Visitors to the biennial International Maritime Exposition, PACIFIC 2006 welcomed the rare opportunity to take a tour of one of Australia’s six Collins Class Submarines – the HMAS DECHAINEUX.

HMAS DECHAINEUX was docked at Garden Island, NSW for a routine visit during her current deployment to the East coast in support of fleet activities, and took the opportunity to provide support for Pacific 2006. Based at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia, the six Collins Class submarines are a formidable element in Australia’s defence capability.

During the conference, HMAS DECHAINEUX under the command of Lieutenant Commander Phil Stanford, was used to showcase the breadth of Australia’s defence industry capability to foreign defence officials and defence industry delegates.

Project SEA 1114, approved at $3.5 billion, covered the acquisition and associated support and infrastructure of the submarines, a complex project with over 160 major sub-contractors to prime contractor ASC Pty Ltd.
Visitors to the submarine also received an insight into the combat systems integrated into the submarines and learned about the replacement combat system, which will further improve their capability.

The new AN/BYG-1 submarine replacement combat system being procured under SEA 1439 Phase 4A and the replacement Heavyweight Torpedoes provided under Project SEA 1429 are being developed jointly under Memoranda of Understanding with the US Navy.

HMAS WALLER will be the first COLLINS Class submarine to be equipped with the USN AN/BYG – 1 submarine combat system, with HMAS DECHAINEUX being the second.

ASC Pty Ltd, Raytheon Australia and Thales Underwater Systems are three of the prime contractors on the SEA 1439 Phase 4A project leading the installation and integration of the system in HMAS WALLER. The heavyweight torpedoes will place Australia at the forefront of world capability. A recent joint exercise conducted by the Australian and US Navies in Australian waters marked a significant milestone in the joint development of the weapon with a successful set of test firings completed as part of the overall program of development and operational test firings.

Other Australian companies involved in the COLLINS Class upgrade program.include Sonartech Atlas for the acoustic transient event processing system, Nautronix Ltd for the throughwater communications system and Acoustic Technologies for the sonar x-terminal console, sonar data recording system and CIRCE self-noise monitoring system.