Defence Magazine

Deputy Maritime Commander Commodore (CDRE) Ray Griggs said defence research developments in Sydney over the past 50 years, such as the new mine-sweeping technology, had helped position the RAN as a highly advanced modern navy capable of meeting a wide range of threats and challenges.

CDRE Griggs joined the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon. Sandy Macdonald, and DSTO's leading scientists in celebrating the milestone at DSTO Sydney in Pyrmont on 28 April.

The landmark celebration featured a demonstration of the new superconductor magnet for mine sweeping and a tour of a Huon-class coastal minehunter, HMAS Diamantina, which is equipped with DSTO's advanced counter-mine warfare technology.

CDRE Griggs said he could not stress enough how important it is for Navy to have such a close and productive relationship with DSTO Sydney, because the 'result is an enhanced understanding of our environment and of our operations which enables us to maximise both our current and future capability'.

The Commodore observed that in recent years RAN warfighters have benefited greatly not only from research into new technologies but also increased modelling and simulation capabilities that DSTO scientists have been able to bring to bear.

'This has been particularly so in the mine warfare community, where the DSTO contribution has been significant, and increasingly in the collection of warfare competencies that are now gathered under the littoral warfare umbrella,' he said.

'In my previous job as commander of the amphibious task group, I had first-hand experience with the capabilities of the Littoral Sea Command Laboratory here in Pyrmont as we jointly strove to improve the amphibious commander's situational awareness and command-and-control capabilities.'

The Deputy Maritime Commander said the Littoral Sea Command Laboratory would host an experiment in June that marked the first step to reinvigorating the Supporting Arms Coordination Centre (SACC) concept.

According to CDRE Griggs, the SACC coordinates the delivery of fire support from aircraft, artillery and ships to troops ashore in an Amphibious Operations Area. The experiment is an important one that will provide practical outcomes that will assist in understanding 'our requirements as we transition to the Australian Defence Force's new amphibious capability early next decade'.

CDRE Griggs said that, while modelling and simulation were important, systems and operations analysis of real activities was just as critical. The formation of the Maritime Operations Analysis Centre (MOAC), which is an organisation jointly staffed by RAN and DSTO at Sydney's Garden Island, 'has helped to focus the conduct of this type of work'.

'It is only through this sort of activity that the warfighter can get a good feel for the true operational effectiveness of the equipment, tactics and procedures that are being used . and DSTO Sydney have had an active role over a number of years in this field,' he said.

The importance of the MOAC's work was highlighted last year when Navy and DSTO members of MOAC deployed on operations to the Northern Arabian Gulf to analyse the effectiveness of Commander Task Force (CTF) 58's defence plan for the oil platforms, which are critical to the economic future of Iraq.

'The advantage of this work is that it provided real-time feedback to the CTF 58 staff and allowed them to implement the MOAC recommendations during the course of their deployment,' he said.

CDRE Griggs observed that there has always been a strong physical connection between the Navy and DSTO in Sydney. This connection began in 1956 with the establishment of the RAN's first experimental laboratory on the site of the Navy's first Radar and Anti-submarine Warfare schools at Rushcutters Bay. The connection continued when this research facility moved to Pyrmont in 1984.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Defence Science in Sydney, Senator Macdonald presided over a cake-cutting ceremony and launched a history book, Pyrmont People: 50 years of Defence Science in Sydney, which tells the story of those fifty years of scientific research by DSTO and the RAN in the Harbour City.

'Australia has always taken a leading role in Defence science and DSTO Sydney has been behind a number of important defence technologies, including the Australian Minesweeping and Support Systems,' the Senator said.

'Australia is believed to be the only country in the world researching the application of high-temperature superconducting magnets to mine warfare.'

DSTO to the rescue

The counter-mine warfare technology developed by DSTO Sydney for the Navy was used recently to try to solve a 50-year-old mystery about the fate of a missing Japanese midget submarine.

State-of-the-art sand column imaging technology developed to detect and identify mines buried in the sea floor was used to conduct a magnetometer survey of a site thought to be the resting place of one of three Type A midget submarines that attacked Sydney Harbour in World War II.

The technology was jointly developed by DSTO and Midspar Systems and used by the New South Wales (NSW) Heritage Office to 'torpedo' claims by a documentary maker that the midget submarine that vanished in 1942 had been found in the Hawkesbury, some 50 km north of Sydney.

Dr Brian Ferguson, Principal Research Scientist, Maritime Operations Division, DSTO, said the hi-tech sonar technology used to investigate the site is being developed for the Navy under Project Sea 1436.

Dr Ferguson said the sub-bottom profiler sonar technology can identify and capture images of objects from 15 to 50 m below the sea floor, depending on the softness of the sediment.

'This technology is being developed under Sea 1436 to allow the Navy to detect and identify mines that are buried in the sea floor,' he said.

According to Dr Ferguson this sonar tomography system enabled the authorities to identify what was under several tonnes of sand without disturbing what was potentially a war grave.

He noted that the advanced sonar technology was mated with a development vehicle, the 'Littoral Surveyor', and is the only state-of-the-art system of its kind in Australia.

Tim Smith, a Maritime Archaeologist at the NSW Heritage Office, said the Littoral Surveyor was used recently to conduct side-scan sonar and remote-sensing archaeological surveys on the search area.

Other emerging maritime technologies, including a 3-D animation program developed by DSTO, would soon put the spotlight on important Navy wrecks.

The NSW Heritage Office will employ emerging technologies to help preserve RAN history by employing remotely operated vehicles (ROV) to film the Navy submarine AE2, which sank in the Sea of Marmara in 1915, and the battle cruiser HMAS Australia, which was scuttled off Sydney Heads in 1924.

DSTO volunteers are developing a 3-D animation program that would allow an ROV to film inside the AE2, which achieved fame for its operations in the Dardanelles; these operations included crippling a Turkish gun boat.

Roger Neill, Head Unmanned Underwater and Surface Vehicle Technologies, Maritime Platform Divison, DSTO, said the 3-D animation program based on original building plans dating back to 1913 would guide an ROV through the conning tower so it could film inside AE2.

Dr Neill said that DSTO had also agreed in principle to provide an ROV to assist the project, but certain issues about costs still had to be resolved before the 'green light' would be given.

Mr Smith said the interior of the AE2 is expected to be quite revealing because she was abandoned in great haste by the crew after being hit by Turkish naval gunfire.

'AE2 has basically been on the sea floor, totally undisturbed for the past 90 years since being sunk in 1915,' he said.

Meanwhile, an ROV or a two-man submersible will film the Indefatigable-class battle cruiser HMAS Australia later this year.

Australia was scuttled in 1924 off the coast of Sydney under the terms of the Washington Treaty but had recently been discovered in about 400 m of water by a company conducting a survey for offshore-capable routes.

'Filming Australia will help us preserve the Navy's heritage,' Mr Smith said.

Plans are also under way to locate entire squadrons of World War II–era combat aircraft that were dumped off the coast of NSW soon after the end of the war, with an ROV to be used to determine the condition of these aircraft.

Defence

Navy

Navy salutes 50 years of Defence science

DSTO to the rescue