The Collins Class Submarine Story
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17. The escape sphere was a rescue vessel built into the submarine structure but with little application in the Australian environment, and the project team ‘had some misgivings about its possible impact on structural integrity’.
18. Interview with Oscar Hughes, 3 July 2007.
19. In addition to official sources, this account of the preliminary design review is based on interviews with Hans Saeger, Jurgen Ritterhoff, Olle Holmdahl, Eoin
Asker, Andrew Johnson, Mick Millington, Rod Fayle, Rick Neilson and Hans
Ohff.
20. Paul Dibb, Review of Australia’s Defence Capabilities, AGPS, Canberra 1986, p. 123.
21. Interview with Rick Neilson.
22. Interview with Andrew Johnson.
23. Interview with Mick Millington.
24. Information from Ron Dicker, who headed the Signaal bid.
25. This account of the development of Kockums’ Type 471 design is based on
interviews with Greg Stuart, Roger Sprimont, Olle Holmdahl, Gunnar Öhlund,
Hans Peder Loid and Tore Svensson.
26. Peter Bowler, Australian Marine Systems, letter to the Department of Defence, 30 April 1987.
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Chapter 10. Debating the laws of physics: picking winners
1987
1. Submarine Evaluation Team Report, p. 4-2.
2. ibid., p. 4-4.
3. ibid., p. 4-4.
4. Interview with Mark Gairey.
5. Submarine Evaluation Team Report, p. 4-5.
6. Email from Hans Saeger to Peter Yule, 4 December 2006. Herr Saeger
apologised for his ‘Germish’ but the meaning is clear.
7. Notes from Greg Stuart to authors, June 2007.
8. Submarine Evaluation Team Report, p. 8-0.
9. ibid., p. 4-27.
10. Peter Briggs’ response is: ‘I certainly tried to persuade them to put in a more modern ship control system, along the lines of the SWSC-developed
concept design and they largely did so, whilst preserving the manual fall
back.’
11. Interviews with Pelle Stenberg, Peter Hatcher, Peter Briggs, Bob Clark, Greg Stuart and Ron Dicker.
12. Submarine Evaluation Team Report, p. 4-2.
13. ibid., p. 8-2.
14. Interview with Ron Dicker.
15. Submarine Evaluation Team Report, p. 8-3.
16. Ted Vanderhoek comments that ‘The majority of the technical evaluation team felt that neither contender’s specifications were sufficiently developed to contract against prior to the decision being made and contract awarded. As both
proposals were paper designs, little supporting information was available to
independently evaluate end system performance, hence, the evaluation was
centred on ensuring the contractors’ lower level specifications covered the Navy requirements.’ Note to authors, July 2007.
17. Interviews with Greg Stuart, Mark Gairey and John Dikkenberg.
18. Email to the authors, 24 July 2007.
19. Submarine Evaluation Team Report, p. 4-1.
20. Minutes, Chief of Naval Staff Advisory Committee, meeting of
16 January 1987.
21. Oscar Hughes, Submarine Project Director, Minute to Chief of Naval Staff and Chief of Capital Procurement, 16 April 1987.
22. Submarine Evaluation Team Report, p. 8-0.
23. Roger Sprimont reported the difficulties to Sweden and a Kockums board
meeting told him to expel CBI from the consortium. Sprimont was furious and
said he would return to Sweden if this instruction was not revoked, as the
answer showed how little understanding there was of the project team in
Sweden. He knew that Kockums lacked the expertise to run the project in the
way that CBI could.
24. Note to authors, August 2007.
25. The contract does mention boat speed where it refers to cavitation, but in a clause where the language is not prescriptive.
26. It is interesting that, over the subsequent history of the project, contract changes did not generate the excessive price increases that had been symptomatic of
earlier defence capital procurement.
27. This account of the contract negotiations is based on interviews with Kim Beazley, Peter Hider, Fred Bennett, Ron McLaren, Roger Sprimont, Geoff Davis, Olle Holmdahl, Pelle Stenberg and Patrick Walters.
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28. Ritterhoff’s comments quoted in Heinz Schulte, Frank Cranston & Tony Banks,
‘IKL accuses Australia over Type 2000 submarine rejection’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 18 July 1987, pp. 1087–8.
