FFG upgrade underway

By Graham Davis

HMAS Sydney in the graving dock at Garden Island.

Photo: LSMT Danny John

HMAS Sydney undergoing the tilt tests in the partially emptied dry dock.

Photo: LSMT Danny John

One of the Royal Australian Navy’s most important moves to increase its warfighting capability, the $1 billion up-grade of its six guided missile frigates (FFGs), is underway.

ADI Ltd formally began work on the first ship, HMAS Sydney, on September 22 a few days after the 4,100-tonne warship entered the Captain Cook Graving Dock at Garden Island in Sydney.

Work on the last ship should be completed in 2007, Mr Barry Barnes, the Director/Naval for ADI told Navy News. Among the important enhancements set for the six vessels is the addition of a second missile system.

A new vertical launch system will be built to take the evolved Sea Sparrow missile. The existing SM-1 missile system will be retained.

Work on HMAS Sydney is expected to be completed in August, 2004, her commanding officer, CMDR Michael Van Balen, said. Although Sydney is vessel 03, once her work is done the sequence of upgrades will follow the hull numbers. “01, HMAS Adelaide, will go nose to tail with Sydney and so on,” CAPT Mark Kellam the commander of the Surface Combatant FEG, said.

He said once workers honed their skills and learning on Sydney and Adelaide, they could then parallel some of the work on the remaining four ships to achieve the 2007 completion target. The upgrade will affect the lives of nominally 1300 officers and sailors.

Each ship entering the program will see about half of her ship’s company move off. The remaining 100 will be involved in maintaining the ship’s routine, fire safety and security.

Should they be combat systems operators and electronic technicians, they will find themselves doing courses applicable to the new equipment and armaments their ships will carry.

“Their commanding officers will remain on board and the ships will remain commissioned,” CAPT Kellam said. Days before Sydney entered the dock sheets of steel had been positioned nearby.

Some of these will be used for the new Sea Sparrow well and for re-inforcement of some sections of the ship. When the upgrade is completed each ship will go from 4,100 tonnes to 4,200 tonnes.

In addition office space has been assigned to Sydney’s ship’s company in an adjoining building. ADI Ltd as the prime contractor for the upgrade, advertised for 80 additional workers earlier this year. They included electricians, boilermakers, sheetmetal workers, plumbers and pipe fabricators.

Ship repair assistants with a sound knowledge of grit blasting were also called for. ADI will have more than 300 people working on the project under the leadership of the FFG project manager Phil New and production manager Peter Simmons.

The upgrade program will provide capability and supportability upgrades to the six warships to increase their operational effectiveness against regional threats and to ensure their supportability through the end of their lives.

This will entail improvements to self defence and offensive capabilities and enhancement to the ship’s reliability, maintainability, availability and supportability.

Earmarked for upgrade are the ships’ command and control, surveillance capability, air warfare capability, underwater warfare capability, on-board training capability, improved communications, improved shore support ability and the capabilities of the ship platform itself.

Their hulls will be strengthened and ballast moved and added to, while their service diesel generator prime movers will be replaced as will static frequency converters.

Each ship will be able to make more chilled water and the ship’s company will be better off with improved ventilation, more drying space in the mess decks and modified laundries.

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