As is evident I rewrote the title and most of the content of this post because I don't want to overly prejudge the prospects of any future AUKUS Submarine Program succeeding (or not).
Xavier Vavasseur for Naval News, on October 21, 2021, has written an interesting article entitled “World’s Newest Class of Nuclear Attack Submarine: Rare Access Inside Suffren”.
That article is mainly about France's new Barrucada Suffren-class SSN.
The article gives an idea of the magnitude of crewing and providing simulators for a nuclear propelled attack submarine (SSN) capability. Such a magnitude, though not precise numbers, would apply to any future AUKUS submarine (aka Aus SSN) program.
4 comments:
Hi Pete
Interesting article ( thanks of course to M.N and Naval Communication teams I guess)
One tends to spend a lot of time discussing propulsion or weapons for subs while there are very critical areas for combat relevance:this article points to these areas
-System integration , supervision, and IT in the broad sense: the combat and navigation system. For the most complex physical structure probably ever built ( ultimately millions of lines of codes written by rare specialists) w/o the hard part of sensors (sonars , INS , radar , optronic mast..)and various weapons.Need maintenance as well due to obsolescence
-People recruiting , training , retaining. For 10 nuclear subs M.N.has a 3500 sailors strength (1500 embarked with 2 alternate crews per boat like in surface) and train 600 people every year in special courses and simulators. A majority of petty officers and officers.This is not trivial (the pool of young technical graduates, volunteer w/o high pay incentive, able to serve physically and psychologically in the Military and in sub for 5 years at least is not large even in 66 M pop. France
BTW one of the firs foreign Naval base to be visited by the Suffren ," for acquaintance " ,is Souda (Crete ,Hellenic /Nato navies ) off the Turkish coast...not very subtile msg
Thanks Anonymous
For those observations.
Regards
Pete
Hi Pete,
you may want to explore this topic. Regular midget coastal subs, AUV/UUV, XLUUVs are a place where the chinese have opened up a gap on the US if my understanding is correct.
Specialised midget subs or regular coastal subs ala Type 206 seem to be gaining quiet strength in South Asia too...
Amongst a few things, India has inducted 2 DSRVs, with 2 more 150 ton midget subs possibly under construction by HSL for supporting ops involving MARCOS commandos.
http://www.hisutton.com/Indian-Navy-Coastal-Submarine.html
the pakistanis as usual at the forefront of anything having mendacious intentions
https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/pakistans-new-midget-submarine-emerging-challenge-to-india-in-the-arabian-sea/
the MG110 midget of the PN seems to be aimed at supporting SSG-N or indian equivalent of MARCOS at sea...
Hi Ghalib
See my article of October 29, 2021, which will be ready in a sec.
Pete
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