29. Note from Oscar Hughes to authors, August 2007.
30. Interview with John Bannon.
Chapter 11. ‘Keen as mustard to do a good job’: setting to
work 1987–89
1. Interview with Olle Holmdahl.
2. Interview with Pelle Stenberg.
3. Interview with Tomy Hjorth.
4. Peter Donovan, A brief history of Australian Submarine Corporation Pty Limited, ASC, Adelaide, March 1990, p. 26. This history was based on interviews with many of those involved in the early years of ASC.
5. Interview with Tore Svensson.
6. Note to authors, June 2007.
7. Interviews with Roine Carlsson and Olle Person.
8. Interview with Ove Gustafsson.
9. These figures are taken from a ‘contract tree’ prepared by the submarine project office in December 1996. They relate only to the submarine contract and not to the combat system contract.
10. Interview with Karl Bertil Stein.
11. Interview with Paddy Hodgman.
Chapter 12. Designing the Collins class
1. This chapter is based primarily on interviews with Peter Briggs, Don Chalmers, Mick Dunne, Ulf Edman, Martin Edwards, Mark Gairey, Ian Hill, Olle
Holmdahl, Oscar Hughes, Hans Peder Loid, Gunnar Öhlund, Roger Sprimont,
Pelle Stenberg, Greg Stuart and Tore Svensson.
2. Note from Pelle Stenberg, May 2007.
3. Olle Holmdahl, ‘The Collins class submarines’, paper presented at the National Engineering Conference in Adelaide, 8–10 April 1995.
4. This discussion is based on interviews with Hans Peder Loid, Ian Hill, Don Chalmers and Mark Gairey.
5. Interview with Mick Dunne.
6. Ulf Edman, who was commodore of the Swedish submarine squadron during
the 1980s, says that the large number of torpedo tubes in the Swedish
submarines was because their wartime function would be to fire as many
torpedoes as possible at a Soviet invasion fleet.
7. Sonoston is an alloy of manganese and copper.
8. Mark Gairey notes that: ‘The design of the bow bulkhead is an over-kill. When we had Kockums do detailed calculations of a number of possible failure
scenarios in 2002, it was found that the forward bulkhead structure was one of the strongest parts of the hull.’
9. Greg Stuart notes that: ‘The near loss of a Canadian submarine in 2004 was a direct result of having the same cabling as originally proposed for Collins.’
10. Note to the authors, 9 July 2007.
11. The development of the anechoic tiles for the new submarines is outlined in ch.
15.
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Chapter 13. Building submarines
1. Interview with Mark Gobell.
2. This discussion of the welding on the Swedish sections is based on interviews with Greg Stuart, Mark Gairey, Roger Sprimont, Paul-E P ˚alsson, Pelle Stenberg and P är Bunke.
3. The welding problems at Kockums were first mentioned in the project office’s quarterly report for June 1990.
4. This account of the assembly of the submarines by ASC is based on interviews with
Simon Ridgway, Robert Lemonius, Mark Gobell, Martin Edwards, Ross
Milton, Pelle Stenberg and John Ritter.
5. HMAS Collins was named after Vice-Admiral Sir John Collins, captain of HMAS Sydney at the Battle of Cape Matapan and the first Australian to command the Australian squadron and to become chief of the naval staff.
Rear-Admiral Harold Farncomb was the first Australian-trained officer to reach the rank of captain and commanded HMAS Australia from 1941 to 1944 before taking over the Australian squadron when Collins was wounded in a kamikaze
attack. Captain H. M. L. Waller commanded the famous ‘scrap iron flotilla’ in HMAS Stuart in the Mediterranean in 1940–41, before taking command of HMAS Perth. He was killed when Perth was sunk in the Battle of the Sunda Strait on 1 March 1942. Dechaineux was named for Captain Emile Dechaineux who, as commanding officer of HMAS Australia, was killed in a kamikaze attack on 21 October 1944 (Collins was wounded in the same attack). Ordinary
Seaman Edward Sheean died on HMAS Armidale on 29 November 1942, when he continued firing his anti-aircraft gun after the order had been given to
abandon ship. Lieutenant-Commander R. W. Rankin assumed command of the
sloop HMAS Yarra in February 1942 and was killed the following month when Yarra attempted to protect a convoy against overwhelmingly superior Japanese forces off Java.
