Colby Review on Virginias to Australia: Clear Findings Unlikely Because...

The Colby Review https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2025/06/us-aukus-reviews-message-increase.html into not supplying Virginia SSNs to Australia, under AUKUS, is unlikely to generate clear findings because: 

-    a "no Virginias for Australia" result would encourage Australia to cease providing the A$800 million being paid every few months to the US Virginia and (and secretly the higher priority Columbia submarine) industrial base https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/23/australia-payment-us-aukus-trump-administration-review

and 

-   it is up to the "President of the Day" probably in 2031 (not a 2025 US Defense Department Review) to decide the US Navy needs all the Virginias the US has built or will build. Under US AUKUS legislation, the President of the day has to certify to Congress that any transfer of Virginia-class submarines to Australia would not degrade America's undersea capabilities. Otherwise, the transfer will not take place. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-16/aukus-risks-trump-review-defence-four-corners/105412740

Maiden launch of Australia's Gilmour Eris-1 Rocket a Partial Success

On July 30, 2025 Gilmour Space conducted the maiden test launch of its 23m tall, 30 tonne, Eris-1 rocket with 23 seconds of engine burn time and 14 seconds of flight. See video here and above.

It appears one of four of rocket motors propelling the first stage failed to reach full power. So Eris-1 didn't have sufficient thrust to fully take off. Instead, after clearing the launch pad it hovered, drifted, then crashed. The crash may have been due to gravity and/or the launch safety officer induced the crash to avoid more potentially dangerous hover-drifting.

So the launch from northern Queensland Australia of this ICBM size, dual-use capable, rocket was a partial success. This is even though its aim of using its 3 stages to go into orbit did not work the first time. Launch companies learn from what goes wrong.

CEO Adam Gilmour said in February 2025 that it was “almost unheard of” for a private rocket company to successfully launch to orbit on its first attempt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilmour_Space_Technologies#Eris-1_(Orbital_rocket)

For comparison see other, also real, launch failures in the early US space program from the great film, The Right Stuff  here and below.

2nd Response to WahooDaddy - Australia need be passive on Taiwan's Defence

On 7/28/2025 12:53 PM WahooDaddy commented in red. My responses are in black:

Working as a coalition, with the Aussies and JMSDF and other regional partners, what d'you think the subsurface warfare scene would be like in the South and East China Seas?

Quite complicated - see my previous article for Maps and the US-Western allies'  IUSS. Many naval coalitions have a history of inefficiency in terms of interoperability (communication including language, standard procedures, common weapons and ammunition). See the weak and poorly coordinated American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command easily destroyed by one country, the Empire of Japan, in early 1942.

Without full US involvement, with its internationally dominant submarine force and its full access to the IUSS undersea sensor network, regional countries with significant submarine forces (Japan, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan (in about 5 years) and others) would be too weak to face the PRC Navy. 

This is considering the PRC has SSNs, large forces of conventional submarines, anti-submarine: surface vessels; UAVs; UUVs; satellites; large maritime patrol and carrier aircraft and land based missile torpedoes. 

The PRC likely has built up its own "IUSS" (weaponised with smart mines and submarines)  with many undersea arrays in the open, straits and narrows of the East China and South China seas. The islands the PRC has seized in the South China Sea present excellent platforms for criss-crossing undersea arrays.

Do RAN/JMSDF subs have the endurance to stick it out against the PLAN? If the balloon went up with the PRC invading Taiwan, would the RAN/JMSDF hang back, or try to support kicking the PLAN back from their ops in the Taiwan Strait?

No, the RAN has long transit distances, northwards, from its submarine base at Fleet Base West, south of Perth. Also other Australian bases are very distant for our slow diesel powered ships and subs to help Taiwan. The RAN would have trouble (our subs running out of fuel and food) discretely patrolling for PRC subs and surface ships passing through the Malacca Straits. So the RAN has to operate south of those straits. 

RAN Collins subs running their diesels, probably make them too noisy in the South China Sea against an enemy like the PRC. Japanese subs (all shorter range) cannot patrol much further south than the Luzon Strait, though when using air independent power (AIP) they are at least quieter. Singapore's force of 4 to 6 conventional subs (with AIP) are best placed to quietly shadow the PRC's conventional subs, but are very unlikely to attack them.

If the PRC invaded Taiwan the RAN, with a destroyer and frigate, moving as fast as the slow (15 knot cruise speed) supply ship probably would be too late and weak to  take on PRC forces. For speed and discrete movement Australia needs SSNs to be relevant in a PRC war against Taiwan. We are unlikely to have fully manned Australian SSNs until the late 2040s.

