[Cashie]

Some good points.

Originally Posted by Road_Warrior

Collins was a disaster at the beginning and in the early years of their lives for a number of reasons:

1) Selecting a design that was optimised for patrol work in the cold, shallow waters of the Baltic sea, instead of one for long range operations with the huge distances our subs have to cover Pretty common Defence blunder, SeaSprites had similar issue

2) Taking the said design (which was the Kockums Type 471 btw) which was optimised for the above conditions and was a 1900 ton design, and upscaling it so that it would fit the RAN's spec and operational parameters (so long ranges and it ended up being 3300 tons)

3) Trying to reinvent the wheel themselves when it was totally unnecessary with that oddball "Combat Control System" that even the US Navy didn't have and said we didn't need. This ended up being 30% of the overall cost of the boats The Combat System was one of the major issues, once the US was employed to fix it, they ripped it out and fitted a modified LA Class Combat System. Funnily it worked.

4) Changing the requirements in the middle of crucial project milestones Also a common Defence project shortcoming

5) Poor project management and oversight (refer 4 above)

6) Crap hardware And design of the sailplane and propeller etc Not to mention the single valve fluid system design that almost cost us the loss of Collins during initial trials off Perth

7) We've never built subs in Australia and the shipyard didn't exist prior to these submarines. Where did the skills and knowledge come from? Other yards or did everyone start from scratch?

It cost a ****eload of cash to make the Collins boats as good as they are now. They are at the stage where the RAN can once again be relied on for eavesdropping off certain asian countries to our north and they are none the wiser...