2003-05-08

To Sapa
Cape Town

Sir

I wish to respond to the press article Media Get Sneak Preview of Navy's New Corvettes published by Sapa on 2003-04-26; this being for three reasons, firstly to provide some clarity on the matter, secondly to balance the "spin" and thirdly to counter a specific point made by the SA Navy which relates to me.

Firstly, in the article, African Defence Systems's general manager, Doug Law-Brown, states that "some of the equipment (is) an evolution of older generations", but Rear Admiral Leon Reeders goes on to say that "the vessels used leading edge technology". These statements are contradictory. But in any case, the admiral should be specific about whether he is referring to the vessel platform or to the combat suite.

Doug Law-Brown states that "the level of risk is not as high as if it was a first time development", but Commander Andrew Cothill goes on to say that the new Corvette was "the world's first major warship with water jet propulsion" and was also "the first warship to have a horizontal main engine exhaust system". These statements are again at odds with one another, as first-time deployment is always risky - as the Navy has already experienced with the propulsion systems of these very same corvettes.

As just one example of not quite leading edge technology is the 76mm/62 Oto Melara medium gun which has been uplifted from the SA Navy's Warrior-class strike craft, the first of which was acquired in 1973 and the last in 1986. While this is a good naval gun for its calibre, it was developed in the 1960s, although it has since been locally upgraded with an electric drive and fuzed ammunition, but with not inconsiderable problems and questionable effectiveness.

The Navy also states that the corvettes each have eight Exocet surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs). While it may be true that the vessels each have eight SSM launchers, the corvette project director has stated under oath that the navy was purchasing 17 SSM rounds. Now one round is surely to be used for system qualification, which leaves 16. As there are four corvettes being purchased, my arithmetic tells me that each vessel will have four SSMs - or are the Navy acquiring more and if so, under which budget?

But the Exocet MM40 Block 2 is hardly a "leading-edge" SSM. It is indeed an "evolution" of the Exocet MM38 SSM which first entered service in 1973 and was upgraded in the early 90s up until 1993. It has a 50 to 70 km range, depending on launch altitude and speed.

Even if one restricts oneself to French, the new Exocet MM40 Block 3 replaces the current solid-propellant rocket motor with an air-breathing powerplant that more than doubles the missile's effective operational range to in excess of 180 km.

The Saab RBS15 Mk3 that the Navy had originally declared their first choice of SSM, but later called a "paper missile" when justifying their choice of French, is a late 90s (circa 1997) missile design with a range of 200 km.

The Navy also wanted a land-attack capability for its SSM, which the RBS15 Mk3 has, but the MM40 Block II has not - but the DoD had probably expended their combat suite "ceiling budget" of R1,900 billion by the time the bargaining with Thomson got hard.

But is it not interesting to note that the combat suite contract was signed for R2,599 billion, just R699 million more than the ceiling budget?

This must surely have made ADS's Schabir Shaikh, as well as other beneficiaries of this windfall, very pleased indeed.

Rear Admiral Reeders's statement regarding media reports that the systems onboard the Corvettes were inferior requires further analysis and clarification.

I feel qualified to do this because I was the system engineer responsible for system integration during the design phase of the corvette combat suite between 1995 and 1998.

Many (or most) of the media reports to which Reeders refers actually quote me.

So let's get the facts straight.

I have never stated that "systems onboard the Corvettes were inferior".

What I have stated is that in respect of the combat suite the centralised system architecture and the serial interconnection technologies and topologies between the systems is retrogressive and date back to the 1960 and 70s.

A senior programme manager of the leading naval combat systems company in the United States told me that this was more likely to be the 1950s.

Both the combat suite architecture and its interconnections directly contravene the SA Navy's baselined User Requirement Specification for the Combat Suite which was issued with the "tender".

The SA Navy and Armscor specifically instructed ADS prior to contracting that "a hardwired solution is not acceptable to the SAN".

But the result was exactly that - a centralised, vertically-integrated combat suite with multiple point-to-point, serial data links using copper wire (i.e. a hardwired solution) between ADS's Combat Management System and the rest of the systems.

There are even multiple similar links directly between these other systems.

Some call this the "French Spaghetti" architecture - or is this "Freedom Spaghetti"?

So why did the Navy allow these things to happen?

It was because the DoD allowed ADS and its new French parent, Thomson-CSF (now Thales), to introduce their own Tavitac Combat Management System as a replacement for the South African-designed system which had already been largely developed and that this Tavitac system employed its own system architecture and proprietary interconnection system.

But why was the DoD so amenable to Thomson calling the shots on the combat suite, with technologies that Thomson themselves, as well as the German Frigate Consortium, acknowledged to be inferior?

Was it because ADS is 30% owned by a black empowerment group lead by the brother of the DoD's Chief of Acquisitions, Chippy Shaikh, or that another 20% is owned by a company that is led by the brother-in-law of the late Minister of Defence, Joe Modise?

Or was it that Minister "X" was bribed by the CEO of Thomson-CSF (Southern Africa), Alain Thetard, to a tune of R500 000 per year, until ADS starts paying dividends?

By the way, the Scorpions have issued a warrant of arrest for Thetard, but he has fled his previous safe haven of Mauritius for an even safer haven in Paris.

The navy acknowledge that "some delays have occurred hampering the delivery of the ships, particularly when cabling used for the electrical components of the ships was found to be of an inferior quality and had to be refitted".

Apart from the problems with the combat suite and propulsion systems, what is not indicated is that this problematic cable was assembled (not manufactured) by a small company in Pinetown, kwaZulu-Natal under licence of a subsidiary of Alcatel, a major shareholder in Thales.

This project falls under the countertrade component of the "Arms Deal", whereby offset credits are granted for the full value of the product, whatever the actual local content or investment.

The SA Navy's corvette project engineer, with the rank of naval captain, as well as a senior manager of Armscor, inspected the cable company's local operation and reviewed their production processes, declaring in a formal report that the latter was unrepeatable and of high risk.

But they went ahead regardless - but at least they did a proper risk assessment.

Let the truths (or at least some of them) be told.

Richard Young PrEng, PhD
Managing Director

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