Tag Archive for: Submarines

Implementing Australia’s nuclear submarine program

Executive summary

On 16 September 2021, the Australian Government announced that it would acquire a nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) capability with support from the UK and the US as the first measure of business under the AUKUS technology sharing partnership. At the same time, it announced that it had established the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce, which would devote 18 months to determining the ‘optimal pathway’ to establishing this new capability.

The taskforce has its work cut out for it, and the signing of an initial nuclear information sharing agreement only two months after AUKUS was announced suggests things are moving fast. Nevertheless this new enterprise will be a massive undertaking and probably the largest and most complex endeavour Australia has embarked upon. The challenges, costs and risks will be enormous. It’s likely to be at least two decades and tens of billions of dollars in sunk costs before Australia has a useful nuclear-powered military capability.

Many commentators have suggested that the work of the taskforce is primarily about making a recommendation on the choice of submarine—either the US Virginia class or the UK Astute class. That’s misleading on two counts. First, the most important decision isn’t so much about the submarine, but about the strategic partner most able to work with us on our new SSN capability. Second, Australia will need to make many choices—about the strategic partner, about the submarine design, about the build strategy, about schedule, and more. Those choices will involve hard prioritisation decisions about what’s most important. Is it capability, schedule, Australian industry content, or something else?

This report examines the decision space available to the government.

The most important decision is the choice of our primary strategic partner. While both the US and the UK will need to provide us with assistance regardless of which submarine design we choose, there’s no point picking a boat if its parent nation doesn’t have the capacity to assist us with all of the fundamental inputs to capability needed to deliver military effects, or its industrial base doesn’t have the capacity to deliver. While we shouldn’t pre-empt the work of the taskforce, initial analysis suggests that the US has more capacity to assist us.

Even once we choose a partner, we still have some difficult choices about the submarine design. Do we prioritise schedule and build our partner’s current design, with the result that we’re left with an orphaned and outdated fleet? Do we wait to get into step with our partner’s next class, exacerbating the risk of a capability gap? Or do we start with the current design and transition later to the partner’s future design, with the result that we have multiple classes of boat in our small fleet?

Another area of choice is the amount of modification we do to the design. While some modifications will be necessary due to Australia’s regulatory and safety regimes—unless we recognise our partner’s regulatory approaches as fit for purpose and accommodate ours to theirs—others will be discretionary. Every effort must be made to limit the changes, whether they’re motivated by capability or Australian industry content, as every change drives cost and schedule risk regardless of how well intentioned it is.

A fundamental choice is the build strategy. The government has stated that the SSNs will be built in Adelaide; however, it hasn’t committed to a continuous build. A continuous-build approach (one driven by a schedule designed to replace the first boat after around 30 years with no break in production) is appealing to Australian industry and current and future workers but would face many challenges—boats would be delivered on an inefficient three- or even four-year drumbeat, driving up cost and increasing the capability gap. Alternatively, an ‘economic’ approach that focused on the most efficient possible approach would deliver capability faster but require massive annual spending and produce the prospect of a ‘valley of death’ at the end of production. Either approach replicates a nuclear-submarine production capability in Australia as our own sovereign cottage-industry version of what the UK and the US already have.

Underpinning all of those choices is the issue of schedule. We’re facing the looming spectre of a submarine capability gap as the Collins-class fleet ages out. The government’s stated schedule, delivering at least the first boat by the late 2030s, is feasible, if optimistic, if we build all the boats in Australia. But that may be too late to avoid a capability gap.

An alternative that could accelerate delivery would be to open up the aperture of what ‘built in Adelaide’ should look like. One approach we consider is to build the initial boats overseas to accelerate delivery but also to train Australian workers on a mature production line to avoid a ‘cold start’ to local production.

But there are also options that approach this enterprise as the embodiment of our AUKUS and alliance partnerships rather than as a large, but traditional, construction project. This could involve a ‘JSF’ (Joint Strike Fighter) approach of feeding components into a joint submarine enterprise that Australia enters with our primary enterprise partner. Such a joint enterprise would span more than just construction and enable Australia to be a ‘first line’ sustainment hub for our AUKUS partners’ submarines as well as for our own. When we consider that just the maintenance of Australia’s SSNs will be likely to require more workforce than the Attack-class build and Collins-class full-cycle dockings combined, there are ways to deliver submarines faster, sustain sovereign capability, contribute to our partnerships and still create jobs that don’t involve assembling submarines here.

And this can’t be stated clearly or often enough: successful transition isn’t just about delivering boats but all of the elements of the capability. So, the choice of boat and build approaches aren’t just matters of capability or industry but must be informed by broader inputs to capability. Perhaps the most important of those is the challenge of how the Navy ramps up its uniformed workforce; solving that problem is just as crucial as delivering boats on time. Again, AUKUS has much to offer here.

Finally, we’ve provided an estimate of the cost of the enterprise. Such an exercise is inherently hazardous at this stage of the process, with so many assumptions still open and untested. The government has been open in stating that the SSN program will cost more than the Attack-class program, which would have cost around $56–57 billion in current-day constant dollars.

We agree: at an absolute minimum, an eight-boat SSN program will cost around $70 billion constant (or $116 billion in out-turned dollars, which account for inflation).

However, it’s highly likely that it will cost substantially more once the cost drivers are more clearly understood. Those include both the US and UK moving to bigger submarine designs, our choice of build strategy, and the broader support system and infrastructure needed to operate nuclear submarines. To channel Donald Rumsfeld, there are things we know we don’t know, and things we don’t know we don’t know; both will drive up the estimate.

Introduction

On 16 September 2021, the Australian Government announced that it would acquire a nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) capability with support from the UK and the US as the first measure under the AUKUS technology sharing partnership. This will be a massive undertaking and probably the largest and most complex endeavour Australia has embarked upon. The challenges, costs and risks will be enormous. It’s likely that it will be at least two decades before Australia has any useful SSN capability if we follow a traditional acquisition approach.

In order to chart this long, difficult journey, the government also announced the establishment of the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce to make recommendations on the optimal path. The signing of an initial nuclear information sharing agreement between the partners only two months after AUKUS was announced suggests that the taskforce is moving fast and all three partners are open to new approaches. Nevertheless, the taskforce has a mammoth task ahead of it.

This paper explores the issues that the taskforce will need to address in order to set Australia on the path to success. While the broader AUKUS announcement and the decision’s impact on Australia’s relationship with France are both significant issues, they’re beyond the scope of this paper, which is presented in the following parts.

