On 17 June 2016, the Defence Minister sent a DMP-A letter to the House of Representatives on the replacement of submarine capabilities. The parliamentary debate on this will take place in the next six months.
The "Politics and Defence & Security Engineering" working group of the Royal Institute of Engineers (KIVI) analyses current political developments in the defence sector. It provides facts and interpretation from the technological knowledge and experience of engineers. The working group has offered the preliminary comments below on the DMP-A letter to the members of the Standing Committee on Defence in the House of Representatives. As the debate progresses, the working group will provide additional comments.
From a technological perspective, the working group is definitely in favour of building new submarines. This is an important niche capability that the Netherlands can contribute to the NATO alliance and the EU. However, new construction does not only have military and allied utility. There is also great technical/economic importance for upstream industry and spin-off from technical developments to other sectors of the economy.
Submarines have a technical and economic lifespan of 40 years. Thus, if the boats now being debated become operational by 2030, they will remain active roughly until the year 2070. Proven technology of today already causes a backlog of 15 years upon delivery. By the end of its lifetime, that is comparable to 1960s technology now!
So development of new technology is and will remain essential. Think of advanced batteries, air-independent propulsion and autonomously operating systems. Modular as much as possible to allow for modifications during the service life.
Far-reaching international cooperation, necessary according to the DMP-A, also has cost-increasing and time-consuming aspects. Emphasis should therefore be placed on demonstrable technical, economic and military usefulness of cooperation. The working group favours cooperation on a subsystem basis rather than completely identical submarines.
The necessary development and construction will take at least 10 years. According to the plans in the DMP-A, final decisions will not be taken until 2020. Delivery of the new submarines will therefore not be possible until after 2030, while the Walrus class will reach the end of its service life in 2025. A flexible and quick start with complex technical subprojects therefore seems necessary to the working group. These subprojects may anticipate the final start of construction.
Below are the comments by page of the DMP-A letter dated 17 June 2016.
DMP-A page 1. Importance for the Netherlands.
This page identifies the primary military/strategic importance of a submarine capability for the Netherlands. The secondary importance of a submarine capability could be added as the utility for the maritime sector as a supplier and also the positive impact of highly advanced technological development on the economy. This is particularly relevant as the minister is going to pay intrusive attention to international cooperation in the B phase. For such a massive project, the benefit to the Dutch maritime and technology sector must be taken into account in choices about cooperation. This is not limited to technology or products. It also promotes the development of state-of-the-art processes and methods. This also has an impact outside the sector.
DMP-A page 2. Project control
The design of the project control is based on experiences with the replacement F-16. However, this project has a totally different character, with the US being more than 90% process owner and the Ministry of Defence having taken a certain distance from technology development in the Netherlands. After all, it is the project management in the US that decides on involvement of Dutch technology and companies.
Much better to base the project management on previous naval construction projects. Following the experience of building the Walrus class, the Royal Navy introduced a very strict and careful methodology of project management and technology management 35 years ago, which has been successfully continued until the construction of the current ships.
In other words, in the F-35 project, the DMO (and its predecessor) acted as Smart Buyer. In almost every project for the Kon Marine, it acts as System Integrator. There is a fundamental difference between these two roles that leaves the F-35 project with no guidance on how to frame the Walrus-class replacement project.
DMP-A page 2. Introduction.
Disappointing that the minister does not explicitly point out niche capabilities in NATO of conventional submarines here. Basic and niche capabilities were an important starting point in the paper "In the interest of the Netherlands". The submarine capability is both operationally and technologically such a niche capability that gives the Netherlands a unique position in NATO and the EU that cannot be filled by another partner's navy without further ado and within a reasonable period of time.
DMP-A page 3. Introduction on security situation.
An analysis of the security situation is obviously of constant importance. Obviously, developments must be constantly monitored and evaluated, but the construction, ownership and deployment of submarines must be geared to the need 40-50 years from now (30-40 years after commissioning). International security and technological developments over that period to 2065 cannot be foreseen by any cabinet or sounding board. Technological and deployment flexibility in the very long term are therefore of paramount importance.
DMP-A page 4. Role submarine.....
In the last sentence, the security interest of the NATO alliance and the EU should be added and emphasised. It is not about the Netherlands alone, but alliance cooperation.
DMP-A page 5. Arms race.
The working group fully agrees with the analysis that the physical properties underwater make the deployment of unmanned systems difficult. Communication is almost impossible and turbulent currents complicate navigation. Autonomous systems for longer distances will be especially difficult to develop. The working group does expect that in the next decade many more remotely controlled or autonomously operating short-range underwater systems will become available. A manned submarine as proposed will serve very well as a base of operations for this purpose. This is in contrast to surface ships, which, after all, lack the stealth characteristics of a submarine. Building in flexibility - and thus space - to be able to work with unmanned systems outside the submarine in the future is therefore of great importance.
