins submarine program for
improved oversight of defence procurement’, Parliamentary Library Research
Paper no 3, 2001–02, pp. 14–15.
8. John Winton, Down the hatch, Michael Joseph, London, 1961, reprinted by Maritime Books, Liskeard, Cornwall, 2004, p. 41.
9. Patrick Tyler, Running critical: The silent war, Rickover and General Dynamics, Harper & Row, New York, 1986, pp. 88–9.
10. R. J. L. Hawke, ‘Defence and industry’, in Seapower ’81, note 4 above, p. 45.
11. ‘Building submarines in South Australia: a case for Australia’, 12 February 1985. The author thanks Jim Duncan for providing a copy of this paper.
12. Quoted in Peter FitzSimons, Beazley, HarperCollins, Sydney, 1998, p. 248.
13. Interview with Rod Fayle.
14. Interview with Andy Millar. The aims and membership of the committee are
outlined in a memo to Kim Beazley from R. W. Cole, the secretary of the
Department of Defence, 2 August 1985.
15. See Bill Morrison, ‘A self-reliant defence policy for Australia’, in Gareth Evans
& John Reeves (eds), Labor essays 1982: Socialist principles and parliamentary government, Drummond Publishing, Melbourne, 1982, pp. 156–8. Morrison was Minister for Defence in the Whitlam government in 1975.
16. Interviews with Brian Howe and Hans Ohff.
17. Quoted in FitzSimons, Beazley, note 12 above, p. 244.
18. Interviews with Kim Beazley and Brian Howe. The assertion of Beazley’s
continued popularity within the navy is based on the comments of the vast
majority of sailors and former sailors interviewed for this book.
19. Interview with Paul Dibb.
20. Quoted in FitzSimons, Beazley, n 12 above, p. 231.
21. ibid., p. 248.
22. John Button, As it happened, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1998,
p. 251.
N O T E S T O P A G E S 5 7 – 6 6
335
23. John Button, Flying the kite: Travels of an Australian politician, Random House, Sydney, 1994, p. 73.
Chapter 7. ‘But how will you judge them?’: the tender
evaluation process 1984–85
1. Department of Defence, Force Structure Committee, Minutes, Meeting of 14
September 1982, p. 17.
2. ibid. Apart from official sources, this section is based on an interview with Alan Wrigley.
3. ‘Request for tenders’, clause 2.23.4.1.3.
4. The ownership structure of Cockatoo Island dockyards underwent several major changes following the 1977 nationalisation of Vickers, and the connection with the British parent was greatly diminished. See John Jeremy, Cockatoo Island: Sydney’s historic dockyard, 2nd edn, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2005, pp. 46–7.
5. Interviews with Hans Saeger and Juergen Ritterhoff. For details of HDW’s
submarines, see Hannes Ewerth & Peter Neumann (eds), Silent fleet: The German designed submarine family, 2nd edn, Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG, Kiel, 1999.
6. These details of the history of Kockums are taken from a booklet on the history of the company published in Malm ö in 1981. My thanks to Paul-E P ˚alsson
(President of Kockums 1987–91) for making this booklet available.
7. New Construction Submarine Project, Report of the Tender Evaluation Board on the response received to request for tender No. T 61/72521X, 14 September 1984, pp. 3–4.
8. This was frequently commented on by interviewees, though none wished to be quoted.
9. Graham White, who was frequently alleged to be anti-British, had spent many years in Britain (and married an English woman) and, while he valued his
training by the Royal Navy, his experiences made him aware of the inefficiency and backward methods of British shipyards.
10. This section is based on interviews with Graham White, Bill Rourke, Harry Dalrymple, Andy Millar, Oscar Hughes, Bill Owen and Eoin Asker.
11. A critical deficiency was defined as ‘sufficient by itself to preclude a proposal from further consideration as a viable contender’; an important deficiency did
‘not by itself preclude further consideration but could with other factors weigh the comparison with other proposals’: Report of the Tender Evaluation Board, p. 4-1.
12. Graham White notes that he kept Kim Beazley informally informed of this and other developments with the project.
13. The indiscretion rate is the ratio of the time needed to remain at periscope depth to recharge the batteries and the total operating time. The submarine is at its most vulnerable when recharging its batteries so this time should be as short as possible.
14. Report of the Tender Evaluation Board, pp. 5-9–5-15.
15. ibid., p. 5-57.
16. ibid., pp. 5-50–5-57.
17. ibid., p. 5-71.
18. ibid., p. 5-68.
19. Snorting is the process of running the submarine’s diesel engines while
submerged by drawing air through a snorkel, usually to charge the batteries.
Conventional submarines have had the capacity to do this since the introduction of the German Type XXI submarine at the end of the Second World War.
