Here is an excellent and disturbing article of January 30, 2024, by retired submarine specialist and a past president of the Submarine Institute of Australia Peter Briggs, published at ASPI’s The Strategist and titled “The sad state of Royal Navy submarine capability - and the implications for Australia”.
My compliments to Peter Briggs on his honesty. The submarine he thinks that we should be building sounds very similar to the French Barracuda SSN that we passed up on.
ReplyDelete"The designers should be tasked with achieving a simpler submarine, easier and quicker to build, simpler to operate and cheaper to own, including a smaller crew. Compared to the latest Block V Virginia, AUKUS (V) should be smaller and focused on sea denial, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare with the agility to operate in the littorals."
It isn't just sailors and the Royal Navy. UK shipbuilding generally is in a parlous state. Virtually nothing larger than a trawler is built for commercial customers, only warships. This means withering supply chains. Even high strength steelsuitable for sub hulls is no longer made in UK. BAE imports it from France.
Hey Pete hope you're well. Didn't this piece echo my sentiment sometime last month regarding why RAN needs SSN when SSK would suffice with a smaller crew.
ReplyDeleteShould have stuck to getting Soryus or the new A26 instead of this mess. Ta
Hi Good Putin at 2/01/2024 3:50 AM
ReplyDeleteIt would also be risky for Australia to invest in the never used operationally A26. In any case Australia would need a very large variant (for long range/high endurance/high speed) of the Swedish designed A26. We could call that "Collins II"
or perhaps more viably Australia should conduct the promised Life of Type Extension (LOTE) of our existing Collins to bring them up to II status. The Collins particularly need upgraded sensors and new diesels (eg. MTU 4000s).
Already large and operational Japanese Taigeis (successors of the Soryus) might also make sense.
Regards Pete
Hi Anonymous at 1/30/2024 6:25 PM
ReplyDeleteLets examine were Peter Briggs writes:
"The designers should be tasked with achieving a simpler submarine, easier and quicker to build, simpler to operate and cheaper to own, including a smaller crew. Compared to the latest Block V Virginia, AUKUS (V) should be smaller and focused on sea denial, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare with the agility to operate in the littorals."
My comments:
Australia has exhibited no interest in acquiring the extra large Virginia Block V SSGN which promises a large number of vertically launched missiles.
Peter Briggs is possibly implying something like the Virginia Block II, which only deploys 12 x Tomahawks and possibly with a smaller crew, say of 100, rather than the 135 in the USN. US SSN crews are larger than UK crews - for USN damage control, constant on-boat learning, and submariner exhaustion minimisation.
"a simpler submarine, easier and quicker to build, simpler to operate and cheaper to own, including a smaller crew." implies another custom Osborne built, newly designed (at great expense) Australia only orphan submarine. Presumably this would require very reluctant US SSN builders working with non-existent Australian submarine builders.
Australia has no experience building nuclear anything. Even Australia's Lucas Heights OPAL reactor was designed in Argentina.
The French had appeared to rule out Barracuda SSNs for Australia because the SSN proliferation regime at the time (mainly influenced by the US) didn't allow reactor proliferation. Also France did not want to alienate its more important trade partner, China. China correctly sees AUKUS as an anti-China pact.
Regards Pete