In its 2009 White Paper, Australia’s Department of Defence and Labor Party government looked at the progress being made in surveillance-strike complexes, and the need to defend large sea lanes, and dropped something of a surprise. They proposed increasing Australia’s submarine fleet to 12 boats by 2030-2040, all of which would be successors to Australia’s a current fleet of advanced Collins class submarines.
The Collins class was designed with the strong cooperation of ThyssenKrupp’s Swedish Kockums subsidiary, and built in Australia by state-owned ASC. The class has encountered a number of issues, including significant difficulties with its combat systems, issues with acoustic signature, major cost growth to A$ 5+ billion, and schedule slippage. Worse still, reports indicated that the RAN can only staff 2 of its 6 submarines put a huge crimp in the fleet’s usefulness. High-level attention led to 29 recommendations aimed at improving conditions and staffing on Australia’s submarines, and those are now being implemented. Their long term effect remains to be seen.
0 comments:
Post a Comment