6. For an account of the development of the steel and welding techniques used, see ch. 15.
Chapter 14. The automated integrated vision
1. Minister for Defence, News Release no. 67/87, 18 May 1987.
2. This discussion of the problems in development of the combat system is based on interviews with Ian MacDougall, Oscar Hughes, Mick Millington, Rick
Neilson, Ron Dicker, John Pascall, Rod Farrow, Chris Miller, Tony Smith, Bob
Clark, Ted Vanderhoek and Tomy Hjorth.
3. Colin Cooper, ‘Collins combat system development – key issues’, note to the authors, February 2007.
4. Note to authors, March 2007.
5. Interview with Chris Miller, who worked on the combat system project for
Computer Sciences from 1989 to 1996.
6. Ron Dicker recalls that Signaal was similarly encouraged to use 68000
processors in its bid.
7. Chris Miller, ‘The Collins class combat system: a personal view of what went wrong and how to fix it’, submission to the McIntosh-Prescott review, 1999.
8. This paragraph is based on interviews with Rod Farrow, Chris Miller and Rick Neilson.
9. Interview with Rod Farrow.
10. Even the most innovative recruiting methods were not enough to maintain
numbers. Rod Fayle was training as a surface sailor when he was promised that he could escort Miss Australia while she was visiting England if he signed up as a submariner.
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11. Email from G östa Hardebring to author, 17 November 2006.
12. Ron Dicker also notes that: ‘The fact that system design, selection of hardware and development of software were all under a single responsibility was the key to the ability to resolve the problems.’
13. Interview with Jack Atkinson.
14. Interview with Peter Hatcher.
15. Note from Peter Hugonnet to authors, 25 July 2007.
16. Department of Defence minute paper, SPD 6742/91, 14 November 1991.
Chapter 15. Steel, sonars and tiles: early technological
support for the submarines
1. This section is largely based on an interview with John Ritter and a paper prepared by Ritter, in conjunction with Bob Phillips and Brian Dixon, to assist the authors.
2. This is an indication that the parameters of the test were devised in the USA, where an industry norm temperature of 0◦F was mandated.
3. Captain Terry Roach, RAN, Director Submarine Warfare, Minute ‘DSTO sonar
proposal’, 16 February 1987.
4. The term means ‘no echo’.
5. In German mythology Albericht was a dwarf with a magic cap that made him
invisible.
6. Chief of Navy Staff Advisory Committee, Minutes, 16 February 1987, p. 4.
Chapter 16. ‘On time and on budget’
1. This section is based in part on interviews with Ross Milton, Paul-E P ˚alsson, Ron McLaren, Oscar Hughes, P är Bunke, Mike Houghton, Geoff Davis and
Hans Ohff.
2. Malcolm McIntosh, Minute to Minister, 24 October 1988, submarine project
file N88 – 17961 part 3.
3. This account of the takeover of Wormald is based on interviews with Geoff
Davis and Sir Laurence Muir, who was a member of Wormald’s board, and
Wormald’s annual reports 1984–89.
4. Interview with Peter Horobin, who observed Kockums while working as a
consultant for AIDC and later ASC.
5. Interview with Mike Houghton.
6. Interview with Paul-E P ˚alsson, president of Kockums.
7. Interview with Oscar Hughes, 16 January 2006.
8. Interview with Hans Ohff, 9 February 2007.
9. Project office quarterly report, December 1993.
10. Note to authors, July 2007.
Chapter 17. End of the honeymoon
1. Interviews with Peter Sinclair and Mike Gallagher.
2. This discussion of leadership changes draws on interviews with Geoff Rose, Andy Millar, Doug Callow and Hans Ohff.
3. Oscar Hughes interviewed by Peter Donovan, 26 June 1993, p. 39 (copy of
interview provided by Oscar Hughes).