Japan is already better placed in seas south to Taiwan. But again, without US involvement all the allies would hang back because the PRC navy is too powerful in ship numbers, nuclear propulsion, emerging full sized aircraft carriers and long range anti-ship (and maybe sub) missiles. 

The picture would become considerably more complex if Russia and North Korea coordinated actions with China. Such as North Korea bombing or invading South Korea and Russia embarking on other territorial objectives in Putin's playbook.

I'm trying to look at it from a non-US perspective. I appreciate your thoughts and feedback!

No worries :) We'll talk off-line about what you're doing with these views.

Cheers Pete

1st Response To "WahooDaddy" - Some Water Space Considerations

Subsurface issues concerning the South China Sea and East China Sea are very complex and interconnected with physical and human matters.

For example in Part One of August 1, 2016, I argued China's 4 to 6 x Type 094 "Jin class" SSBNs in China's "naval Bastion" between the PRC mainland and First Island Chain (see Map A below) may continue to be too limited in capability to be effective, due to:

-  geography - very shallow water around China's SSBN Base at Yulin,
Hainan Island then a restricted South China Sea operating area, then sea depths too shallow especially south of Indonesia's Natuna Islands (see Map B), 

-  094s are known to be too noisy to be as stealthy as US, UK and French SSBNs

-  PRC commanders and crews lack operational SSBN patrol experience

-  the JL-2 SLBMs missiles with a range of around 8,000 km are too limited to hit US mainland targets from the protected (near Chinese) waters the SSBNs have to operate in. 

-  JL-3 SLBMs of the mid 2020s with a 10,000+ km range that might reach the US mainland can apparently fit in 094s

-  China's military-political command and control system may not be flexible enough to allow SSBN commanders to carry armed JL-2s or JL-3s or deliver the codes commanders to launch. Basically against Communist Party's tight control of military.

Map A above - The inner "J" indicates China's "First Island Chain" is where China's four Type 094 SSBNs are effectively restricted. These SSBNs are based in China's South Sea Fleet bases (Map A above) specifically at Sanya/Yulin Naval Base on Hainan Island. Moving outside that chain would take SSBNs away from protective Chinese aircraft and these SSBNs would need to pass between island narrows where undersea sensors (see Map C) and enemy aircraft, surface craft, SSKs and SSNs are likely to be waiting.
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Also the following could intervene into the South China Sea to destroy Chinese SSBNs: enemy aircraft and submarines from Vietnam, Singapore (passing through the Philippines) also submarines further out from Guam, Japan, Australia, Hawaii and US West Coast. 

Map B above - The water (ideally 1,000+ m deep) restricts the already narrow South China Sea operating area and the sea becomes radically too shallow (less than 100m deep) south of Indonesia's Natuna Islands.
---

Useful water depth for a submarine could be all the way down to "crush depth" which may be 1,000+ meters for a Chinese SSBN. While deep water past crush depth (maybe 1,000 meters) may not benefit a submarine there is a correlation between depth and usable surface area.

The lack of adequate 1,000+ meter depth in large areas of the 3,500,000 square kms South China Sea may limit usable SSBN operational area to less than 2,000,000 square kms.

This reduced area to cover with sensors makes it easier for the US to lay seafloor or tethered sensors (including IUSS SOSUS) in and around that reduced usable SSBN area.

Tethering means that even in a 2,000 meter deep area a sensor with a 1,200 meter long tether (from the seafloor) would be very useful detecting Chinese SSBNs.

Map C above - Map depicts some of the likely Western SeaWeb IUSS 
undersea sensor array positions. Chinese, Russian and North Korean submarines and surface vessels are likely to be of most sensor interest. (Map from page 54 “Map 4. The US ‘Fish Hook’ Undersea Defense Line” of the late Desmond Ball and Richard Tanter, The Tools of Owatatsumi Japan’s Ocean Surveillance and Coastal Defence Capabilities (2015, ANU Press) http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p309261/pdf/book.pdf?referer=444 . 
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FURTHER COMMENT

I've made many generalisations that might be disputed by reading other websites and documents including:

-  http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/strategic-warning-and-chinas-nuclear-posture/

-  US DoD's "Chinese Military Power 2016") large PDF at:
  http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2016%20China%20Military%20Power%20Report.pdf

-  China's Defense White Paper 2015

-  rightwing US and most Taiwanese websites should be treated with caution as they might tend to exaggerate China's SSBN "threat" as being serious and current.

