How a Virginia Block V SSN Works

 

Here and above is an animated explanation of how a Virginia Block V works.
(Video courtesy AiTelly uploaded July 2023)
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Collins LOTE Part 2: Replacements & Upgrades?

See official "Details" about the LOTE.

Following Collins LOTE Part 1: Budgeted. Saab, LM & MTU of April 22, 2024 what replacements and upgrades are needed for the LOTE?

If the 6 Collins were Life of Type Extended ("LOTEed") from 2026 at 2 year intervals the first 2 would probably retire in the 2030s with the remaining 4 soldiering on through to the mid 2040s. 

Main items I think worth replacing or upgrading are: 

- replacing the Collins’ 3 x Garden Island-Hedemora DIESELS. These are probably no longer in production. They are relatively compact permitting all 3 to sit parallel - saving space. However they are probably unreliable (in the saltier waters of the Indo-Pacific) - so probably need a high level of expensive deep maintenance. The 3 might be replaceable by 2 more powerful Kawasaki 12Ｖ 25/25 SB-type or 2  MTU 4000s submarine diesels (that for more than decade have become highly mature for Indo-Pacific conditions). So, as replacements, 2 x MTU 4000 submarine diesels for each Collins might be reasonable. 

-  maybe new Generators to replace the 3 × Jeumont-Schneider generators with 2

-  strengthening the pressure hulls, as the need for extensive hull cutting to replace/overhaul the Hedemora Diesels has weakened the pressure hulls, reducing safe diving depth.  

-  many combat system items: ie. photonic aka optronic masts replacing existing periscopes, latest technology work stations, new servers, new hardware and software to torpedo tube launch Australia's new Tomahawk anti-ship and land attack missiles. 

-  many worn mechanical moving parts and seals need replacing 

-  electricals that have water damage need replacing, as they can corrode, then fuse, then catch fire. 

-   Lithium-ion Batteries (LIBs) perhaps cannot be retrofitted into the Collins. The Collins' balance/buoyancy, electrical and electronic fittings and components have been built specifically around Lead-acid Batteries (LABs).

Timings

I'm not convinced the Virginias will be delivered to Australia in the 2030s as the US will lack enough Virginias even for the USN. See pages 19 to 20 of this CRS Report. US Virginia production might reach "shareable levels" (phrase coined here first) after the US' new Columbia-class SSBNs "are expected to be completed" in 2042. 

Even LOTEed Collins will only last till the mid 2040s when their pressure hulls become too metal fatigued due to contraction-expansion cycles. 

So Australia may increasing need to rely on AUKUS Pillar 2 generated Ghost Shark XLUUVs from the early 2030s to do everything except fire torpedoes and missiles.

Virginias and/or SSN-AUKUS's might be available to the RAN from the mid-late 2040s. 

Sweden wants Larger Warships and More Submarines

As I highlighted in March 2024, Sweden's March 7, 2024 entry into NATO has accelerated Sweden's overall military procurement. With the publication of a document (298 pages in Swedish) by the Swedish Parliamentary Defense Committee, Sweden is now looking at long-term programs for the 2030s.

According to Naval News, this report includes a new class of frigates for participation in NATO Standing Naval Forces, and a new submarine class to replace the Gotland boats in the late 2030s.

A30 submarine project

image: SAAB. The Blekinge-class will stop at two, with a follow-on class
 planned
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To recap - Sweden's A26 Blekinge-class SSKs, which were ordered in 2015, will finally be delivered in 2027 and 2028, and replace the two 38-year-old A17 Vastergotland boats, the HSwMS Sondermanland and the mothballed HSwMS Ostergotland.

The Royal Swedish Navy's (RSwN) three A19 Gotland class submarines are now 28-years old, and should decommission in the late 2030s. The Swedish parliament is therefore considering building four A30 submarines after the Blekinges are completed, for delivery after 2038. The fourth sub will expand the Royal Swedish Navy's (RSwN's) active submarine force to 6 boats. 

The A30 could be a smaller (less capable?) submarine than the A26, but could also carry more weapons.

New Frigates?

image: Finnish Navy. Pohjanmma-class
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As I also highlighted in my March 2024 article, Sweden decided to construct four new corvettes in 2020. These are the Luleå-class corvettes (named after small coastal towns) which are expected to be delivered from 2030. 

These warships will be larger than the 640-tonnes displacement Visbys. They were initially planned as enlarged Visbys. But a clean sheet design was chosen and these ships could emerge as a cousin of Singapore's 1,200-tonne displacement Independence-class Littoral Mission Vessel (LMV).  SAAB contributed to the basic design of the LMV, and also provided composite superstructures. 