Before embarking on such a long and expensive journey that presents a massive opportunity cost, it’s important to confirm whether it’s the right capability to pursue in the first place. Chapter 1 looks at the advantages of nuclear submarines over conventional submarines. Ultimately, they come down to the SSN’s essentially infinite supply of energy.

Chapter 2 examines the two core decisions for the government: its primary strategic partner, including the partner’s commercial team, and the submarine. Those choices are of course deeply interdependent, but it’s crucial to remember that the task is much broader than choosing a submarine; there’s no point picking a suitable submarine if we don’t have a partner who can help us design, build, operate and sustain the boats and develop all the other elements needed to produce an effective military capability.

Many factors are interrelated here. Some decisions will be determined by previous ones and, in turn, shape later ones. Overall, we attempt to sketch out the decision space available to the government and the trade-offs involved in choosing a particular solution.

In Chapter 3, we examine the construction strategy. The government has stated that it’s ‘committed to maximising Australian industry participation in this program’. What’s the best way to do that? And does that automatically mean signing up to a ‘continuous-build’ approach that drags out delivery and decreases efficiency? Or even a traditional ‘local-build’ approach? We look at four possible approaches.

In Chapter 4, we look beyond the submarine to consider the broad range of ‘fundamental inputs to capability’ needed to deliver an effective military capability. The taskforce will need to develop a solid understanding of those requirements, not just because the submarines will be ineffective without them, but because different requirements for different submarine designs (such as workforce, infrastructure and training) could be key discriminators in the selection of the boat itself. Those fundamental inputs will also be major cost drivers and need to be identified in order to fully understand the cost of this undertaking.

In Chapter 5, we briefly look at the schedule for the program. The government has already indicated that it’s likely to be the late 2030s at the earliest before we have any operationally useful SSN capability. Almost immediately, commentators proposed approaches that they believed would deliver capability sooner. The taskforce has also indicated that it’s looking at ways to bring the introduction of capability forward. In this chapter, we both examine what the schedule looks like if Australia does things ‘by the book’ as a more or less traditional Australian-based procurement and construction program and consider what options there might be to accelerate the schedule by doing things differently.

In Chapter 6, we look at the cost involved in acquiring an SSN capability. Since cost estimation is highly assumption dependent and many key assumptions are still open, it’s impossible to develop a reliable point estimate. Moreover, the full overhead of operating the capability in terms of training, safety and regulatory structures is yet to be defined. It’s possible, however, to make a broad (but admittedly incomplete) estimate of the cost based on some key variables, such as the size of the submarine and the build strategy. Therefore, we provide a cost band to cover the substantial uncertainties in the program. The government has already said that the SSN program will cost more than the cancelled Attack-class program would have; depending on the assumptions, it could cost substantially more.

Read the full report

We warmly invite you to download and read the full report, which can be found here.

Author discussion

Michael Shoebridge discussed the report with authors Andrew Nicholls and Dr Marcus Hellyer.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Michael Shoebridge, director of ASPI’s defence, strategy and national security program, for his insightful comments on drafts of this report.

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First published December 2021

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Thinking through submarine transition

Executive Summary

The transition from the Collins-class submarines to the future submarine fleet will be more complex than any previous capability transition that Defence has undergone. The submarine enterprise will be in constant transition, rather than completing a short, bounded transition process. Traditional distinctions between design and build, between upgrade and sustainment, and indeed between different classes of vessel won’t be as absolute, requiring Defence and its industry partners to think differently.

Overall, Australia’s submarine capability must be treated as a single enterprise, not two distinct fleets.

They’ll need to address challenging risks to prevent a decline in submarine capability and, ultimately, grow the submarine force and supporting enterprise. Overall, Australia’s submarine capability must be treated as a single enterprise, not two distinct fleets.

Even if the Australian Government tries to get out of the Collins business as soon as possible, it will still need to extend at least three Collins submarines and operate them to around 2042 to prevent a capability gap. However, that approach wouldn’t provide a greater number of submarines until around 2044. Extending all six Collins would provide more submarines from 2032 and also help to mitigate one of the key challenges in the transition: the development of a much larger number of submariners. Under this option, the last Collins would be in service until around 2048, and it would be 45 years old. Regardless of which option the government chooses, it’s likely that some Collins boats aren’t even halfway through their service lives, and some members of the last Collins-class crew haven’t yet been born.

…and some members of the last Collins-class crew haven’t yet been born.

There doesn’t appear to be any way to achieve a fleet of 12 submarines before roughly 2054 without breaking out of the two-year future submarine production drumbeat. Doing so would require even greater spending on submarine construction and disrupt the continuous build cycle that the government is committed to.

At least three, and probably more, Collins boats will need to undergo some life of type extensions and serve for at least another 20 years, so maintaining ASC’s ability to sustain and upgrade Collins is essential to a successful transition. If ASC can’t preserve its Collins sustainment workforce, there will be a capability gap. One way to preserve ASC’s viability is to decide now that it will also be the sustainment entity for the future submarine. This will allow it to balance the workforce between Collins and the future submarine as well as to provide its current workforce with career certainty and development as part of a planned transition from one fleet to the other. It will also help to ensure sovereign sustainment of Australia’s submarine capability.

However, to provide ASC with the understanding of the future submarine design necessary to sustain and upgrade the boat throughout its service life, it would be beneficial to bring ASC into the design and build of the future submarine. One potential commercial model for this could be similar to that adopted by the government for the future frigate project, in this case with Naval Group taking on ASC’s submarine arm as a subsidiary that may revert to full government control at some point. This model is, however, not yet proven. However ASC is brought into the build, it will require careful negotiation.

Bringing ASC into the design and build of the future submarine would also allow it to apply its considerable expertise in sustaining submarines under Australian conditions with Australian industry partners to the design of the future submarine. This approach would also allow greater coordination between the upgrade and extension of the Collins and the design of the future submarine. Collins could serve as a test-bed for potential future submarine systems—provided that did not reduce Collins’s capability or availability.

Moving Collins full-cycle dockings (and then conducting future submarine dockings in Western Australia) could also address sustainment workforce risks, but a decision to do so will need to balance the short-term disruption against longer term gain.

Growing the size of the submariner trade is another key challenge, as it will be much larger than it currently is—potentially over three times as large. Two measures can help to address this. One is to extend the life of all Collins boats, as the Navy will need more boats to train more submariners. Potentially, Collins could evolve into being a dedicated training fleet as more future submarines enter service, meaning that the government wouldn’t need to invest as heavily in maintaining the Collins’ regional capability edge.

