Dutch SSK Selection Benefits Australia: Homage to US

From 10 comments of August 29, 30 and 31, 2023 below my article "4 New SSKs Better Than 5 Collins LOTEs: No Virginias?" I assume:

1.  Germany is not winning the Walrus Replacement selection and hasn't even decided whether it is offering a Type 212CD E (as "its low magnetic steel hull can only be welded in Germany") or an enlarged Type 214 offered as a Type 216? (which could be assembled hence welded in the Netherlands).

2.  Swedish Saab's offer of an Expeditionary Submarine C718 has probably been selected - to enter service from 2034.

3.  France has been largely quiet on the Walrus Replacement. But I assume Saab's C718 design will use many French components including large Jeumont PM motors and E drives, Sonar suites from Thales, optronic masts from Safran, Navigation systems from ECA and probably Lithium-ion LFP batteries from Saft/Total..to name a few.

The winning C718 may provide a design and pricing benchmark for Australia from the late 2020s to locally build 4 to 6 C718s. This benchmark would serve to minimise Australia's customary shipbuilding inefficiency dividend. Inefficiency that underwrites Australia's "20,000 well paid union jobs", poor work practices and rich sinecures for retired Labor and Liberal politicians, admirals and other officials. 

Homage?

This may follow a Trump 2.0 (or geriatric Biden 2.0) Administration's 2026 decision to cancel the Virginia offer. Meanwhile the US will retain Albanese's extraordinary "coals to Newcastle" $3 Billion feudal payment of homage to Biden and the already highly profitable American arms industry.

4 New SSKs Better Than 5 Collins LOTEs: No Virginias?

In response to TDUA's well argued comments of August 29, 2023.

I agree. Given the work practices of Osborne Shipyard the Life Of Type Extension (LOTE) with expensive upgrades, may cost more than A$2 Billion and 3 years for each of 5 Collins. HMAS Collins herself may be cannibalised for spare parts as many parts have been out of production for more than 15 years. 

The A$10 Billion (or more) LOTE submarine budget will also be occurring over the period of A$150 to 200 Billion being spent on the Virginia purchase, infrastructure upgrades (eg. an East Coast Base) and training of 1,000s of nuclear technicians/scientists/submariners/shipbuilders/officials in the late 2020s and 2030s. This is for up to 3 Virginias in the 2030s and maybe 2 in the 2040s. The LOTE + Virginias will form a huge distortion of Australia's defence budget, with likely reductions in non-submarine weapon systems across the Australian Defence Force. 

Also, I see the hull life (immersed contraction and expansion cycles) of each Collins as a finite limitation that might only give each Collins 8-9 years of life after their LOTEs.

Instead 4 new SSKs would be a hedge against any understandable US decision not to deliver any Virginias. This decision will likely be USN and Congress driven over concerns about improved and more numerous Chinese SSNs and SSBNs threatening the American homeland.

The efficient Netherlands has similar long range, large SSK, submarine requirements as Australia.

Better for Australia (than the LOTE) would be leveraging information (including pricing) from the Netherlands thorough Walrus Submarine Replacement Program to select 4 TKMS, Naval Group or Saab designed SSKs. This Dutch selection program that began in 2014 would makeup 10 years of lost time in Australia. Australia could demand the same pricing for 4 Osborne built SSKs as Dutch built Walrus replacements. This would work as a ceiling on excessive pricing by foreign contractors, shipbuilding unions and Australia wide suppliers generally, that gouged the Collins build and the terminated Attack-class build.

Even if those 4 SSKs (each good for 33 years) were built at Osborne this would be a better solution than 5 LOTED Collins (only good for 9 extra years). 

Australia has always had very few available Commanders and crew to man our subs. This scarcity is unlikely to change. Hence the diminished number of 4 SSKs (each with 52 crew) makes more sense than an unviable 12 SSKs (envisaged for the Attack class) or 3 to 5 Virginias (each with 135 crew).  

In any sub-choice scenario 10 Anduril GHOST SHARK XLUUVs could also complement an Australian submarine force for the ongoing intelligence gathering tasking and even, in a run-up to war, smart-mine laying.

So, while so many in the ALP leadership and RAN are true AUKUS believers, they need to hedge in favour of new SSKs against the substantial chance the US won't deliver the vaunted Virginias. 

Australia Cross-Subsidising HIMARS to Ukraine

As I wrote in the "Comments" section of Kym Bergmann's fine APDR article of August 22, 2023, I would say Australia and other potential M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) customers are being asked by the US to pay hugely inflated prices to CROSS-SUBSIDISE THE HIMARS THE US IS GIFTING TO UKRAINE.

In support of this Ukraine has about 50 HIMARS systems [1] that would have fired about 15,000 HIMARS rockets since February 2022 [2].

