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14 NAVY ENGINEERING BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2003
BY LCDR ANDREW
GOLDSWORTHY RAN
An Engineering Approach
to Maintaining Capability
INTRODUCTION
In the first, relaunched edition of the Engineering Bulletin (Jun 01), LCDR
Mark Warren postulated that the Naval Engineer would become extinct
due to the benefits derived from advancing technology and cost
pressures to reduce crew numbers. CDRE Ken Joseph continued this
theme of smaller crews on warships, but suggested a greater
prominence for engineers within the Navy in Issue 2 of the Engineering
Bulletin (Feb 02). I find these two articles interesting in that whilst I
believe that smaller crews are a future reality, I would like to suggest that
the balance should be exactly the opposite. Fundamentally, I would like
to suggest that as technology advances, will we need fewer and fewer
‘operators’ but similar numbers of maintainers lead by highly competent
and adaptive engineers.
OVERVIEW
Firstly, I would like to address
some of the main points made in
LCDR Warren’s article from the
perspective of having recently
served on one of the newer
technology ships currently in the
fleet, the ANZAC Class Frigate
HMAS ARUNTA. Then I would like
to discuss what our warships
should be capable of, and
consequently propose the current
and future value of engineers at
sea. Finally, I would like to
propose an alternative manning
structure for warships to the one
presented by LCDR Warren.
MATURITY OF DESIGN
The first point that LCDR Warren
makes in his article is that there
is a reduced benefit from
engineers at sea due to the
maturity of design, and compares
the design maturity of a warship
to that of a car. I believe this
comparison does not accurately
reflect the relative complexities
between both designs. A warship
has a very large number of
systems having various levels of
integration with each other and
with different configurations
possible. The car on the other
hand, is a relatively simple
system with far fewer
permutations and maintenance
requirements. Also, the car has
not been subjected to the
revolutionary design changes that
have been seen in ships. Whilst,
the car has undergone significant
improvements in design,
particularly in the area of
passenger safety, the impact has
been nothing like the impact of
changing from sail to steam to
gas turbines/diesels to fully
electric propulsion that is
occurring to ships. Additionally,
the operator requirement for car
drivers has changed very little
over the years whilst an operator
on a warship will experience a
significant number of changes,
both in technology and
procedures, even within the life of
a ship build program.
To further complicate different
design environments, recent
trends in contracting strategies
have meant that the experience
of one generation of ship is not
incorporated into the next. We
have moved away from
maintaining expertise within
house that can translate
operating and maintenance
experience of ships into contract
requirements for the next build
program. As a result, we rely
increasingly on the design
experience of the ship builder,
which, in Australia, is extremely
limited both in scope and
duration. The consequence of this
is that there is not the same
design refinement and
improvement for warships as
there is for the humble old car.
So, given the pace of design
change and the experience of the
Australian shipbuilding industry, it
seems unlikely that we will ever
reach the maturity of design that
exists in cars. Furthermore, even if
the same level of design maturity
could be achieved, the level of
complexity of a warship design
would necessitate routine
engineering input.
COMPUTER CONTROL SYSTEMS
LCDR Warren then goes on to say
that increasing levels of computer
control makes operation of the
platform much easier. Now,
providing all the software, sensors
and control hardware are all