But the most important measure to grow the uniformed workforce will be to establish an east coast submarine base to provide access to Australia’s largest population centres. Without this, it’s very difficult to see how the Navy could ever crew the future submarine fleet, rendering the massive investment in the vessels nugatory.

There are no clear, stand-out options for an east coast base, and all viable locations are currently occupied. Therefore, the earlier a decision on the location is made, the more time Defence, industry and those members of the community who are affected will have to prepare. We should also not assume that it will be the last future submarines delivered that go to the east; since the point of having an east coast base is to recruit and retain the workforce, it may be necessary to gain access to that workforce sooner rather than later, by basing either some Collins or early future submarines there.

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This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission.

Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities, and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.

More than submarines: New dimensions in the Australia–France strategic partnership

In this compendium examining the France–Australia relationship, we have brought together experts from each country to explore our shared histories and plot a course for where we might take the relationship in the future. Each section examines a different aspect of the relationship—historical, international security, defence and the South Pacific—from a French and an Australian perspective. The experts brought together in this volume cover a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience as officials, academics and practitioners.

What emerges is a rich and complex picture of two vibrant and activist countries, grappling with complex problems, but each determined to contribute to making the world safer and more just. At a time when the international order appears under threat, the willingness of our two countries to continue to commit to the global rule of law and strengthening the liberal order and respect for human rights is both heartening and vital.

It’s also clear, however, that maximising the benefits of the bilateral relationship requires a strategic plan and practical commitment to getting things done. This compendium is a contribution to enhancing the relationship so that it can truly be more than the sum of its parts and we can navigate confidently through the decades to come.

Tag Archive for: Submarines

Delivering AUKUS with Australia’s premier state

The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine partnership has now survived the bumpy inauguration of Donald Trump as US president. It has earned the endorsement of newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. It has also seemingly retained strong bipartisan congressional support. Now, the focus for Australia’s biggest and most ambitious defence capability project must turn back to delivery.

Delivering this project will require extensive industrial participation by Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales. For that to happen, the state government in Sydney needs to take measures to strongly promote it.

In Australia, the AUKUS submarine enterprise has been led by South Australia and Western Australia. The homeporting of Australia’s submarines in Western Australia and the construction of the new nuclear-powered AUKUS boats in South Australia give these states a highly visible role. The east coast states have been playing a back-seat role.

Yet, Prime Minster Anthony Albanese has billed AUKUS as a ‘nation-building’, rather than a two-state, effort. It will be a national endeavour on a scale rarely seen.

A new report by the United States Studies Centre and the McKell Institute finds that, without the economy, labour force and industrial heft of NSW, the AUKUS enterprise will stutter or fail. And without a more proactive stance, the jobs and investment associated with AUKUS could amount to a missed opportunity for NSW, Victoria and Queensland.

To date, public discussion of AUKUS has mainly contested the rationale behind the program. But we equally need a practical discussion of how AUKUS can be materially achieved and how the skills and jobs dividends can be unlocked.

One of the biggest lessons from US submarine construction has been the need to mobilise a national workforce to right-size the industrial base. As of 2023, US submarine prime contractor Electric Boat outsourced more than 1 million hours of work per year outside of its primary construction hall in Connecticut to different US states, the location of its local construction yards. Huntington Ingalls Industries, the other US submarine builder, was outsourcing 900,000 hours a year. The US Navy is looking to move to relying upon 5,000,000 total hours of outsourced work per year—or half of the hours needed to build one submarine.

The message is clear: relying solely on locally sourced labour, industrial capacity and supply chains for submarine construction is a recipe for failure.

In Australia, AUKUS’s success must depend on embracing the advanced manufacturing, industrial and workforce heartland of the east coast state with the largest economy.

The answer for scalable advanced manufacturing and workforce development in the AUKUS project should lie in New South Wales. The McKell Institute and the United States Studies Centre report revealed two key limitations on the opportunity at present.

First, it is clear that the NSW government has yet to pay enough attention to the AUKUS program and to prepare the state for the myriad of economic opportunities that the program promises.

This risks not only missed opportunities for NSW workers but also for the state government’s own policy ambitions.

The Labor state government of Premier Chris Minns made reviving domestic manufacturing a centrepiece of its 2023 election pitch. It wants to see more buses and trains and trams made in the state—a worthy goal, but a pricy one, and one that would be difficult to achieve at the scale required for a manufacturing revival.

Instead, the sector’s answer may be in the scale and timeframe of AUKUS.

Most importantly, NSW is uniquely placed to play a major role in AUKUS.

NSW is a powerhouse because of its scale, especially in manufacturing, training and education. It is home to 33 percent of the national labour force, compared with 6 percent and 11 percent for South Australia and Western Australia respectively. NSW has four times as many people employed in manufacturing as South Australia and three times as many as Western Australia. This is critical, because the AUKUS submarine enterprise will require an estimated 2000 suppliers, a huge swathe of national industrial capability.

But the AUKUS opportunity for NSW might be derailed by a second problem: NSW’s existing manufacturing sector is beginning to turn away from defence. Though the state is home to 40 percent of the nation’s defence and aerospace industry and more than 80 defence facilities, industry, unions, suppliers and universities all report a lack of engagement, focus and incentives from the state government in this area.

Rapid action is required from the NSW and federal governments to ensure all states, including NSW, are plugged in to the AUKUS opportunity.

First, the NSW government should mirror Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland by standing up a dedicated body, which could be called Defence NSW, to coordinate both policy and outreach related to AUKUS. Nestling this function within the state agency Investment NSW contrasts with the organisational focus in other key AUKUS and defence-industry states. It limits the capacity for promoting and facilitating AUKUS, as Investment NSW must also attend to so many other activities.

Second, the state government should establish portfolio responsibilities for Defence Industry inside NSW cabinet, with a mandate to engage with the federal government, advocate for NSW, coordinate with other state ministries and ensure that the state’s policy settings, incentives and industrial settings are appropriate to facilitate NSW workers and industry’s contribution to the project.

Together, Defence NSW and the NSW defence industry minister could deliver reform, provide for stakeholder advocacy at federal and international levels, establish NSW as the manufacturing heartland and as a key recruitment, skills and training hub for the AUKUS enterprise. To provide strategic direction to these functions, as a matter of urgency, a comprehensive industry plan for NSW in AUKUS must be prepared.

