I recommend it. I would suggest that one isn't totally up on the topic (as a baseline at least) unless they have read this book.
Anyone that is making capital decisions on the Collins replacement, should be required to read it and maybe, even tested on it. The book stops around 2008. A weak point in it is that it doesn't address the destructive efforts of the DMO chair-warmers on Collins sustainment. DMO was created to stop the very problems...that it...over time...made....worse.
In my case, once I start piecing other parts of the Australian submarine capability together, I reallize that I have to look into many more related events. Learn one thing and along with it there are 3 or 4 other things that have to be learned?
Feels like it.
Also it brings many more questions into the Abbott/Johnston, Japanese Soryu-class submarine want (Johnston now fired).
Japan restarted their post WWII submarine effort with a gifted United States Navy Mingo.
Some years later Japan started building subs and then ran into the USS Barbel-class . It was a heavy influence for the Japanese into the future. As a side note, look at the sea-time and availability of this boat.
Japan got into pretty good form to where in the past few decades, they build a sub class, keep it in service for about 19 years and then the follow-on class with minor improvements gracefully falls into place. Also with this kind of continuous build effort, they don't have to worry about sustaining a boat past 20 years because by then it is already on the to-be-scrapped list.
Leading up to the Soryu, you will find more Swedish influence in it than just the AIP. Odd that if the RAN gets a sub based on the Soryu, it will have heavy U.S./Swedish design influence.
Otherwise out in the press-release and deskilled public Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy fantasy-world, we don't need Sweden's help on the Collins replacement. They won't be allowed to bid for a design. Don't know exactly how that is going to work out. Rate this as a bad decision.
Of equal interest in connecting the dots is the combat system. Had, early-on, the Collins possessed a remotely capable combat system it would have been labeled much more of a success. Even if it could do basic things like properly capturing bearing, speed and range estimates from a periscope and cobble the information into a useful track from the peek. Publicize it with a sinking of a target, early on. Then work on basic anti-sub work with the other sensors. It would have been great early on had a press release been issued stating that the Collins or Farncomb been able to lay claim that it was able to track and engage an old Oberon or even a "foreign", unnamed friendly submarine in practice. This would have taken so much heat off of the Collins effort.
Today? Defence insists on a U.S. Combat system for a Collins submarine replacement. This is risky based on previous facts discussed. The other side of that is I am convinced the U.S. wants the RAN sub fleet as one of their own personal nodes all the way up through USN submarine on-shore command-post management. Like the current Collins, the U.S. can fear-monger any other vendor involved on the replacement of Collins on the grounds of information security risks to the U.S. Combat System. So, while the RAN currently is in the U.S. sub fleet tent for ops, the U.S. better give us something that works when we first turn it on for Collins replacement sea-trials. The other part of that is that the U.S. attack sub-fleet has another primary mission that is non-negotiable: having enough boats available to protect USN nuclear-ballistic missile submarines. Whatever is left over from that ops-schedule can do other work. Protecting the SSBNs is always primary for resourcing USN attack boats. Will the RAN Collins replacement get the genuine interest from the U.S. needed for success?
Timely? The reorganization of ADF Defence weapons program management by disbanding the DMO will take a few years to organize. No one knows how this will affect all defence programs.
So, just by writing the above, I am producing many more questions than answers.
No matter which vendor wins, I do like the Japanese thought process on subs. Continuous build. Slight evolutions of design for the replacement. Rinse and repeat. A slightly evolved Collins, might be the place to start. Nothing flashy. Call it Collins-B. As it gets going to build a batch of them, 8 or so years in, start planning for the Collins-C.
Rinse and repeat.
With that, few of the problems in building a Collins replacement are related to technology.
They are related to having the right kind of strong leaders in place to see the project through. The alternative is obvious: failure.
"My program is unique in the military service in this respect: You know the expression 'from the womb to the tomb'; my organization is responsible for initiating the idea for a project; for doing the research, and the development; designing and building the equipment that goes into the ships; for the operations of the ship; for the selection of the officers and men who man the ship; for their education and training. In short, I am responsible for the ship throughout its life — from the very beginning to the very end." (Hearings on Military Posture and H.R. 12564, U.S. G.P.O., 1974, page 1,392)
-Admiral Hyman G. Rickover
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