The Visbys will now undergo an mid life update (MLU) to remain in service to 2040.

The Swedish Parliamentary Defense Committee now advocates a follow-on procurement of surface combatants, with deliveries starting in the latter half of the 2030s. Naval News has suggested that a variant of the Finnish Pohjanmaa-class multirole large corvettes (117m long ships with a displacement of 4,300 tonnes) is a prime candidate for this new class of warships. As the Pohjanmaa class recently entered production, with the last ship scheduled for completion in mid-2028,  Sweden could to take advantage of the 'hot' construction yard with a follow-on order.

image: Finnish Navy. Pohjanmaa-class production schedule
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Note that Sweden does not have large naval shipyards, and SAAB had to build the hull of the 4,000 tonne displacement SIGINT ship HSwMS Artemis in Poland.

Update - 2/05/2024

Naval News has posted a YouTube video interview with the Chief of the Royal Swedish Navy on the sidelines of the Sea Air Space 2024 convention and she confirms that Sweden has already integrated into NATO and is prepared to join the NATO standing MCM and Maritime groups.

Naval News interview with the Chief of the Royal Swedish Navy
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The Royal Navy's Gun Revolution

A training exercise for a 30mm DS-30B naval cannon. In this case its on a UK Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel 12 years ago. Same weapon used on HMS Diamond - details below.
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The Royal Navy (RN) of the United Kingdom has always been a gun-armed Navy, since it was founded as the 'Tudor Navy' by Henry VIII in 1485. While the 'missile age' of naval warfare has diminished the importance of gun weapons as offensive weaponry, recent events in the Black Sea and the Red Sea have reinforced the importance of guns for warship self-defense.

The UK Defence Journal recently published a question formally asked in the UK parliament about the UK's air defence assets. This has confirmed an issue that was brought up by Navylookout.com in an after-action report of the Type 45 Daring-class air defence destroyer HMS Diamond's engagement of Houthi UAVs, ASCMs and ASBMs in January 2024 - that the 'main-gun' of RN destroyers and frigates, the British 4.5-inch (114mm) Mark 8 naval gun, does not have anti-aircraft capabilities, as Naval Lookout observed: 

"4.5-inch Mk 8 gun is now really only useful in the Naval Gunfire Support role in relatively benign environments. The software support for its original limited anti-air capability was withdrawn some time ago as a cost-saving measure."

I've been curious about the resurgence of naval guns as a counter UAV/USV weapon, especially as there are now proximity and guided projectiles for 30mm, 40mm, 57mm, 76mm and 5-inch (127mm) naval guns. 

Smaller 30mm calibre gun ammunition are much more economical than expensive SAMs for knocking out small cheap swarms of UAVs and USVs, but a larger calibre weapon can engage targets at a further (thus safer) distance - the Danish frigate Iver Huitfeldt fired 50-100 76mm rounds against an approaching drone when its ESSM missile system failed for 30 minutes - though the resulting weapons failures were actually the result of long-standing issues known to the Royal Netherlands Navy.

HMS Diamond has engaged Houthi airborne targets with its Sea Viper (48 Aster 30/15/1NT missiles). On April 24, 2024 it was HMS Diamond's Sea Viper system that shot down a Houthi ASBM, a first for the Sea Viper/Aster missile system (see final paragraph here). HMS Diamond's 2 x 30mm DS-30B cannon and 2 x 20mm Phalanx 1B close in weapon system (CIWS), have also been seen action, and these guns are mounted on the flanks of Daring-class Type 45 destroyers like HMS Diamond.

image: Seaforces.org. A 30mm DS-30B autocannon and 20mm Phalanx Block 1B aboard a Type 45 Daring class Destroyer ---

The DS-30B is a stabilized Oerlikon KCB 30mm cannon with a pedestal-mounted 30mm automatic cannon that can fire proximity fused ammunition. Here is a report of 5-inch fused ammo for the USN as an example of this concept. The UK RN has not disclosed if it uses such fuse ammo. The KCB has an effective range of 3km, while the Phalanx's is 1.5km, now considered marginal against supersonic threats. 

To upgrade its ships' self-defence capabilities against asymmetric threats, the RN has experimented with adding Marlet LMM (Lightweight Multirole Missiles) to its DS30M Mk2 mounts (which use the Bushmaster 30mm canons) but this has not been successful. 

The latest news is that the RN is going Star Wars, by outfitting many of its ships with the 50kW Dragonfire Lase Directed Weapon (DEW) from 2027.

The Type-45 Daring Class entered Royal Navy service in 2009 and is scheduled to retire in 2038, when the planned Type 83 destroyer replaces them. The RN's Type 23 Duke-class frigates are also retiring by 2035, which means that the Royal Navy is phasing out the 4.5-inch naval gun, so restoring its capabilities against aerial targets is not a priority.