These measures would put NSW workers and companies on the front foot in taking advantage of the opportunities available to the state with AUKUS. Such an approach in Australia’s other east coast states would render AUKUS a truly national industrial project and see it poised to deliver Australia’s national security objectives.

Marine heatwaves: a rising challenge for naval warfare

We now know that rising sea temperatures will affect sonar performance, sometimes greatly affecting submarines’ ability to find ships and other submarines, and ships’ ability to find them. This leaves us wondering about the specific effects of another phenomenon: marine heatwaves, which can create large and sudden changes in temperatures.

Navies need to know how these events will affect them. It’s a high priority for research.

The effect of rising ocean temperatures on sound propagation and therefore sonar performance was revealed in a landmark study published in the Texas National Security Review in the spring of 2024. In colder waters, such as those in the North Atlantic near the Bay of Biscay, passive sonar ranges could shrink dramatically due to changes in thermal stratification and salinity. In one example for that location, detection range would fall from 60 kilometres to less than 20 kilometres. But in warmer, shallower waters in the Western Pacific, sonar effectiveness could rise, making North Korean submarines, for example, more detectable.

Marine heatwaves are defined as periods when sea temperatures exceed the seasonal 90th percentile for at least five consecutive days. Unlike gradual warming, heatwaves create sudden and intense thermal anomalies that disrupt the ocean’s thermal layers, presumably affecting acoustic wave propagation, perhaps strongly. Moreover, these events can extend to several hundred meters in depth, and their frequency has more than doubled since 1982. In fact, Australia will experience intense marine heatwaves in the years ahead, say Australian government researchers.

Thermal layers act as a natural barrier in the ocean. They reflect sound waves, somewhat protecting submarines below them from detection by sonars above. When the water warms, such as during marine heatwaves, these layers can shift unpredictably or weaken. Shallow submarines become easier to detect, for example.

Conceivably, an otherwise undetectable submarine would become detectable. From the point of view of the Royal Australian Navy, for example, it may be a Chinese submarine that can now be observed and tracked. Or it could be an Australian one that’s now tracked by a Chinese sonar—in another submarine, in a ship, or mounted on the sea floor.

Either way, navies had better find out what the effect will be.

Marine heatwaves are not just increasing in frequency; they are intensifying due to rising global temperatures and shifting climate patterns. For example, during the El Nino episode of 2015 and 2016, thermal anomalies in the western tropical Pacific reached depths of 150 metres, with deviations of up to 8.9 degrees C. These anomalies disrupted subsurface conditions for months, a phenomenon likely to recur with even greater intensity in the near future.

The Western Pacific, a location of global trade routes and intense submarine operations, is particularly susceptible.

Naval planners must account for marine heatwaves, just as they are beginning to do for gradual ocean warming. Such tools as Mercator Ocean International’s marine heatwave bulletins provide data on sea temperature anomalies. Navies use sophisticated oceanographic monitoring systems, but these are not specifically designed for predicting marine heatwaves.

Also, there is evidence that marine heatwaves at deep levels are underreported, raising doubts about the reliability of civilian prediction models.

Technological solutions are available to address some data-collection challenges. Autonomous underwater gliders equipped with thermometers and salinity sensors can provide near-instantaneous data on thermal anomalies, so their data can be used for planning before a ship or submarine enters a zone. Sensor networking and quantum sensing technologies offer promising avenues for monitoring effects of marine heatwaves on acoustic detection; operators can respond with sonar adjustment to mitigate effects.

Uncertainty over the sonar effects of marine heatwaves is amplifying strategic risks: operations plans may prove to be ineffective during marine heatwaves, or the other side’s operations may become suddenly and unexpectedly more effective.

The study of marine heatwaves will require a multidisciplinary approach, combining climate science, oceanography and military strategy. The result will be, first, an understanding of the events and their effects then, second, adaptation of technologies and tactics to cope with them.

Virginia, we have a problem

Australia’s plan to acquire Virginia-class submarines from the United State is looking increasingly improbable. The US building program is slipping too badly.

This heightens the need for Australia to begin looking at other options, including acquiring Suffren-class nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) from France.

The Covid-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted work at the two shipyards that build Virginias, General Dynamics Electric Boat at Groton, Connecticut, and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ yard at Newport News, Virginia. It badly hindered output at many companies in the supply chain, too. With too few workers, the industry has built up a backlog, and yards are filling with incomplete submarines.

Within six years, the US must decide whether to proceed with sale of the first of at least three and possibly five Virginias to Australia, a boat that will be transferred from the US Navy’s fleet.

Nine months before the transfer goes ahead, the president of the day must certify that it will not diminish USN undersea capability. This certification is unlikely if the industry has not by then cleared its backlog and achieved a production rate of 2.3 a year—the long-term building rate of two a year for the USN plus about one every three years to cover Australia’s requirement.

The chance of meeting that condition is vanishingly small.

The situation in the shipyards is stark. The industry laid down only one SSN in 2021. It delivered none from April 2020 to May 2022. The USN has requested funding for only one Virginia in fiscal year 2025, breaking the two-a-year drumbeat, ‘due to limits on Navy’s budget topline and the growing Virginia class production backlog’.

As of January 2025, five of 10 Block IV Virginias ordered are in the yards, as are five of 12 Block Vs for which acquisition has been announced. (Work has not begun on the other seven Block Vs.)

The building time from laying down until delivery has increased from between 3 and 3.5 years before the pandemic to more than 5 years. The tempo is still slowing: the next Virginia, USS Iowa, is due to be delivered on 5 April 2025, 5.8 years after it was laid down.

On the original, pre-pandemic schedule, all the Block IVs could probably have been delivered to the USN by now. This is a gap that cannot be recovered in a few years, despite all the expensive manpower training and retention programs in hand.

Exacerbating the problem for the yards, the Block V submarines are 30 percent larger, and more complex to build, making a return to shorter build times unlikely.  Speaking to their shareholders in October, the chief executives of Huntington Ingalls and General Dynamics blamed their slowing delivery tempo on supply chain and workforce issues.  HII says it is renegotiating contracts for 17 Block IV and Block V Virginias.

Furthermore, Electric Boat has diverted its most experienced workers to avoid further slippage in building the first two ballistic missile submarines of the Columbia class, the USN’s highest priority shipbuilding program, in which the Newport News yard also participates.

It gets worse. Many USN SSNs that have joined the US fleet over the past few decades are unavailable for service, awaiting maintenance. The pandemic similarly disrupted shipyards that maintain the SSNs of the Los Angeles and Virginia classes. In September 2022, 18 of the 50 SSNs in commission were awaiting maintenance. The Congressional Budget Office reports lack of spending on spare parts is also forcing cannibalisation and impacting the availability of Virginia class SSNs.

