Marcus Hellyer and Andrew Nicholls for the ASPI Strategist have
written an excellent June 22, 2022, article "Can
Australia get nuclear-powered submarines this decade?". It concurs
with point 2. of my June 9, 2022 article "SSNs: Can the UK or US Really Help Australia"
about the non-availability of US Virginia SSNs, for Australia, for a very long time.
Hellyer and Nicholls make a wide range of additional points, including:
"That’s before we get to the second challenge: the rapid ramp-up of the enabling systems. As we and others have written, there are many other elements to an SSN capability than the boats. Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, the head of the nuclear submarine task force, has emphasised that Australia will need to demonstrate that it can exercise ‘responsible stewardship’ of the nuclear technologies. This will require a larger uniformed workforce, which will require substantially different qualifications. A Collins-class submarine has one engineer-qualified officer; all 15 officers on a Virginia are nuclear-qualified. It will also require the maintenance infrastructure as well as the safety and regulatory ecosystems. That takes time.
Does that mean we have no hope of accelerating an SSN capability? We’ll look at what can be done in the next post."
So stay tuned to the ASPI Strategist on SSN matters.
6 comments:
I think we have hashed over these human capital requirements and lead times for the same many times over at SMI.
Frankly, a lot of what they say about Australia's ability to be responsible with n-tech is an 'infructuous exercise' in legal parlance.
The only issues are as follows (besides the trustworthiness of the US and UK as allies)
1. Can a mini-manhattan project style push be made to add extra Astute lines to build subs for the RAN aiming for 1-2 boats to join by 2035? with a steady 'one SSN per 12-18 months' line to give the RAN 8-12 SSN subs -> US 'commitment to stay the course' is the decider here.
2. Given a population of 25 million currently, will the RAN and Ozzie Govt be able to find enough SSN crew and manpower for the vast support ecosystem on land?
3. For 1 and 2, can Canberra manage to allot adequate funds ie maintain defence budget at 3-4% of GDP consistently without straining the federal budget?
In terms of difficulty building the subs with foreign help/shipyards is the least difficult part. The next difficult bit is the financial commitment that becomes a fixed cost.
But, the the toughest nut to crack is the time and effort and treasure needed to create a sufficient level of man power across the complex nuclear engineering, manufacture, operations and maintenance ecosystems. As things stand, I think Australia's population simply might not have the critical mass needed to provide so many managers, engineers and technicians focused on nuclear value chain.
With the current rules on crewing for SSNs, a fleet of 8 SSNs will need a bare bones 16 sets of crews and more likely between 16 and 24 sets of crews to provide enough buffer. Given the crewing difficulties with the Collins, this is an enigma to me. It is hard to imagine the many more hundreds or thousands that will be needed on land....
Hi Pete,
The main issue here is can Australia get the manpower required to to crew a single Virginia class SSN? A Virginia class SSN has a crew size of 135 whereas the Astute class SSN has a crew size of 98. Which I think the Australian's should go with Astutes over Virginia class SSN because the Australians don't have the manpower for a single Virginia class SSN.
As an engineer I can only agree with the need to train adequate numbers of people for both SSN operation and construction. It is definitely a doable task relative to overall Australian engineering numbers. However it requires policy action and consistency.
Australia trains around 10,000 graduate engineers per year, and before covid up to 10,000 a year extra might migrate to Australia. The entire UK SSN construction workforce is around 8000 (at Barrow), with another up to 12,000 additional people working in supplier firms. Of those, no more than 10% to 20% would be engineers, say 2000. That number is easily trainable over a ten year period (200 a year vs 10,000 graduates). In Adelaide alone manufacturing employs 60,000 people, with 300 engineering graduates per year.
The challenge is consistency of policy. If SSN construction is a “maybe” project who would commit to four years of study to enter it? OTOH if government commits to a 25 year program to build 8 to 10 Astutes or Virginias, with perhaps opportunities to travel to UK or US to work on the first two, that is far more attractive. This is why the commitment to continuous construction is key.
Same with crew recruitment and training. When Collins SSKs were hardly sailing in the 2000s it was hard to retain enough crew to keep two boats at sea. In the past decade, with greatly improved serviceability, the RAN now has over 600 qualified submariners. Australia will need over 2000 crew for SSNs, including 400+ Officers. That means training 30 extra a year, over ten years.
For crew training the obvious solution is to partner with the RN or USN as done in the past. The RN is reportedly short of experienced sub crew. IT may be mutually convenient for RAN crews to work on RN SSNs to gain experience. This was exactly what was done at the start of the Oberon program.
Hi Ghalib Kabir [at Jun 23, 2022, 3:44:00 PM]
You've caught in a grab bag of nutshells, what SMI has been on about since September 2021
and before that, in:
2016
https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2016/03/nuclear-propelled-australian-submarines.html
2015
https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2015/06/australia-buying-uk-astute-class-ssns.html
2015 again
https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2015/02/australian-nuclear-submarine-option.html
2012
https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2012/11/australias-future-submarine-virginia.html
and numerous articles in between.
In short the Taskforce guaranteed it would illuminate all issues by April 2023 https://www.defence.gov.au/about/taskforces/nuclear-powered-submarine-task-force/frequently-asked-questions
But I am not, my breath, holding.
Regards Pete
Hi Nicky and Anonymous [at Jun 24, 2022, 9:10:00 AM]
Yes Australia's ability to muster 1,000s of nuclear submarine specialists
be they submariners, designers, builders, managers, academics, training staff,
safety people monitoring SSNs in port and emergency radiation teams
all need to be trained overseas and in Oz before we can even launch the first Adelaide
built SSN in the late 2040s.
Would that conventional and nuclear propelled Orcas short circuit the above processes that
will cost A$500 billion (2045 dollars)
even if that risks Australia only having 6 overseas built SSNs (as is likely)
Like UCAVs threatening RAAF fighter pilot careers the whole idea of Orcas are beyond the
pale for the RAN and the Adelaide submarine building industry...
Regards Pete
Hi again Anonymous [at Jun 24, 2022, 9:10:00 AM]
Here's a short article* advocating nuclear training of 2 RAN officers per year in the US and then they'll serve aboard US nuclear subs (presumably SSNs). Its not 1,000s trained but its a start.
* "Training Aus Nuclear Submariners: US Legislation in House" on June 24, 2022 at https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2022/06/training-aus-nuclear-submariners-us.html
Regards Pete
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