The US would be frustrated Australia has "only" been sending Bushmasters to Ukraine and sending Australian trainers to the UK to train Ukrainian Army recruits.

In view of that raising the price of US weapons amounts to a useful UNDECLARED WAY that Australia can fund US arms being given for free to Ukraine. 

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html#:~:text=Ukraine%20has%20received%2018%20American,according%20to%20the%20State%20Department

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M142_HIMARS#Ukraine "As of February 2023, CNN reported that Ukraine had expended approximately 9,500 HIMARS rockets" + an estimated 5,500 additional rockets for the additional 6 months to late August 2023.

More on INS Drakon: Photos, Cutaway, etc.

Oleg7700 has been very helpful shedding light on INS Drakon a (likely) VLS test bed. Drakon will likely simultaneously serve Israel’s Nuclear Triad with its nuclear tipped Popeye Turbo missiles. I think the Popeyes will continue to be launched from Drakon’s 4 x 650mm horizontal torpedo tubes.

On August 23, 2023 Oleg7700 provided a comment. In a P.S. to Oleg7700’s August 23, 2023 comment Oleg brought to my attention that on "08/23/2023" one Ami Rokhax Dumba at IsraelDefense (in Hebrew when translate into English) draws heavily on my article including my guesswork that  “The purpose of [Drakon's] fin/sail may only be for streamlining/quiet, or to accommodate more masts/sensors or perhaps to house between 2 and 4 vertically launched missiles..."
 

H I Sutton, via NAVALNEWS has (above) provided an excellent cutaway diagram of the possible insides of Drakon. When clicking on the cutaway on the actual NAVALNEWS website the image can be massively expanded.

Rather than my estimate of 2 to 4 vertically launched missiles H I Sutton estimates 2 to 8. Possible! TKMS please advise the true number :)

Possibly INS Dakar has an enlarged AIP and battery capacity to permit it to sit longer on the seafloor, secret and silent, in the eastern Mediterranean, off Israel’s Haifa Submarine Base. This is for Drakon to be ready to rise closer to the surface to torpedo tube launch its Popeye Turbo missiles (within range of future nuclear armed Iran and Saudi Arabia) and vertically launch missiles with sufficient range to hit Pakistan (already keeper of the "Islamic Bomb”). Pakistan reputedly has a nuclear warhead sharing arrangement with its nuclear program creditor, Saudi Arabia.

On reader comments here.

SSKs and SSBs have grown in size to boost their capabilities eg. longer medium range-at-speed, longer seafloor sitting time, greater crew comfort/endurance and particulary more heavyweight torpedoes and missiles. 

I think it is generally misleading to write size is ultimately an attempt to imitate nuclear submarines. SSNs unlike SSKs, serve their highest requirement, which is surveillance/shadowing opposing SSBNs and SSNs in peacettime and then  destroying these opposing SSBNs and SSNs immediately before a nuclear war. 

There is no "sudden spike" to >3000 tons. Australia's Collins-class SSKs have weighed 3,100 tonnes (surfaced) since 1993. Japan’s 12 Soryu SSKs have  weighed 4,200 tonnes (submerged) since 2007.

Might this photo of INS Drakon above, at TKMS Kiel, imply Drakon is so “fat” that it might contain 3 continuously inhabited decks rather than the usual 2 in Type 214s? Is the differing angle, at Kiel, of Drakon, in the photo below, sufficient to explain the difference in "fatness"? Or has one or both been "touched up" or distorted due to Israeli security concerns? 

Major US CRS Report: No Virginias for Australia?

Andrew Tillett, for the Australian Financial Review (AFR) has written an excellent article AUKUS subs deal ‘could worsen US shortfall, blunt China deterrence of August 21, 2023. The AFR article is marked “Exclusive” see "Comments" below this SubMatts article. 

The AFR article is heavily based on Congressional Research Service report Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress of August 15, 2023, numbered RL32418, which raises such major issues as: 

Page 49 “…A November 17, 2022, press report stated (emphasis added) The U.S. Navy has nearly twice as many submarines sidelined for maintenance than it should, and those boats in maintenance ultimately require three times more unplanned work than they should, the program executive officer for attacks subs has said. [Page 50] Of the 50 attack subs, Rucker said 18 are in maintenance or waiting for their turn. Industry best practice would call for just 20% to be tied up in repairs, or 10 boats instead of 18.”

Page 50 “…This drive to zero delay days comes in the context of an undersized attack submarine force that’s kept busy. Navy and Pentagon leadership repeatedly call the submarine force among America’s top advantages over adversaries like China and Russia; yet the U.S. has 50 attack submarines and four related “large payload submarines,” compared to a requirement for a combined 66 to 72 attack [SSNs] and large payload subs [were called "SSGNs"].