Australia’s SSN plan must worsen the US’s challenge in recovering from this situation, adding to the congestion in shipyards and further over loading supply chains already struggling to deliver SSNs to the USN.

A US decision not to sell SSNs to Australia is inevitable, and on current planning we will have no stopgap to cover withdrawal of our six diesel submarines of the Collins class, the oldest of which has already served for 28 years.

In the end, Australia’s unwise reliance on the US will have weakened the combined capability of the alliance. And Australia’s independent capacity for deterrence will be weakened, too.

As I wrote in December, it is time to look for another solution. One is ordering SSNs of the French Suffren class.  The design is in production, with three of six planned boats delivered.  It is optimised for anti-submarine warfare, with good anti-surface, land-strike, special-forces and mining capability. It is a smaller design, less capable than the Virginia, but should be cheaper and is a better fit for Australia’s requirements.

Importantly, it requires only half the crew of a Virginia, and we should be able to afford and crew the minimum viable force of 12 SSNs.

Let’s build on the good progress in training, industry and facility preparations for supporting US and British SSNs in Australia, all of which should continue, and find a way to add to the alliance’s overall submarine capability, not reduce it.

Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘Submarine agency chief: Australia’s SSNs will be bigger, better, faster’

Originally published on 28 May 2024.

The nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines to be built under the AUKUS agreement are on track to be the world’s most advanced fighting machines, says Australian Submarine Agency Director-General Jonathan Mead.

‘They’ll have greater firepower, a more powerful reactor, more capability and they’ll be able to do more bespoke operations, including intelligence gathering, surveillance, strike warfare, special forces missions and dispatching uncrewed vessels, than our current in-service submarines,’ Vice Admiral Mead says in an interview.

With a displacement of more than 10,000 tonnes, the SSN-AUKUS class will be larger than current US Virginia-class attack submarine of just over 7000 tonnes. Australia’s six conventionally powered Collins-class submarines are each about 3300 tonnes.

The SSN-AUKUS submarines to be built for Australia and Britain, with help from the United States, will be a ‘bigger, better, faster and bolder’ evolution of Britain’s Astute-class submarines, Mead says. The design will have the advantage of more US technology and greater commonality with US boats.

Australian steel will be used to build Australia’s SSN-AUKUS submarines, subject to a comprehensive qualification process expected to be completed in the first half of 2025.

The steel is also being qualified to both the British and US standards. Having Australian industry involved will deepen and bring resilience to the three nations’ supply chains, with greater mass, confidence and scale, Mead says.

In April, major US warship builder Newport News Shipbuilding lodged an initial purchase order for processed Australian steel from Bisalloy Steel’s Port Kembla plant for testing and training.

The government has committed to having eight nuclear submarines, Mead says, ‘and we’re on track’.

‘We’re planning on three Virginias and five SSN-AUKUS. That takes the program through to 2054.’

The SSN-AUKUS submarines built by Australia and Britain will be identical, incorporating technology from all three nations, including cutting-edge US technologies.

Those for the Royal Australian Navy will all be built at Osborne in South Australia. ‘Osborne will be the fourth nuclear-powered submarine shipyard among the three countries and one of the world’s most advanced technology hubs,’ Mead says.

The SSNs will all have an advanced version of the AN/BYG-1 combat system, used in the Collins class and in US submarines, and the Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo, an advanced version of which has been developed by the United States and Australia.

Mead says each Virginia has a crew of about 133 and the likely size of the SSN-AUKUS crew is being calculated as design work progresses.

The massive scale of the program and the nuclear element has understandably attracted strong attention, including criticism and questions about how skilled workforces will be found to build and crew the boats. Commentary has included suggestions that AUKUS is ‘dead in the water’.

Mead has no doubt that the project can be completed as planned. ‘Every day we ask ourselves the same question: ”Are we on track?” The answer is “yes.”’

For the program to succeed, it must be a national endeavour involving the Commonwealth, states and territories, industry, academia and the Australian people, Mead says. ‘To develop that social licence, we must provide confidence that we are going to deliver this capability safely and securely and not harm the environment.’

To build a nuclear mindset there must be an unwavering commitment to upholding the highest standards of safety, security, stewardship and safeguards, with all decisions underpinned by strong technical evidence. ‘It’s essential that everything we do is underpinned by strong technical and engineering evidence,’ he says. The reactor will be delivered as a sealed and welded unit that won’t be opened for the life of the submarine.

Mead acknowledges that recruiting is the big challenge.

He says comprehensive training of crews has begun, with Australian officers and enlisted sailors already passing nuclear training courses. ‘Australian officers have also topped courses in both the US and UK, showing that our people are up for the task that lies ahead.’

It’s intended that about 100 Australian officers and sailors will be in US training programs this year and they’ll go on to serve on US submarines as part of their crews. Other Australians will train in Britain and serve in Royal Navy boats.

Mead’s agency now has 597 staff, including engineers, project managers, lawyers, international relations specialists and policy makers. That is likely to rise to about 1000.

Given that Australia is the first non-nuclear nation acquiring nuclear-powered warships, the agency is working flat out to ensure rigorous regulations and safeguards are in place, along with the international agreements to back them.

Mead says Australia’s Optimal Pathway for acquisition of nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) was designed to ensure that Australia would meet the exhaustive requirements to own and operate such vessels as soon as possible.

According to the Optimal Pathway, the first stage will see the first of several US and British submarines operating from the base HMAS Stirling in Western Australia as Submarine Rotational Force–West (SRF-West) from 2027.

In 2032, Australia will receive the first of three Virginia-class submarines from the US. One of the Australian officers now in US submarines is likely to be its commanding officer after extensive service on a US boat. The first two of those boats will be Block 4 Virginias, each with about 10 years’ US service, and they’ll be delivered after two years of deep maintenance and with 23 years of operational life left in them, Mead says, adding that the third US boat will be a brand new Block 6 Virginia. The US Navy has not yet put the Block 6 design into production.

The plan is to have the first SSN-AUKUS completed in Australia by early 2040s. Australia has an option to ask for two more Virginias if the SSN-AUKUS effort is delayed.

Mead says that how long the Collins are kept operational will be a decision for the government of the day as the SSNs arrive. The current plan is to begin big overhauls, called life-of-type extensions, for the Collins class in 2026.