DMP-A page 6. Financial sustainability.
The drive to use proven technology outlined on this page could have financial benefits and reduce risks during construction. However, a (sub)system based on today's proven technology is already obsolete at commissioning and will have to be replaced soon. This thus shifts the bill to the future. For each existing technology, the working group advocates looking mainly at the developments to be expected in 10-20 years' time in that specific technology area and basing a choice on that.
Development of new technologies for submarines can also bring economic benefits in other sectors. These include advanced batteries, air-independent propulsion and autonomous systems. These are of paramount importance for the operational value of future submarines but can also provide large spin-offs in civilian applications. The same applies to developments in data communication and artificial intelligence, among others.
These considerations lead to the need for a modular approach in the development and integration of virtually all on-board systems. The importance of trade-offs between adaptability, interchangeability, space requirements, operational flexibility, cost considerations and applicability in other sectors of the economy can hardly be overestimated.
DMP-A page 7. Variants study.
The working group is surprised by the variants outlined in the Sounding Board report. Most of the variants conceptually oppose the functional requirements set out by the minister on page 6, which were also raised in the future vision of the submarine service approved by the House of Representatives.
When developing and building technically advanced products, variant analysis and a total value vs. total cost consideration (= CBA) is extremely useful. However, these should then be variants that fit within the primary requirements of military deployment and security.
Such an analysis should primarily identify cost drivers. Sometimes a relatively unimportant requirement suddenly makes an engineering design very expensive. The issue is which requirements determine costs and whether costly requirements are really necessary.
It would also be useful to consider the financial and economic benefits of international cooperation. The intensive consultation required for cooperation, including the incorporation of mutual financial, technical and planning requirements, can have a very delaying and cost-increasing effect. The NH90 project, among others, demonstrated this. Experience has shown that the cost of international cooperation in construction increases by the square root from the number of partners (2 partners = 1.4x the cost, 3 partners = 1.7x, etc.). Savings on total cost of ownership are nil if operation is not also fully joint, as in the cooperation with Belgium. Furthermore, a sharp watch must be kept against combining too many, conflicting or weakened requirements for the sake of cooperation.
The working group strongly supports cooperation, but only where it makes sense.
DMP-A page 8. International cooperation.
In the working group's view, platform-level cooperation only makes sense with partners with the same operational concept and with whom previous cooperation has proved fruitful. The US Navy, the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy are good examples of this.
Cooperation with partners with a different operational concept and/or with the aim of building identical boats in an international context will prove counterproductive because of the different technical and operational requirements set by countries and because of industrial interests. The working group advocates seeking cooperation mainly on a sub-system basis, as has also proved successful with the LCF/F124 class, among others. R&D cooperation in the submarine field with the aforementioned partners has also proven cost-effective and technically/operationally useful.
DMP-A page 9. Financial aspects.
Due to lessons learned in the construction of the Walrus class, a 10% risk reservation does not fit a "high" risk. Previous naval construction projects, such as M-FF and LCF, used a 20% risk reservation at this stage. This need is reinforced by the fact that, in the past, some development and integration of weapon systems took place outside the project. For example, under the CODEMA scheme. Now these projects and risks are also included in the project budget.
DMP-A page 10 Planning.
Naval ship development and construction is not comparable to F-35 aircraft. The schedule indicated shows that 6 years have been set aside for detailed design and construction. Technical experience with large and unique projects of this kind suggests that development of subsystems should start at least 5 years before to be sufficiently mature for the construction phase. Developments for the LCF started as early as around 1989 and developments for the patrol vessels began around 2002. International cooperation delays this process by several years because cooperation contracts are always difficult to establish.
It cannot be emphasised enough that a fast approach is necessary to realise the replacement of the Walrus-class submarines in time, before they reach the end of their safe service life. If initial decisions can only be taken in 2020, delivery of the first new submarine will not take place until after 2030, while the Walrus class will reach the end of its service life in 2025. A flexible and early start with complex technical subprojects therefore seems necessary to the working group. These subprojects should be designed so that they can anticipate the final start of construction.
Downloads: The DMP-A letter of 17 June 2016, the advice of the sounding board group and this comment from the KIVI DV working group.
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The Hague, 8 August 2016
Do you have any further questions? Then contact the working group at E: dv@kivi.nl or T: 071 7113973
The Royal Institute of Engineers' (KIVI) Working Group on Politics and Defence & Security Engineering analyses current political developments in the defence sector. It provides facts and interpretation from the technological knowledge and experience of engineers.
Disclaimer: The facts and opinions given are based on open sources and on the knowledge and experience of working group members. This is not an official position of KIVI. The association accepts no liability for anything put forward by the working group or its members.