Page 17  Selling three Virginia-class boats to Australia by FY2035, and not replacing them through the construction of additional Virginia-class boats by FY2035, would reduce the projected number of SSNs in FY2035 to 47 boats, which would increase the percentage in the number of [Page 18] to about 29%.”

Page 18 continues “,,,A potential alternative to the proposed sale of Virginia-class SSNs to Australia would be a U.S.- Australian military division of labor under which U.S. SSNs would perform both U.S. and Australian SSN missions while Australia invested in military forces for performing other military missions for both Australia and the United States.”

Page 21 “…What would be the impact of a three- to five-boat reduction [for transfer to Australia] in the size of the U.S. SSN force on the ability of the U.S. SSN force to perform day-to-day and wartime SSN missions of interest to the United States, particularly in the context of the Navy’s 66-boat SSN force-level goal…?

Page 22 “…Regarding the net impact on deterrence and warfighting capability of transferring three to five Virginia-class SSNs to Australia rather than keeping them in U.S. Navy service, supporters of transferring them might argue that the deterrent value of introducing SSNs to Australia’s navy would be greater than the deterrent value of keeping those SSNs in U.S. Navy service because a newly created force of Australian SSNs would present China with a second allied decisionmaking center (along with the United States) for SSN operations in the Indo-Pacific, which would enhance deterrence of potential Chinese aggression by complicating Chinese military planning…. 

Page 22 continues "...Skeptics of transferring Virginia-class SSNs from the United States to Australia might argue that it could weaken deterrence of potential Chinese aggression if China were to find reason to believe, correctly or not, that Australia might use the transferred Virginia-class boats less effectively than the U.S. Navy would use them if the boats were retained in U.S. Navy service, or that Australia might not involve its military, including its Virginia-class boats, in U.S.-China crises or conflicts that Australia viewed as not engaging important Australian interests…” [See my August 18, 2023 article on this].

Page 23 “…Skeptics could argue that notwithstanding Australia’s capability for, and commitment to, protecting U.S. submarine and U.S. naval nuclear propulsion technology, sharing this [Page 24] technology with another country would increase the number of potential entry points that China, Russia, or some other country could attempt to penetrate to gain access to that technology."

Pete Comment: I support the skeptics' arguments. How about you?

Australia's AUKUS SSNs Best for NUCLEAR WAR FIGHTING

The Australian Labor Party's (ALP) National Conference today is discussing the issue of Labor maintaining the preceding Morrison Government's AUKUS nuclear powered submarine proposal.

What distinguishes the conventional diesel-electric submarine force that Australia has now from the proposed Virginia and SSN-AUKUS nuclear powered submarines is speed, virtually unlimited range and ability to operate in Chinese and Russian waters. 

Australia's future nuclear powered attack submarines (SSNs) be they Virginias (from the 2030s) and later SSN-AUKUS (from the late 2040s) do not need to be nuclear armed to engage in their principle functions which are engaging in nuclear warfare and to support the US in its long range conflicts.

The highest functions of US and UK SSNs and later Australian SSNs (even if not nuclear armed) are/will be to:

1. destroy Chinese and Russian nuclear missile carrying submarines (SSBNs) which can cruise at around 15 knots fully submerged, and 

2. to protect US and UK SSBNs.

Only if Australian SSNs are fast and long range enough will they be able to achieve functions 1. and 2., and

3. to destroy even faster Chinese and Russian SSNs.

Australia carrying out the highest functions of its SSNs (nuclear war fighting) will invite a nuclear weapon response from China and Russia that only the US can protect us from.

Australia's greatly increased AUKUS submarine "premium" on the US nuclear deterrent "insurance policy" also involves US insistence that Australian SSNs will back up US forces in any US long range conflicts such as Taiwan, wider wars with China or Russia, or in the Middle East. 

The US has noticed that Australia's conventional submarines, including the Collins have been too slow (cruising at around 4 knots fully submerged) and short ranged to get involved in US wars in the Middle East or other largely offensive wars. Australia's conventional submarines have been and still are useful for around 90% of Australia's mainly short-medium range defensive functions.

Australia, after buying US made Virginias and mainly UK made SSN-AUKUSs for what is more likely A$500 Billion (all up purchase and use), will at last be able to join Australian soldiers, airmen and surface ship sailors in fighting US led long range wars.

Australian unions should be aware that the vast bulk of Australia's purchase price for  the Virginias is already going to US industry, with many $Billions to follow. 

More than 50% of the purchase price of UK designed SSN-AUKUSs is likely to go to UK industry. This is mainly for the rear reactor half of the submarines, which for safety and UK labour expertise, will be completely built in the UK and perhaps shipped to Australia. The front half of the SSN-AUKUSs will only be assembled in Australia, mainly using UK and US made parts, then perhaps shipped to the UK for joining up with the reactor half.

Marles, being only a part-time defence minister, is not across these issues.