Arguments by John White for the TKMS Bid

Cutaway depiction of TKMS-HDWs Type 216 - its within requirement 4,000 ton displacement offers the options of, LIBs, AIP, one or more Vertical Multi-Purpose Locks (VMPL) behind the sail and/or the option of two 650+ mm Horizontal Multi-Purpose Locks (HMPL) in the bow (Diagram courtesy Submarine Dossier)

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Is buying from Japan, without major defence export experience since 1938, worth the risk of another failed Australian submarine project? See COMMENT section below.

Also see an excellent article from ASPI. Submarine Matters has long been discussing the very complex issue of Lithium-ion Batteries (LIBs) in comparison with the latest AIP technology.

ASPI's Strategist published an article of March 1, 2016 by Dr John White, Chairman, TKMS Australia, entitled:

Naval shipbuilding in Australia: into the digital age:

Part of this TKMS article http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/naval-shipbuilding-in-australia-into-the-digital-age/ is:

"Andrew Davies is off-base on Lithium-ion batteries, which have been developed by TKMS over a number of years. Such a battery was successfully trialled in the Planet Solar, a solar powered trimaran that sailed around the world. New safer chemistry is undergoing trials and will be at Technical Readiness Level (TRL) 9 for the Future Submarine Project. Andrew also misunderstood the energy density difference between batteries (lead or lithium) and a reformer-fed AIP System. AIP reduces the snort frequency significantly. While it’s not critical in peacetime operations it becomes a matter of life or death in a hostile or highly-contested patrol area.

Mark Thomson’s questioning of Rough Order of Magnitude estimates from the CEP might be true of Japan or DCNS, but tkMS’s ‘hot production line’ is overlooked by Mark. tkMS’s cost includes 28,000 line items interrogated and scaled as necessary using tried and tested methods to arrive at a cost. The 163 submarines contracted by tkMS have all been on a fixed price. While it’s difficult for stop-start production lines to maintain meaningful supply chain data, tkMS doesn’t have that problem.

Commentators who question the efficacy of the CEP are wide of the mark. It will identify the best submarine partner provided they possess experience across these key conditions:

•         A track record of exporting submarine technology
•         English as the technical language used in the exporting shipyard
•         The partner has a current hot production line
•         The partner employs at least 800 submarine technologists with a minimum of 10 years of           experience
•         A parent navy relationship
•         A binding Government commitment to Australia

If these criteria were applied we would have avoided problems with both the Collins-class and the Air Warfare Destroyers. tkMS and Germany meet all of these criteria and without question are a safe pair of hands. If Australia wants to get it right and reform naval shipbuilding tkMS has the right credentials for the job."

[WHOLE ARTICLE]

COMMENT

Building submarines involves great expense - an increasingly important issue given declining Australian Government revenue to pay for competing defence items and civilian (health, education and welfare) items. Twelve submarines will likely decline to six as sense prevails.

A new class of submarines also involves considerable technical risk. Experience building many different classes of submarines for overseas customers reduces risk. If strategic relationship (with Japan and the US) were not over-riding criteria then TKMS would likely have the strongest bid. 

Looking at precedent. But for misplaced confidence in Kockums at the final stage, TKMS-HDW would have won the Collins tender in the 1980s. Kockums, steeped in tailor-making submarines only for its own navy, and in the Baltic Sea environment, won the Collins tender. Australia is constantly overhauling the Collins diesels (by necessity driven over longer distances in their Indo-Pacific missions) to reinforce the poor choices made in the 1980s.

Is history repeating itself like a slow-motion train wreck? Since 1938 Japan has only built submarines for its own Navy. And since the 1960s Japanese submarines have only been used for a rigidly defined set of missions in Northeast Asia...venturing no further south than Northern Luzon.

In our choice of submarines, lets steal defeat from the jaws of victory again. Its only $10 Billions in  taxpayers' money until its ours :)

Pete