He acknowledges that having the Virginias, SSN-AUKUS and Collin classes all operational could bring supply chain and training issues, but he believes those challenges can be handled. Having combat systems and torpedoes that are common to all these submarines will help.

Australians are on the design and design review teams for SSN-AUKUS. ‘We are embedding more technical and engineering people into the British program.’

Large numbers of Australian workers will soon be embedded in the British submarine construction site run by BAE Systems at Barrow, UK. ‘Many will come from the Australian Submarine Corporation, where they’ve been working on Collins. They’ll deepen their expertise, very specifically on how to build a nuclear-powered submarine,’ Mead says.

BAE will bring the intellectual property to the partnership with ASC to develop Osborne into a shipyard for nuclear-powered submarines.

It’s often suggested in Australia that, because the US has fewer submarines than it believes it needs, it will refuse to hand any over to Australia if its own situation worsens.

Senior American officials have expressed strong alternative views on why the project’s success is very important to the US and why it is in their own interests to make it work.

The US publication Defense News quoted the commander of US submarine forces, Vice-Admiral Rob Gaucher, telling a conference in April that co-operation with Australia would help the US submarine fleet in important ways. These included increasing the number of allied boats working together on operations. Having Australian personnel gaining experience on US boats would help ease a recruiting shortfall in the US Navy that flowed from the Covid-19 epidemic, and having access to the Australian base at HMAS Stirling in WA would extend the US Navy’s reach and maintenance options.

Gaucher said that, because the Australian SSNs would operate in co-ordination with American boats, ‘we get more submarines far forward. We get a port that gives us access’ to the Indo-Pacific region.

He said that by the end of this year the US Navy would graduate about 50 Australians as nuclear-trained operators and another 50 submarine combat operators. They would train on US submarines for the rest of this decade, increasing the number of people qualified to stand watch on American boats.

‘We get the opportunity to leverage an ally who can help us with manning and operating. We get surge capacity because now I have another area [where] I can do maintenance,’ Gaucher said.

Dan Packer, a former navy captain who is now the US director of naval submarine forces for AUKUS, told Defense News that Australia had eight officers in the inaugural training cohort that began in 2023. Three of those eight will be moved into an accelerated training pipeline, and one will eventually be the first Australian Virginia-class commanding officer.

Packer said the US was helping Australia build its submarine force from about 800 personnel to 3000. This year the US would bring 17 Australian officers, 37 nuclear enlisted and 50 non-nuclear enlisted into its training program. ‘And we’re going to up that number every year.’

These personnel would be fully integrated into US attack submarine crews until Australia could stand up its own training pipeline.

At some point, he said, the US Navy would have 440 Australians on 25 attack submarines, with each fully integrated crew including two or three Australian officers, seven nuclear enlisted and nine non-nuclear enlisted sailors. ‘They will do everything that we do’.

Mead says Australian navy personnel have been aboard the US submarine tender USS Emory S. Land for several months learning to maintain and sustain nuclear-powered submarines, and a US Virginia-class boat will visit HMAS Stirling for maintenance this year. Parts will come from an evolving Australian supply chain.

That visit will not include reactor work, ‘but ultimately, we will undertake work on systems that support the sealed power unit, within the compartment that houses it on the submarine,’ Mead says.

He says providing the industrial base to build and sustain the submarines, and crewing them, will involve about 20,000 jobs. A lot of work is being done with universities, technical schools and industry to prepare this formidable workforce.

Mead has long been a student of international relations and says the decision to equip Australia with SSNs was based on recognition that the Indo-Pacific is becoming a more dangerous place and ‘nuclear submarines provide a very effective deterrent’.

He rejects the argument that technology will soon make the oceans too transparent for crewed submarines to operate safely. ‘Our allies and partners and other countries in the region do not see it that way, and neither do we. We’ve done our analysis, and we see that crewed, nuclear-powered submarines will be the leading war-fighting capability for the next 50 to 100 years.’

He’s at pains to stress that the submarines will always be under full Australian sovereign control.

‘They will always be under the Australian government’s direction, operated by the RAN, and under the command of an Australian naval officer.’

A pump jet for the future submarine? Not so fast (or slow)

A couple of months ago Andrew Davies offered some comments on the pump-jet propulsion system that’s proposed as a key feature of the Shortfin Barracuda. As he observed, there seems a clear case for propellers being more efficient at low speeds—which is very important for conventional submarines. Comments from Naval Group’s director of the future submarine program seemingly confirmed this.

Andrew raised two important questions that might help resolve the apparent contradiction between Defence’s confidence in the pump-jet solution and seemingly credible evidence that its low-speed inefficiency makes a pump jet an odd choice for a diesel-electric submarine.

The first was that the cross-over point—where a pump jet becomes more efficient than a propeller—was unknown. If the pump jet was actually more efficient at plausible higher transit speeds, on balance that may offer a benefit over the entire mission profile, even if the pump jet is marginally worse at very low patrol speeds. The second was the effect of the ‘hotel load’. Since the square law for drag means that the energy required for propulsion becomes extremely small at very low speeds, underwater endurance might be more affected by the power required to keep the lights, sonars and air conditioning running than by the power necessary to move forward.

Both of these arguments really require some better understanding of the likely efficiency curves in order to be answered with any confidence, as Andrew notes. But it’s quite possible that sufficient evidence does lie in the public domain to rule some possibilities in or out.

The first question requires the establishment of a plausible cross-over point. Here, all available evidence points firmly against the idea that the cross-over could lie anywhere near the plausible transit speeds of submarines (around 10 knots). For surface vessels, open propellers are adopted essentially universally by all ships that work at speeds up to around 30 knots, including relatively fast ferries. Only extremely fast vessels (35 knots plus) tend to have waterjets. Australian companies specialising in such very-fast vessels have spent considerable effort investigating the prospect of using jets in the 20–30 knot range and discovered that the efficiency penalty of jets in this range is substantial, up to a factor of two.

And at low speeds the penalty can be very high indeed. Other research shows that the propulsive performance of waterjets falls off towards zero as craft velocity decreases. Marine enthusiasts may observe that ‘waterjets’, which eject water on or above the surface, are not quite the same as the completely submerged pump jets often found on the aft end of submarines and torpedoes. But the more I dived into the literature on fully submerged pump jets, the less advocacy I found for efficiency in any speed range. In fact, it seemed that pump-jet efficiency had to be traded-off to eliminate cavitation at higher speeds.

