Sea Power: Offshore Combatant Vessel - what, how and when?
Gregor Ferguson | Sydney
With first pass approval still at least four years away, the naval industry is cautious about the prospects for Sea 1180. The capability that Defence eventually buys may not be quite like the capability set out in the current DCP.
The December 2010 update to the Defence Capability Plan (DCP) has drawn back from the prescriptive requirements for Project Sea 1180 which were set out in the 2009 Defence White Paper.
The project aims, in the DCP’s own words, “to rationalise the Navy’s patrol boat, mine countermeasures, hydrographic and oceanographic forces, potentially into a single modular multi-role class or family of around 20 Offshore Combatant Vessels (OCVs) combining four existing classes of vessels. The new vessels will likely be larger than the current Armidale Class patrol boats.” [author’s italics]
While the DCP uses much of the same language as the White Paper it doesn’t prescribe (or ‘suggest’) a displacement of around 2,000 tonnes, as the latter did. Neither document prescribes a specific hull form or construction materiel.
However, in addressing platform characteristics before discussing roles and tasks, both the DCP and White Paper placed the cart before the horse. ADM understands this is something which industry tried to make clear to Defence at a Sea 1180 workshop held by the Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation (RPDE) organisation in September last year.
The RPDE workshop came slightly before the close of Defence’s ITR for this project, for which ADM understands there were no less than 62 individual respondents; at the time of writing no results or conclusions from the ITR had been released by Defence.
To the purist, form follows function; in this context the task and therefore the mission equipment requirements should dictate platform size and configuration. Defence planners have tried to beak this nexus by suggesting that two specific roles – mine warfare and hydrography – could be conducted using Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) with modular mission and support packages. These would be independent of a dedicated ‘mother ship’ and, in the case of mine warfare, capable of being deployed at short notice in both the OCV and any appropriate craft of opportunity. Therefore, the reasoning goes, it is feasible to acquire a single multi-role platform that will be more economical to build, man and sustain.
If the hydrography and mine counter measures (MCM) tasks can be carried out properly using autonomous ROVs then reconciling different platform requirements isn’t an issue. The vessel can be designed with the speed and sea-keeping of an offshore patrol vessel, complete with a flight deck (though not necessarily a hangar for a permanently embarked helicopter). The low speed-low noise requirements of MCM and hydrography may not be major design determinants.
However, it’s not clear just how much input Navy’s various ‘tribes’ contributed to the DCP submission, and therefore what further evolution we might see in the platform requirements. The Hydrographers need small survey launches which can go into very shallow water; an OCV bigger than an Armidale-class patrol boat would be too big but, conversely, might be too small to be a suitable mother ship for a fleet of manned or unmanned survey launches such as the three nine-metre survey launches carried for this very purpose by the 2,550-tonne Leeuwin-class hydrographic ships. In any case, the science of hydrography has unique and very demanding data handling and security requirements and these would need to be accommodated in some way.
Some members of the MCM community are sceptical about the ability of a ROV-based MCM system to keep the ship out of the minefield. The MCM capability which will be embarked on the OCV will be acquired under project Sea 1778: if this can deliver a mature system which will meet the RAN’s mine hunting and disposal requirements without needing the ship to enter the minefield, all well and good – but it’s a big if, in the opinion of some industry sources. The alternative is to replace the existing Huon-class ships with a new specialist MCM vessel with similar levels of acoustic and electromagnetic hygiene – or to extend the lives of the Huon-class ships.
While a number of European navies are studying a similar single-class concept, the MCM challenge they face is somewhat different from Australia’s. European waters have been exhaustively surveyed over many decades. The MCM role in European waters may not be as difficult as it would be for an RAN surface task force trying to open up a cleared route through unsurveyed and unsurveilled waters to Australia’s north. Those difficulties may ultimately force the RAN to re-examine the idea of a dedicated MCM craft designed and built to go into the minefield.
Certainly, it’s the view of many in industry that the MCM requirement is the one with the greatest potential to undermine the intent of Sea 1180. If it were decided that a deployable MCM system couldn’t deliver the capability required by the RAN, then a dedicated platform with the required acoustic and electromagnetic signatures would become necessary. Depending on its size and configuration, this might be a suitable platform also for a Hydrographic vessel.
Assuming, however, that a suitable deployable MCM capability is available, then the challenge may be to prevent the OCV growing too big.