The Type 26 Gasglow-class frigates, the first of which is now 65% complete, has switched to the 5-inch (127mm) Mark 45 Mode 4 naval gun, which is used by the US Navy and the Royal Australian Navy and is capable of firing programmable and guided munitions.

TKMS Launches Singapore's 4th Invincible Class Sub

thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) on April 22, 2024 launched RSS Inimitable the fourth Type 218SG Invincible-class submarine for the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) at a ceremony in Kiel, Germany. The launch was attended by Teo Chee Hean, Singapore's Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security, and Boris Pistorius, Germany's Minister of Defense. 

Image: TKMS. Note the 'panel' next to the visible torpedo tube muzzle, likely a sonar module. 
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As I mentioned in my "State of ASEAN Submarine Forces: Singapore" article in June 2023, with the introduction of the Invincible class, Singapore will have undergone three generations (Challengers, Archers, now Invincibles) of submarines in the space of 25 years. 

After a contest between TKMS and Naval Group (Scorpene), TKMS was awarded a contract for two boats (then called Type 218SGs) in 2013, and a second order of two in 2017. Construction, in Kiel, Germany, on the lead (renamed Invincible class sub) RSS Invincible, started in 2014 - it was launched in 2019. Then the second, RSS Impeccable and third, RSS Illustrious, were simultaneously launched in 2022.

TKMS states that the Invincible class, at "70m length and around 2,000 tons" displacement, currently are the largest submarines the yard has built. If this statement is true, then the Invincibles are slightly larger than their Israeli cousins, the Dolphin II (68.6m length, 2,050 tons surface displacement), through the upcoming Type-212CD class boats that entered production in September 2023, and the  Israeli Dakar class, ordered in 2022, will be larger boats.

RSS Inimitable is the fourth and last of the class (as stated in a press release by Singapore's Ministry of Defense). TKMS will hand over the sub to the Republic of Singapore Navy in 2025, after testing and outfitting.

Image: TKMS. Note flank sonar arrays (often classified items shielded from public view) have not yet been fitted.
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RSS Invincible still remains in Kiel for RSN crew training at the German Navy's Submarine Training Centre, at Eckernfoerde Naval Base. TKMS has also signed an MoU with Singapore's ST Engineering to 'enhance the Type 218SG Type 218SG submarines over their operational lifetimes". This further enhances the relationship the RSN and ST Marine have established with TKMS and the German Navy.

Video: RSN Youtube channel: Join ME5 Francis Lee as we follow him in a day of his life as a Submarine Project Officer in Kiel, Germany

RSS Impeccable arrived in Singapore in July 2023 (see my article) for local sea trials and workup, and will be fully operational and commissioned later this year. This will likely coincide with the retirement of the RSS Conqueror, a 57-year-old boat that has been in Singapore commission for 20 years.

Singapore media claims the RSS Inimitable will be delivered to Singapore by 2028.

Here and above. Channel News Asia (cna) announced RSS Inimitable's launch.
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Aussie SemiAutonomous Weapons Forge Ahead

Following the early and within budget Ghost Bat and Ghost Shark success stories comes a rapid SemiAutonomous patrol boat development - see APDR's article. All these semi-Australian projects are forging ahead - all unmanned-SemiAutonomous-remotely piloted technologies. These terms sound contradictory, but all these represent multi-node, distributed technologies with some artificial intelligence input.  

The above projects are in such contrast with almost inevitable failures in Australia's MANNED vessel and submarine projects. 

The Australian Government should look hard at cancelling more manned "Shipwrecks in the making". All Australia's Manned naval projects seem to be 10 years late at 3 times original cost estimates. 

Manned projects might increasingly be seen as gratuitous career promotion opportunities for too many armed forces offices seeking combat overseas. Some members of my family directly recognised this. We need more computer experts who can operate systems remotely. 

The studies of how to safely weaponize SemiAutonomous systems is a major study of Five Eye software and computer hardware specialists. I think a subset of this study are some  activities under AUKUS Pillar 2. Having some men in the loop makes such systems safer. 

eg. the US showed the way with weaponized Predators and Reaper UCAVs. On the whole they functioned extremely well in the Middle East, Afghanistan and less well known theatres. These US UCAVs were/are being remotely piloted from Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, with in the loop approvals coming from Washington DC, and forward observation posts in theatre. The public don't/didn't hear about the 1,000s of  successful weapon release and/or reconnaissance Ops, only about the rare targeting mistakes. Reapers over Yemen might now be very much the go.

So Australia is catching up and will probably save A$Billions avoiding totally manned traditional weapon solutions.