The method by which this occurs is simple enough to warrant mentioning. The role of the duct in a pump jet is to slow the water down before it reaches the spinning rotor that adds energy to the flow. This slowing of the water stream also increases its pressure, and the elevated pressure helps reduce cavitation. Problems arise when you try to slow down water that’s not going very fast in the first place, which is what happens at low speeds. The result is predictable: some of the water stops, or actually starts moving in the other direction, spinning around in eddies and vortices in a phenomenon called ‘flow separation’. The slower you go, the more that occurs, and the worse the efficiency becomes. The more the duct acts to raise the pressure to eliminate cavitation, the more slowing occurs, and so the sooner flow separation begins, further worsening efficiency.

Consequently, it seems unlikely in the extreme that the acoustic advantage offered by pump jets at higher speed can be decoupled from an efficiency penalty at lower speeds. It also seems highly unlikely that pump jets are more efficient than propellers at submarine transit speeds of around 10 knots.

The second question requires some quantitative assumptions about the curve and hotel load, as well as a more generalised model to be built out of the algebra described in Andrew’s ‘geeky annex’.

A good reference for plausible curves is a 2008 BMT and Rolls-Royce study of a pump-jet concept for a very quiet anti-submarine warfare surface ship. While the precise jet design may not be identical, this jet was at least fully submerged, unlike most surface ship jets. The study replicates the same efficiency curve one would expect from theory, with efficiency rising to  its peak at around 30 knots, and declining towards zero at very low speeds.

With a hotel load of 100kW (consistent with Andrew’s assumption that it might equal propulsion power at patrol speeds), it appears that in general the impact of the low efficiency of a pump jet will still be very significant in most of the important speed ranges for a submarine, particularly around 3–7 knots. Altering a range of assumptions doesn’t generally change that conclusion, as can be seen in the full discussion here. Switching back to a propeller could realistically result in improvements in dived range and endurance of 60% or more at these lower speeds. This could amount to a couple of days dived endurance, or hundreds of miles additional dived range, and credibly five or ten times that difference if air-independent propulsion was included in the submarine.

Unless the French have achieved a quantum leap in pump-jet technologies in the past few years and none of the previous physics or experimental results apply, it seems that the choice of a pump jet is curious indeed. Exactly what kind of advantage would justify accepting such a penalty in terms of dived range, dived endurance, indiscretion ratio and overall range is quite hard to imagine when building a ‘regionally superior’ submarine. Defence has made crucial errors of judgement with grave long-term consequences in acquisition projects before. We would do well to make sure that the same doesn’t happen with the future submarine.

Market test the Future Submarine combat system (part 2)

The sea phase of AUSINDEX 2015 was concluded with participating Australian ships HMAS Sheean, HMAS Arunta and HMAS Sirius sailing in formation

In part 1, I looked at some industry and cost issues associated with an automatic transition of the AN/BYG-1 combat system from Collins to the Future Submarine. In this post, I’ll grapple with capability issues.

As one can imagine, analysis of combat system capability is difficult on account of classification sensitivities (which will be respected here). While Defence might state that their current C2 system ‘is highly capable’, the problem is that Defence can’t always be taken on its word with those sorts of statements.

Harsh? No! Despite critical external reviews of the original ‘TDHS’ C2 system on Collins in 1994 and 1995, Defence went on record in the 1996–97 budget statement, with respect to the TDHS, stating inter alia, that ‘Submarine 01 had completed contractors’ sea trials…to date the performance has met or exceeded the specific requirements’. We later discovered Defence was in denial; a 1998 ‘New Submarine Project’ ANAO review that followed disagreed with Defence, as did the 1999 ‘Macintosh Prescott’ review which ultimately saw the system which had ‘met or exceeded the specific requirements’ abandoned. More specifically to the current BYG, we’ve seen Defence defend the system in the face of criticism from the well-respected US Director of Operation Test and Evaluation (DOTE). Defence has a tradition of backing previous decisions ad infinitum; until Ministerial intervention (think, the Sea Sprite helicopters).

Moving past that, what do we know about the BYG in broad capability terms?

First, when it was selected to replace the TDHS, it wasn’t the most capable C2 system. In fact, it didn’t meet all of Defence’s requirements. It was selected on ‘strategic grounds’—not those of cost or capability. In a competition that preceeded the strategic selection, the German origin ISUS-90 was declared ‘the clearly superior’ system, with DSTO’s Dr Todd Mansell indicating the performance of the STN Atlas system ‘had a margin of about 30% over the Raytheon system’. Of course, the BYG has likely improved since then, but so too has the ISUS-90 (now ISUS-100) and indeed other systems such as the French SUBTIC system. Only baselining would allow Defence to accurately assess the 2015 situation.

Turning to the present, the US DOTE has consistently reported that the ‘BYG’ is:

‘Not effective in supporting operator situational awareness and contact management in areas of high-contact density’ and ‘did not meet the Navy’s requirements for target localization’ and ‘remains not effective in ASW scenarios’.

Noting these are core C2 capabilities such reporting gives cause for concern.

We also know that there are functional integration issues with the system on Collins; more so with respect to ‘levels of integration’. Integration provides advantage in combat systems by allowing a work flow (and complementary data flow) that runs from detection, through classification, localisation and engagement—and back through the system—which enhances the submarine command team’s understanding of the tactical situation.

‘Fully integrated’ systems offer the best capability in this regard. A ‘fully integrated’ analogy might be a car dashboard where the GPS, stereo and mobile phone are integrated seamlessly into the dashboard. Examples of ‘fully integrated’ systems include the S-CUBE sonar/SUBTICS C2 on French designed boats, the CSU-90 sonar/ISUS-90 C2 on German designed boats and indeed the ARCI sonar/BYG C2 on the US boats.

‘Federated’ systems, while having some technical and commercial advantages, generally suffer with respect to functional integration as compared to ‘fully integrated’ system. They are implemented with separate entities doing the C2, sonar, ESM, periscopes etc. A ‘federated’ analogy might be a car dashboard where the GPS, stereo and mobile are mounted into or onto the dashboard, but with a look not quite in tune with the rest of car internals. Examples of a ‘federated’ system include Singapore Type 218 Combat system which consists of a CSU-90 sonar with a Singapore Technologies C2 System, Spain’s S-80 combat system with US origin sonars and Navantia-Faba indigenous C2 System and Swedish submarine combat systems which have Atlas Elektronik sonar suites and SAAB C2 systems. It should be noted that in those examples the owner country has control of the central element of the system, the C2.

