{"id":20744,"date":"2015-05-29T12:30:36","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T02:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=20744"},"modified":"2015-05-29T11:27:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T01:27:41","slug":"collins-submarine-availability-on-track-but-under-wraps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/collins-submarine-availability-on-track-but-under-wraps\/","title":{"rendered":"Collins submarine availability\u2014on track but under wraps"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to say which is worse: the Navy\u2019s attempt to hide its performance behind a cloak of secrecy<\/a> or its abject failure to do so effectively. Back in late 2012, it was possible to reverse engineer<\/a> a chart in the Coles Review<\/a> to show the annual number of Unit Ready Days (MRD) achieved by the Collins fleet for three years beyond the last deliberate disclosure in the 2008-09 Defence Annual Report<\/a>. Well they\u2019ve done it again\u2014this time in an answer to a Senate Committee question-on-notice<\/a>, providing us monthly data all the way up to February this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

The chart above shows the results. Note that the last data point is the rolling annual average as at February 2015. The good news is that the remediation of Collins sustainment appears to be delivering improvements commensurate with Navy\u2019s plan to get up to the international benchmark of just under 1,200 days per year from its fleet of six boats. That said, the benchmark appears to have slipped down to about 1,120 in the latest data\u2014we\u2019re not sure what\u2019s going on there.<\/p>\n

The uptick in availability shows that we\u2019re now starting to see a maturity in the approach to maintaining the Collins fleet that was sadly lacking over its first decade in operation. The complexity and cost of being a parent nation has finally sunk in, and the current effort doesn\u2019t just look good<\/a>, it\u2019s delivering. That\u2019s a substantial improvement on what we saw late last decade. To see how far we\u2019ve come in terms of our understanding of the task at hand, it\u2019s worth revisiting what the Navy was telling the Parliament<\/a> (PDF) in 1999. Back then it expected (or at least expected to be believed) that:<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026when the mature fleet of six Collins submarines was available, five could be expected to [sic<\/em>] available for operations at any given time, and, as the Collins were significantly more capable than the Oberons, it would therefore provide a much greater overall submarine capability.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That prediction is totally at odds with the \u2018rule of three<\/a>\u2019 that forms the usual approach to managing submarine fleets. If, as expected, the Future Submarine fleet grows in numbers, it\u2019ll still be governed by that rule of thumb. The government understands that<\/a> as well, expecting that:<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026two submarines are in full cycle docking at any one time, with, in general terms, one and sometimes two in shorter dockings and maintenance. This means Defence can currently plan on having two and sometimes three submarines available to the Fleet Commander for tasking at any one time.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let\u2019s be clear: we wouldn\u2019t be putting submarine availability data out in the public domain (or, more accurately, repackaging data that’s already out there) if we thought it was at all likely to jeopardise national security. Any would-be adversary also understands the rule of three and can take an educated guess about the number of Australian submarines that might be out and about at any given time. And even if it isn\u2019t sure about the status of one or two of the boats, prudent planning would require a working assumption of more rather than less.<\/p>\n

Finally, we\u2019re reporting on past availability performance, which doesn\u2019t reflect what\u2019s happening today. We think this is pretty clearly a case of \u201cofficial\u2019s secrets\u201d rather than \u201cofficial secrets\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to say which is worse: the Navy\u2019s attempt to hide its performance behind a cloak of secrecy or its abject failure to do so effectively. Back in late 2012, it was possible to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[253,208,399,304],"class_list":["post-20744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-collins-class","tag-graph","tag-parliament","tag-royal-australian-navy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCollins submarine availability\u2014on track but under wraps | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/collins-submarine-availability-on-track-but-under-wraps\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Collins submarine availability\u2014on track but under wraps | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s hard to say which is worse: the Navy\u2019s attempt to hide its performance behind a cloak of secrecy or its abject failure to do so effectively. 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