New Carriers

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He said that the talks with China were all at consultation stage

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The numbers your article suggests are the same ones that I'm talking about.

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Two recent articles about the Shi Lang.

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from my understanding China's subs are still really noisy.

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Collins sub shines in US war game

October 13 2002
By Brendan Nicholson
Political Correspondent

One of Australia's Collins class submarines has hunted down and "killed" a state-of-the-art United States nuclear submarine in a series of mock attacks during an underwater warfare exercise off Hawaii.

Officers in the exercise told The Sunday Age HMAS Sheean had held its own during two rigorous weeks of combat trials with the Los Angeles class attack sub, USS Olympia. The subs had swapped roles as hunter and prey and scored roughly equal numbers of hits.

The role of seeking and destroying an enemy submarine is one of the most difficult faced by Australia's six new Collins class submarines. The success off Hawaii in August has boosted morale dramatically among submarine crews who have had to endure years of hearing their boats condemned as noisy and vulnerable.

A 1999 report by the then CSIRO chief, Malcolm McIntosh, and former BHP managing director John Prescott said the Collins' combat system should be junked, the vessels were noisy and vulnerable to attack, their engines broke down regularly, a badly shaped hull and fin made too much disturbance when they moved at speed under water, the view from the periscope was blurry, the communications system outdated and the propellers were likely to crack.

Commander Steve Davies, chief-of-staff in the navy's submarine force, said that during the past three years those problems had been fixed to the point where the submarines were able to match the best of the US Navy's giant underwater fleet.

During its mock attacks on the Olympia and on two US destroyers, the Sheean fired 28 torpedoes. Commander Davies said "a respectable percentage" of shots Sheean fired at Olympia were hits that would have destroyed the powerful US vessel.

Commodore Davies, Australia's most experienced Collins commander, said the two vessels were very evenly matched. The submarines also practised landing special forces.

The exercises provided a crucial test for the Australian submarine, which has been as much criticised at home as it has been feted abroad.

The Olympia, 110 metres long and 12 metres across the beam, is twice the displacement of the Sheean, at 80 metres by eight metres. The Olympia carries up to 120 crew; the Sheean 45. Many of the Americans are engineers caring for their reactor.

The Collins is powered by diesel and electric motors and its roles include undersea warfare - finding and destroying other submarines - destroying enemy warships and merchant ships, surveillance and intelligence collection, support for special forces and covert transport.

Commander Davies said the US sub's size was not an advantage: "It just means you make more noise when you go faster."

He said cooperation with the US submarine force had increased significantly recently. "That has come about because they're interested in the Collins class and in our submarine force generally."

While the Americans run the world's most powerful submarine arm, they acknowledge that changes in international conditions in the past decade and new priorities have left them with tactics to learn from the small Australian submarine arm.

Commander Davies said Australian submariners were used to operating in shallow water. "That's one of the things the Americans are looking towards us for experience in.

"Ten years ago their submarine force was chasing Russian submarines around the deep ocean. Now, as with all submarine forces, it's more focused on closer inshore operations, intelligence collection or working with special forces. They're looking to us as a submarine force which has a long experience in that sort of thing."

The six Collins' combat systems are to be upgraded further and they will get more modern torpedoes. Those the Sheean used in its clashes with the Olympia were developed in the 1970s; the Americans used a far more sophisticated generation.

While smaller than the US nuclear boats, the Collins is one of the world's biggest conventional submarines. It was designed to cover long distances and the Sheean easily reached Hawaii without refuelling.