4. Interview with Doug Callow.
5. Oscar Hughes believes that the perception of ASC’s financial discipline was incorrect and that ‘Don Williams was fully focused on financial performance’.
6. Ron Dicker recalls that Rockwell delivered two hard disks to ASC on
8 September 1993, which it claimed contained ‘build one’ of the software and
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therefore the contractual obligation to provide the combat system by 9
September had been met. ASC tried the software but it would not load and the
default went ahead.
7. I am grateful to P är Bunke for showing me a copy of this letter. This account of the debate over defaulting Rockwell is based primarily on interviews with Peter Horobin, P är Bunke, Peter Hatcher, and Tomy Hjorth, together with the
quarterly reports of the project office and a collection of letters relating to the issue in the possession of P är Bunke.
8. Robert J. Cooksey, Review of Australia’s defence exports and defence industry, AGPS, Canberra, 1986.
9. Quoted in Graeme Cheeseman, The search for self-reliance: Australian defence since Vietnam, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1993 ,
pp. 43–4.
10. Neal Blewett, A cabinet diary: A personal record of the first Keating government, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 1999, p. 169.
11. Spain and Italy were also in the market for submarines, but were unlikely to buy from Australia as they had their own design and production capabilities.
12. Interview with Rick Neilson.
13. Information from Ron Dicker.
14. It is unlikely that the Swedish government would have approved the sale of submarines with Swedish intellectual property to either South Korea or
Indonesia.
15. Both Geoff Rose and P är Bunke have copies of this letter.
16. There are numerous stories on the internet on submarine sales to Taiwan, e.g.
http://www.nti.org/db/submarines/taiwan/import.html and
http://www.amiinter.com/samples/taiwan/TW2201.html
Chapter 18. The trials of Collins
1. Project office quarterly reports, November 1987, p. 19 and June 1989, p. 18.
2. The discussion of training and Collins’ early trials draws on information
provided in interviews
with Mike Gallagher, Peter Sinclair, Marcos Alfonso,
Trevor Robinson, Graham White and Geoff Rose.
3. Interview with Graham White.
4. The decommissioning of the Oberons could only be delayed at great expense as any that were kept in service for longer would require extra refits to retain their certification, and Cockatoo Island, the only yard experienced in refitting
Oberons, was closed in 1991. In the event, the delays in the commissioning of the Collins class submarines forced two Oberon refits to be carried out at
Garden Island at massive expense.
5. This paragraph is based on the project office quarterly reports for 1994 and an interview with Colin Cooper, the combat system manager in the project office
from 1992 to 2003.
6. Project office quarterly report, December 1994.
7. ibid., March 1995.
8. At first the dome was believed to be irreparable, but successful repairs were carried out by Buchanan Advanced Composites in Toowoomba, Queensland,
for far less than the replacement cost of $1.5 million. Toowoomba Chronicle, 13 October 2000.
9. Paul Greenfield notes that ASC and the project office did their utmost to protect Peter Sinclair from the naval consequences of the accident with Collins, especially from the natural intrusion by the Fleet Commander. ‘This was a first of class vessel under test, and neither ASC nor the project office wanted Sinclair removed by the navy to have a lesser experienced officer take his place.’
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10. Project office quarterly report, December 1996.
11. Note from Marcos Alfonso to author, July 2007.
12. ibid.
13. John Dikkenberg, ‘Platform performance: Crew perspective’ and ‘Combat
system performance: Crew perspective’, June 1997.
Chapter 19. ‘They were problems we didn’t expect’
1. Adelaide Advertiser, 17 February 1994.
2. This chapter draws on views expressed in interviews by Greg Stuart, Olle
Holmdahl, Eoin Asker, Peter Sinclair, Olle Person, Hans Ohff, Andy Millar,
Peter Clarke, Don Chalmers, Hans Peder Loid, Paul Greenfield, John
Dikkenberg, Mike Gallagher and Ron Dicker.
3. The halon fire suppression system has also been a continuing problem, though for some reason this was not identified by the media and never became the
subject of public controversy.
4. Greg Stuart identifies the crankshaft problem as ‘a definite manufacturing problem, connecting bolts had not been torqued up to the correct torque’.