{"id":39353,"date":"2018-05-17T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T20:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=39353"},"modified":"2018-05-17T09:39:26","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T23:39:26","slug":"brent-clark-the-long-stealthy-voyage-has-begun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/brent-clark-the-long-stealthy-voyage-has-begun\/","title":{"rendered":"Brent Clark: The long, stealthy voyage has begun"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The company building the Navy\u2019s 12\u00a0new submarines says they\u2019ll be the world\u2019s first conventional boats big enough to effectively use the company\u2019s pump jet propulsion system. French Naval Group Australia says that its propulsor will prove much quieter than a propeller on the 4,700\u2011tonne submarine it has dubbed the \u2018Shortfin Barracuda\u2019.<\/p>\n

Naval Group Australia\u2019s interim CEO, Brent Clark, tells The Strategist<\/em> that the decision about the best propulsion system for the submarine will be made by the Defence Department, but that he hadn\u2019t had any indication that it would chose anything but a propulsor. \u2018We\u2019ve had every indication that they like what was offered.\u2019<\/p>\n

The propulsor that Naval Group is recommending for its Shortfin Barracuda consists of a propeller within a duct to reduce noise and the water disturbance known as cavitation, which can give away a boat\u2019s position to hunters. Clark says he\u2019s read many negative comments about propulsors, but some critics used very old studies to try and justify their argument.<\/p>\n

A lot of people don\u2019t fully comprehend, I think, that yes, a propulsor on a 1,500\u2011tonne coastal submarine would make no sense. But we\u2019re not building a 1,500-tonne coastal submarine. We\u2019re building quite a large submarine. And this is the first time that a conventional submarine\u2019s been large enough to take a propulsor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the intense debate over whether the submarines can be built from Australian steel, Clark says the only issue is whether Australian companies can produce steel suitable for the boats\u2019 pressure hulls\u2014about 1,800 tonnes of steel for each one.<\/p>\n

All the other steel within the submarine can easily be done in Australia, so there\u2019s no logical reason why we won\u2019t use Australian steel for that. The question mark is Australian industry\u2019s ability to produce the pressure hull steel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The government had agreed that two local companies, BlueScope and Bisalloy, will take part in a qualification process to demonstrate that they can produce the quality and quantity of steel required.<\/p>\n

BlueScope will produce steel and then Bisalloy will take that steel and apply the hardening process to it. We\u2019ll go through a qualification process with Bisalloy. If they\u2019re able to produce the pressure hull steel, then we\u2019ll be able to present to the government, through the Department of Defence, a business case for the production of steel in Australia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bisalloy produced very high quality steel for the Collins-class submarines, and for the Army\u2019s Bushmaster troop carriers. \u2018They\u2019re a little company, a very good company,\u2019 says Clark. \u2018Personally, I think that they\u2019re going to be able to produce this steel.\u2019<\/p>\n

Producing that much steel every two years as the 12\u00a0boats are built is a tiny part of BlueScope\u2019s production, and isn\u2019t going to save the steel industry, says Clark.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s got nothing to do with that. What it\u2019s got to do with is the ability to produce the steel in Australia from a sovereignty perspective, so we don\u2019t have to go to France or America or wherever to get our steel. We can do it ourselves. So if we want to build submarines 13, 14, 15\u201428, we can do that with a sovereign, certified, quality steel company that can produce it efficiently and at the right quality so that we can guarantee its performance. That\u2019s what it\u2019s about.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clark believes that Australia should be able to build its own submarines. \u2018We don\u2019t make cars anymore but we\u2019re going to be producing state-of-the-art warships, state-of-the-art submarines.\u2019<\/p>\n

He strongly rejects claims that the project has already slipped behind schedule.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve achieved our working milestones without any issues. I understand that some individuals have claimed that the project is behind because one or two documents have yet to be accepted by the Commonwealth. That\u2019s not an issue at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clark says that Naval Group continues to work with the Commonwealth on those documents, and the fact that they hadn\u2019t been accepted yet doesn\u2019t stop it progressing its planning.<\/p>\n

The project is on schedule. We have fundamentally no issues. Our relationship with the Future Submarine Project office is really solid. Our relationship with Lockheed Martin, which provides the combat system, is excellent.<\/p>\n

