Kym Bergmann, editor of the Asia Pacific Defence Reporter (APDR) has written a very interesting article NUCLEAR POWERED SUBMARINES AND THE
PROBLEM OF NON-PROLIFERATION dated April 26, 2022. An excerpt is here .
After going in, just below the 4 paragraph
of the article, you'll see: “This is an excerpt from APDR. To read the full
story, click here”
Within the article try clicking. If you are not an APDR
subscriber it may prompt you to become one, to read the full article.
Anyway the excerpt makes the point:
“To move the submarine decision along,
the government has announced that the process has been simplified and that
Australia will acquire either a Virginia class from the US or an Astute class
from the UK. There will be no Australian-specific submarine. There won’t even
be a hybrid class, seeking to combine the best features of the two designs – it
will simply be one or the other.”
In the full article you can read good comments about the importance of hulls still being in production and whether reactors that match those hulls are also still in production. Non-availability of reactors may be a project stopper. Production availability may favour a US or UK pick.
More in the full article.
If the case is that these will be US/UK constructed & production numbers are limited to what existing production capacity can manufacture...
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't be surprising to see both Astute & Virginia classes of SSN under permanent Lease to the RAN.