The Collins Class Submarine Story

In early 1987 conservative politics in Australia was splintered by maverick Queensland Premier, Joh Bjelke Petersen, and his bizarre attempt to enter federal politics. With the opposition in disarray and a federal election due by the end of the year, there was obvious temptation for the Labor Party to go to the polls sooner rather than later. The project team was under great pressure to meet Kim Beazley's wish and have a contract signed before the election.

The assessment of the four bids involved over 300 people in more than 40 specialist teams, with literally tonnes of documents to be assessed. The documents supplied with the Signaal bid alone made a pile seven metres high.

By early January 1987 the individual working groups had concluded their evaluations of the submarine design and these were consolidated in the report of the submarine evaluation team. Harry Dalrymple, one of the principal signatories of the report, found the assessment a challenge. His team had developed expertise in submarine design principles while supporting and improving the Oberons, but had no experience of original design. BHP Engineering was contracted to provide general guidance through to the contracting stage and, somewhat ironically, the British Admiralty Research Establishment and the Netherlands Ship Model Basin were both approached to provide modelling research to assess the propulsion performance of the designs.