Australia plans an integration anathema with the central C2 element of its Federated System not under soverign control. This will bring operational management impediments and disjointed work flow, all packaged with an inconsistent look and feel, which together risks delays and/or confusion during operations, which may cost it dearly in battle. The Australian analogy is a car with the GPS stuck to the window, the stereo mounted under the passenger glove box and the mobile phone laying on the centre console, plugged into the cigarette lighter (when the GPS is not being used).

A second issue with the ‘BYG’ is that of power consumption. It’s well known the BYG, of nuclear submarine origin, has large power consumption needs that increase the submarine’s ‘hotel load’. In turn, this adversely effects the submarine’s all-important indiscretion ratio. Noting the impact this will have on the submarine’s operational stealth, it’s hard to appreciate how Navy can simply ignore this issue.

Ultimately, the Navy is comfortable with what it has and knows. The problem is that this happiness comes without due consideraton and examination of the alternatives. Earlier this year the Navy demonstrated a total lack of understanding as to what other C2 systems can do. In a grilling by Senator Xenophon, the Chief of Navy was left floundering and declaring himself ‘embarrassed professionally’ by answers to questions provided to the Senate on a C2-related question.

Selecting the AN/BYG-1 as the Future Submarine’s combat system is okay, provided it’s an infomed decision. Navy owes it to its future submariners, and the taxpayer, to baseline the system. The best way of doing so is by running a competition.

Are we having the right submarine debate?

GULF OF OMAN (Nov. 4, 2014) Aerographer’s Mate 2nd Class Robert Carlson (left) and 3rd Class Rachel Myers, assigned to Commander, Task Group 56.1, deploy a MK 18 MOD 2 Swordfish to survey the ocean floor during the International Mine Countermeasure Exercise (IMCMEX). After reading Peter Briggs’ excellent posts on why Australia should build its own submarines (here and here), it occurred to me that we may be missing a more important element of the discussion. Recently, I was involved in considering the nature and implications of disruptive or game-changing technologies in warfare. A common theme was the unpredictable interplay of various and sometimes unrelated technologies in creating a capability leap. Often, the technologies driving a leap had existed or been in development for a long time prior to their convergence.

The discourse here in Washington is that we’re on the verge of a tectonic shift in the way military operations are conducted, and that there are important lessons from history that we should heed. Failure to do so risks our platforms becoming prematurely redundant or having to make costly design changes throughout the process.

Major military platforms are getting more expensive and taking longer to develop than ever before. In his article, Peter assumes initial sea trials in 2025 and full replacement of Collins by 2028. To give some perspective on how the world might have changed by then, consider that the kids graduating from university at that point will likely have been born after the release of the first iPhone. Assuming a traditional life cycle of major platforms, the subs will then need to meet Australia’s operational needs until sometime around 2050. In other words, over 100 years after the end of World War II. Read more

Submarines: reader response

A Collins class submarine in dock at the Australian Submarine Corporation facility, Adelaide.Henry Ergas and Mark Thomson criticise, on a number of counts, the paper on Economic analysis of Australia’s future submarine program prepared by the South Australian Economic Development Board. Each count requires detailed rebuttal, but there’s space for only a brief response here.

Ergas and Thomson state that the paper assumes that the cost would be the same (AUD$20bn) whether built in Australia or overseas. In fact, that conclusion was the result of gaining frank opinions from submarine construction experts from several countries. All of those experts were in a position to assess the international commercial realities of the construction task. The model used a US$0.92 exchange rate but also included a ‘purchasing-power-parity’ exchange rate of US$0.73, which when used, yielded an even stronger case for building in Australia: a $26.7bn benefit compared with $21bn. Read more

The perils of submarine operations

An RAAF AP 3C Orion snaps an allied submarine during an Anti Submarine Warfare evolution during RIMPAC 2010 off Hawaii. submarines suffer from severe command and control limitations, including the requirement to be close to the surface to make radio contact.

ASPI’s ‘Submarine Choice’ conference has highlighted much more than the central dilemma confronting Australia: what sort of submarines do we need and how should we acquire them? Various speakers have spoken of the broader consequences of submarine proliferation in the Indo-Pacific. Greater numbers of submarines are simply a fact of life for the region’s future. But in acquiring submarines for the first time or building up their submarine fleets, regional countries may be underestimating the risks of submarine operations. More submarines in the region pose challenges for maritime confidence building and ensuring submarine safety.

Submarines are inherently dangerous systems. Even a relatively minor accident onboard can have catastrophic consequences. Then there are the navigational risks associated with having more submarines operating in relatively confined waters with a high level of fishing activity and dense shipping traffic. Most seriously, more submarines in the region are potentially destabilising, particularly as they may be employed on covert surveillance and intelligence gathering missions in disputed waters.

Those problems can be accentuated because submarines suffer from severe command and control limitations. A submarine may be out of radio contact for extended periods of time. Radio waves don’t penetrate sea water to any extent, and a submarine has to put itself, or an antenna, close to the surface to make radio contact. In many operational circumstances, that may not be possible. Read more

Reporting some good news

Chief of Navy complained at the conference today the press loves to write about ‘dud subs’ but isn’t as keen on good news. And there’s some good news to report today, in the form of the latest instalment of the Coles review into the availability of the Collins class boats.

This is the latest in a series of reports, which have been tracking the progress of work to turn what was a moribund fleet into the military capability it was originally designed to be. We’ve been tracking progress here on The Strategist as well, from the dark days of poor management and outcomes through the noticeably better but still qualified performance noted in the previous report.

And the dark days were dark indeed—the new report reveals that Australia’s submarine capability basically collapsed in the second half of 2009. There were no days on which three boats were even in principle available for operations, and two boats were available less than 10% of the time. That compares to Navy’s targets of:

two deployable submarines consistently available, with four submarines available to the Fleet Commander and of these four, three submarines consistently available for tasking with one in shorter term maintenance and two submarines in long term maintenance and upgrade.

Read more

Tag Archive for: Submarines

Iain MacGillivray was interviewed by War on the Rocks

On March 14th, ASPI DC Analyst, Iain MacGillivray was interviewed by War on the Rocks on their podcast episode, Australia’s Pathway to Acquire Nuclear Submarines. Iain highlighted the immense opportunity AUKUS Pillar 1 holds for Australia and the US in pursing shared strategic interests, but also drew attention to the challenges of revitalizing Australia’s industrial base and the questions around the US’ capacity to meet their own defense at the current manufacturing rate of SSN’s and availability of skilled workers to grow this capability.