A lot has happened. We\u2019ve done our functional performance specification analysis with the Commonwealth. So that\u2019s the sizing of the submarine. We\u2019ve been progressing through the early design work. We\u2019re about to start the preliminary design work. That\u2019s going to take us about 15\u00a0months before we then go into the detailed design work. It\u2019s quite deliberate. The Commonwealth, the department, was insistent upon a realistic program.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2018I know during the Competitive Evaluation Process the world told us we\u2019d never be able to work with Lockheed Martin because they\u2019re American and we\u2019re French,\u2019 Clark says. \u2018Somebody clearly forgot to tell us and Lockheed Martin because we\u2019ve got no issues.\u2019<\/p>\n

And he dismisses fears that the decades it will take to build the new fleet will leave the nation with a submarine capability gap. The six Collins-class submarines can, if required, have life-of-type extensions, Clark says. \u2018You could do it to the entire fleet if you chose to. So there\u2019s no capability gap here at all.\u2019<\/p>\n

The first of the new submarines is to be handed over to the Chief of Navy in about\u00a02032 for operational testing and evaluation. The Collins submarines will gradually be decommissioned as the new boats come online.<\/p>\n

I think people need to give a bit of credit to the planning that the CASG and Navy, and the government indeed, have done on this. You\u2019ll have Collins submarines that are getting towards the end of their life, okay? That\u2019s not unusual. Happens all the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Collins will be upgraded and Clark, a veteran submariner, says they\u2019re likely to have significant technology advances.<\/p>\n

Sonars and other onboard systems will be upgraded. ASC, which is often much maligned, has done a terrific job with Collins. They get systematic upgrades to keep them regionally competitive or ahead of the region. We do this all the time in Australia.<\/p>\n

There\u2019ll be no capability gap.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll look at the entire submarine, systematically going through system by system, looking at things that need to be upgraded. Obviously, sonar performance is critical, so I\u2019m sure that the department is looking at what upgrades can be made to the sonar on Collins now. I would imagine it would be along the lines of processing. There will be upgrades of the management system and they look at periscopes and electronic warfare masts and communication masts. Are the diesels getting old? Inefficient?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The same will happen with the Future Submarines, Clark says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s highly unlikely that boat\u00a012 is going to be the same as boat\u00a01. Externally, of course, it will be. But there will be technology upgrades, there will be systems upgrades, there will be new weapons. The Americans will evolve weapons and new sensors will be developed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Battery technology will improve, says Clark. \u2018There\u2019s no doubt that lithium-ion batteries will come along. I can\u2019t presuppose what the Department of Defence will look at, but one would imagine that as soon as that technology\u2019s proven and safe that they\u2019d be keen to pursue that.\u2019<\/p>\n

And what about claims that by time the full fleet is operating, advances in technology will have made the oceans so transparent that submarines will not be able to survive?<\/p>\n

\u2018Submarines have been around about a 100\u00a0years and they haven\u2019t made the ocean transparent yet,\u2019 says Clark.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t beat physics. You can\u2019t change the speed of sound through water. You can\u2019t change how sound propagates through water. Yes, sure, you can luck in and have a maritime patrol aircraft fly over a submarine, and from a great height on a very clear sunny day in tropical water where you can see the bottom at 300\u00a0feet. And you might go, \u2018Well, that looks suspiciously like a submarine to me.\u2019 It\u2019s still a little submarine in a big ocean. Finding them is difficult.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The nature of water will make submarines hard to find for a long time to come, Clark says. \u2018It\u2019s hard to force data through that water column. You can only get to a certain level because physics wins.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The company building the Navy\u2019s 12\u00a0new submarines says they\u2019ll be the world\u2019s first conventional boats big enough to effectively use the company\u2019s pump jet propulsion system. French Naval Group Australia says that its propulsor will …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":39354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBrent Clark: The long, stealthy voyage has begun | 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\/brent-clark-the-long-stealthy-voyage-has-begun\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brent Clark: The long, stealthy voyage has begun | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The company building the Navy\u2019s 12\u00a0new submarines says they\u2019ll be the world\u2019s first conventional boats big enough to effectively use the company\u2019s pump jet propulsion system. 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