Joining dots on new subs’ combat systems
The Australian
By Gregor Ferguson
31 October 2024
Australia and the UK will deliver SSN-AUKUS, a new conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarine, based on a UK design, incorporating cutting edge Australian, UK and US technologies.
Now the Royal Australian Navy has disclosed its plans to acquire two new classes of nuclear-powered submarines – the US-made Virginia-class and the joint UK-Australia SSN-AUKUS-class – all the dots are finally on the page. It remains only to connect them in the correct order.
Some of the connective tissue consists of Lockheed Martin, which has been the Combat System Integrator for the US Navy’s entire nuclear-powered submarine fleet for more than 40 years. The company builds a majority of, and integrates all the equipment in, the combat system of Virginia-class submarines, sustaining and upgrading the system throughout its operational life. And it stands ready to be a key player in the development of the SSN-AUKUS submarine combat system, which all three navies have said will operate a future version of the current system.
“When you’re talking about combat systems, it’s not just one system, it’s actually a system of systems that are integrated,” says Dave Schappert, a former US Navy submarine commander and now Lockheed Martin’s undersea business development principal.
The company provides the US Navy’s sonar and electronic warfare systems as well as processors and displays for the existing Virginia-class boats and the new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines.
“And we integrate not just the systems we make but also those that come from other companies in the US industrial base into that cohesive combat system,” Mr Schappert adds.
Australia will acquire ex-US Navy Virginia-class submarines under the AUKUS Pillar 1 agreement using the US Foreign Military Sales mechanism.
They will undergo their deep maintenance in Western Australia alongside Submarine Rotational Force West in Fremantle, which will formally open in 2027 with the biggest concentrations of nuclear-powered submarine expertise in Australia at that time. Would the RAN’s Virginia-class submarines be identical to those operated by the US Navy?
“We don’t know, that is something that will be known in the fullness of time,” says Kendell Kuczma, Lockheed Martin Australia’s international business development director.
“Being a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin gives us a good position to provide combat system support if it’s required in SRF-W and in support of Australia’s own Virginia-class, but we haven’t been told what that role is yet.”
In Australia, Lockheed Martin was selected as CSI for the cancelled Attack-class boats after a competitive process. “That was a really rigorous process that we went through,” Ms Kuczma says.
What got the company over the line, she believes, was its long experience working with the US Navy and its experience delivering complex projects in Australia. The company employed some 240 Australians on the combat system development element of the Attack-class program prior to its cancellation.
“There are still around 200 people from the Attack-class program at Lockheed Martin Australia. They’ve been repositioned in the company: many have gone to Project AIR6500; from one complex system of systems to another complex system of systems,” Ms Kuczma says.
The company retained those people because, if there is an opportunity to do combat system integration and sustainment work on Australia’s SSN fleet, it will have a skilled workforce ready to transition to that program.
The company also produces the brains of the Mk48 ADCAP heavyweight torpedoes, supporting their sustainment at Australia’s Torpedo Maintenance Facility in Fremantle, as well as at the Pearl Harbor Heavyweight Torpedo Intermediate Maintenance Activity in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. These weapons arm the Collins-class, they are on all classes of US Navy submarines including the Virginia-class boats, and will also be on Australia’s SSN-AUKUS boats.
When the Attack-class program was cancelled, Lockheed Martin Australia was required to close its Mawson Lakes integration laboratory. However, Lockheed Martin Australia retains the “know-how and know why”, Ms Kuczma says: “And when we have that needs statement from (Defence) we’ll be willing and able to uplift immediately.”
The company’s role in delivering the SSN-AUKUS submarine will be different to what was planned for the Attack-class, partly because of the trilateral nature of the agreement and it being much broader than one country’s program, she says.
That line of business is still some way down the track, “but whatever that role is, we can reduce the risk because of our deep experience and reach-back to the US. We’re really the right people to do that for Australia”.
“The first crocodile closest to the boat is actually getting those Virginia-class boats here and being able to service them with an Australian workforce and actually having a world-class combat system that integrates our torpedoes,” Ms Kuczma says.
“That’s the number one thing we’ve got to focus on right now. Whatever happens with SSN-AUKUS will happen, but we’ve got to get that Virginia right.”