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N O T E S T O P A G E S 6 6 – 8 7
20. Cavitation occurs when bubbles of air are separated from the water through which the propeller is travelling, greatly increasing the submarine’s noise levels.
21. Report of the Tender Evaluation Board, p. 5-32.
22. ibid., p. 5-33.
23. While Dalrymple does not dispute this position he thinks that he probably made the point more to contrast with what he thought was the superior quality of the IKL/HDW design. He notes that the board report did not always accurately
report the tone or scope of discussions.
24. Report of the Tender Evaluation Board, p. 5-38.
25. ibid., p. 5-20.
26. ibid., p. 6-4.
27. ibid., p. 6-38.
28. ibid., p. 6-16.
29. Interview with Ron Dicker.
30. Report of the Tender Evaluation Board, p. 6-45.
31. ibid., p. 6-13.
32. ibid., p. 6-45.
33. ibid., p. 7-4.
34. ibid., p. 8-25.
35. ibid., p. 5-67.
36. ibid., p. 5-68.
37. ibid., p. 5-68.
38. Diary of Jim Duncan, 21 November 1984; Carney Hocking & Day, ‘Report with recommendations to Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited’, May 1984.
39. Report of the Tender Evaluation Board, p. 8-22.
40. ibid., p. 8-23.
41. ibid., p. 8-27.
42. ibid., p. 9-3.
43. ibid., p. 9-1.
44. ibid., p. 10-1.
45. ibid., p. 9-5.
46. ibid., p. 9-3.
Chapter 8. Spies, leaks and sackings: from tender evaluation
to project definition study
1. Notes from Hans Ohff to author, 24 June 2007.
2. Interview with Hans Saeger and Juergen Ritterhoff.
3. ibid.
4. Ohff, n 1 above.
5. Interview with Roger Sprimont.
6. Interview with Ross Milton.
7. This account of the memorandum of understanding between Australia and
Sweden is based on interviews with Carl Johan ˚
Aberg, Roine Carlsson, Kim
Beazley, Kurt Blixt and Ebbe Sylven.
8. The story is told in the Australian, 27 August 1986.
9. Interview with Carl Johan ˚
Aberg.
10. Ken Aldred, MHR, Member for Bruce, Media release, 19 October 1986.
&
nbsp; 11. Interview with Andy Millar.
12. This summation of the incident is based on interviews with Graham White,
Oscar Hughes, Andy Millar, Rod Fayle, Fred Bennett, Juergen Ritterhoff and
Olle Holmdahl.
13. Communication from Oscar Hughes to authors, 5 July 2007.
14. Story related by Jim Duncan.
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337
15. The section on the states’ campaigns is based on interviews with John Bannon, Jim Duncan, Ross Milton, Roger Sprimont, Graham White and Geoff Rose.
Chapter 9. The project definition study 1985–86
1. Notes to the authors, July 2007.
2. Serving submariners such as John Dikkenberg and Denis Mole, who had not
been closely involved in the evaluations, thought the British or Dutch designs would emerge as the winners: interviews with John Dikkenberg and Denis Mole.
3. This was initially the thought of Roger Sprimont.
4. This account of how the selection of the design study participants was viewed is based on interviews with Andrew Johnson, Greg Stuart, Oscar Hughes and
Mick Millington.
5. Ron Dicker recalls that the project wanted to post both Fayle and Neilson to Anaheim, but Signaal protested against posting two senior pre-PDS team
members to Rockwell as it appeared to confirm a bias.
6. Oscar Hughes, Director General New Submarine, Minute, Team leaders
overseas project office teams, 6 August 1985.
7. Note from Greg Stuart to authors, 24 June 2006.
8. Interview with Hans Saeger and Juergen Ritterhoff. This summary of the
experience of the overseas liaison teams is based on interviews with Mick
Millington, Rod Fayle, Rick Neilson, John Dikkenberg, Greg Stuart, Roger
Sprimont, Olle Holmdahl, Hans Saeger and Juergen Ritterhoff.
9. Commonwealth Government Solicitor, Annex, Letter to HDW legal
representatives, August 1988, p. 1.
10. The description of CMACS and its development is based on
interviews with Oscar Hughes, John Batten, Roger Sprimont and Hans Saeger.
11. Notes to authors, 5 July 2007.
12. Interview with Juergen Ritterhoff.
13. Interview with Rod Fayle.
14. Juergen Ritterhoff, letter to Jane’s Defence Weekly, 12 June 1987.
15. Oscar Hughes, Submarine Project Director, Letter to Australian Maritime
Systems, April 1987.
16. Fred Bennett, Chief of Capital Procurement, Ministerial correspondence, 8 May 1987.