If the OCV grows then so also does the temptation to equip it as a light war-fighting vessel. To take one example, the UK’s planned MHPC (Minehunting, Hydrographic and Patrol Capability) vessel, which is required to cover the same roles as Australia’s OCV, is currently projected to displace about 3,500 tonnes. The rough template for this platform is the 85 metre patrol vessel which BAE Systems is building for Trinidad and Tobago.
As well as carrying a projected deployable MCM system which the UK is now exploring in partnership with France, the ship would also carry the Common Anti-air Modular Missile (CAMM), requiring in turn a suite of sensors and a command and control system beyond the scope (and probably the budget) of a relatively simple patrol vessel.
The British MHPC requirement is for something which looks like an Anzac-class frigate, which isn’t what the DCP says the RAN wants. The UK has been exploring autonomous MCM and last year brought into service the MCM Reconnaissance Unmanned Underwater Vehicle, known more simply as ‘Recce’, manufactured by US firm Hydroid Inc.
The Recce, derived from Hydroid’s REMUS 600 Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) is a 3.9-metre long autonomous platform with a 20-hour endurance and a maximum operating depth of 200 metres. It carries out both MCM and hydrographic and environmental surveys and could be the basis of a deployable, autonomous MCM capability in the future.
Concurrently, the French Ministry of defence has contracted Thales to develop an advanced ROV-based Minehunting capability under Project ASEMAR. A starting point for this, in a technology sense, is Thales’s existing DUBM44 towed sonar array and the TSM 2054 Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS), a sidescan sonar mounted in a towed body. Similarly, Saab’s autonomous AUV62-MR mine reconnaissance system is largely platform-independent and form part of an integrated MCM capability, including a C3I system.
These, and other available systems offered by European and US providers, offer some hope that the RAN’s aspiration to have a deployable, largely autonomous and platform-independent MCM system is achievable. While this year’s Australia-UK Ministerial (AUKMIN) talks between the two countries’ defence ministers didn’t touch on specifics, there are prospects for an exchange of project personnel in this area. The UK is reckoned to be about two years ahead of Australia in addressing this operational requirement and developing mission system options.
Risk
It is the mission systems rather than platform which present the greatest project risks, and which provide the greatest potential for a collaborative approach which might mitigate the technical risks and contain the costs.
However, this can’t distract attention from the generic OCV’s ‘core’ equipment, including a combat system. The combat system needs to be integrated with the platform, handling communications and the baseline sensor fit, including EW, depth sounder, platform management system, IR Search & Track (IRST), navigation and air and surface search radars (if fitted), and weapons. The later could range from a 25-30mm gun right up to a 57mm or 76mm gun, and could even include some sort of Very Short Range Air defence (VSRAD) missile such as the MBDA Mistral/SIMBAD-C/Tetral family.
If a single ship class is the eventual solution the CMS also needs an Open Architecture to interface with the dedicated Hydrographic and MCM mission modules. The highest technical risk lies in the mission and combat systems and their integration and through-life support. There’s almost a case for selecting a Combat System Systems Engineer (CSSE) first and then getting him to help select the platform(s); in any case a CSSE of some kind will likely be required from the outset, and right through the life of the capability.
The OCV would be a logical candidate for a future evolution of Saab Systems’ Australian-developed 9LV Mk3E Combat Management System (CMS). This is already on the Anzac frigates and being developed for the RAN’s two Canberra-class LHDs. While the DMO would undoubtedly seek competitive tenders for the OCV’s combat system, adapting the 9LV Mk3 system to these ships would provide significant training, software support and logistics synergies which would help contain costs across the RAN surface fleet at a number of levels.
The 9LV system is highly appropriate for this level of maritime capability; indeed, the OCV program as a whole lends itself easily to local construction and a high level of Australian industry involvement. There is no shortage of local yards eager (and many of them well qualified) to design and build these ships.
A (nominal) 20-vessel construction program holds out the tantalizing prospect of economies of scale in the building of the ships themselves; the major challenge for Defence and industry is likely to be identifying the capabilities which the ships need to embody, and therefore whether a single design can perform all of the necessary roles.
However, a mix of platform designs can’t be ruled out. The Spanish Navy is unconvinced that a multi-role vessel will be good enough in the most specialized role, MCM, and Navantia is examining a mix of platform solutions based on its Buque de Accion Maritima (BAM) and Avante families of light combatants and patrol craft. Australia may also need to contemplate a mix of specialist and general purpose vessels.
In any case, with plenty of platform and mission system development activity under way both overseas and locally, the RAN and DMO need to read the Sea 1180 ITR responses carefully before committing firmly to a solution and a schedule.