China may take 25 years to attain the quality of US, UK and French SSBNs of today and to develop a JL-3 or a JL-4 SLBM with the range and accuracy of the Trident II SLBM.

Also see: 

https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2016/08/chinas-ssbns-limited-by-opposing.html Part Four

https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2016/08/chinas-current-ssbns-limited-by-their.html Part Three

https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2016/08/chinas-current-ssbns-limited.html Part Two

and

https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2016/06/chinas-seaweb-undersea-surveillance.html

Pete

HMS Prince of Wales Irrelevant To Australia's Defence

This is a particularly good video here and above, courtesy Nguoi Giai Ma, of AsiaPacificMilitaryWatch entitled “HMS Prince of Wales in Australia: A New Era of UK-Indo-Pacific Dominance?” uploaded July 24/25, 2025.
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Sorry to be negative about UK Queen Elizabeth (QE)-class carriers' usefulness in the defence of Australia, but:

Shared between both QEs the UK Royal Navy has only "37 F-35B aircraft (including 3 or 4 based in the U.S.) [as of] May 2025,^[45][46][47]"

Already the UK's NATO FIRST (against Russia) policies, with the UK to buy more than 100 F-35As (12 to be nuclear armed) are weakening any UK military assistance in defending Australia. The UK has decided to buy 12 F-35As (to be nuclear armed by 2030). This is instead of buying the planned 12 F-35Bs to strengthen the 2 QEs' (Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales) understrength airwings. 

I'm glad another expert, on July 29, 2025, agreed https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/debate/aukus-stress-test-alliance-pressures-australia-s-strategic-choices .

Those 2 carriers are also weakly protected by a shortage of UK surface and SSN escorts when in the Indo-Pacific. It may be that, at the moment, the Royal Navy operates with its 2 QE carriers sharing the one airwing of 17 F-35Bs. The Royal Navy does not have enough escorts to protect both carriers simultaneously.

China's land based medium range DF-21D anti-ship missiles and intermediate range DF-26 missile (which may have an anti-ship capability) present a major threat to powerful US Nimitz/Ford-class carrier groups. The threat to weaker UK QE carrier groups is even greater. 

Unlike the USN, which can send ships across the open Pacific Ocean, to Australia, the UK RN must send its ships through the straits and narrows of the Middle East and across the smaller Indian Ocean to reach Australia. It is in the narrows that China's large navy, with its powerful submarine force, can intercept under-protected QE carrier groups.

Like HMS Repulse and an earlier HMS Prince of Wales (both sunk by Japanese aircraft in 1941) the UK having nowhere near sufficient power projection to defend Australia, again applies to the UK's latest 2 big ships (the QE carriers).

How To Invade Taiwan: China's To Do List (So Far)

Over years China steps up its "heart and minds" soft power campaigns. For example those that apply to Taiwanese, US and Australian youth visits to China.

If Taiwan (T) does not surrender peacefully to diplomacy and economic pressure (like American style punitive tariffs):

Buy up sufficient overland piped Russian gas and oil for a stockpile sufficient for one year's supply in China.

Ask Russia to put decoy or actual pressure on Kazakhstan, Georgia, the Baltic States and anywhere else Putin wants. 

SURPRISE ATTACK?

Launch a mass cyber attack to disrupt T communications, internet, financial, trade and transport facilities. Expect and combat cyber retaliation from T and the US.

Launch sabotage plans by Special Forces' Sleeper Cells and assassinations, if deniable (at initial stage).

Take out Taiwan's (T's) air defenses using hypersonic missiles mainly launched by SSGNs and XLUUVs close to T's shore - mainly from seas East of Taiwan.

Using missiles, drones and aircraft destroy T's energy stockpiles and block ships exporting the 98% of T's energy to T in the form of natural gas, coal, oil and some LEU Uranium.

Simultaneously destroy T's merchant (not passenger) ships and naval shipping (including T's submarines) using missiles, drones, aircraft, pre-laid smart mines. "killer" UUVs and torpedoes.
-  Pre-laid undersea sonar/magnetic sensors that ring Taiwan will locate T's  submarines and small missile craft that evade aerial and satellite sensors.
-  Beware of T and US UUVs and smart mines.
-  Combat the US Navy if it is hostile, especially US subs. 

OR

BLOCKADE?

Inspired by Anonymouse’ July 24th comment I add:

As T produces only 1/3^rd of its food needs T’s food and energy vulnerabilities may make blockade a very effective PRC strategy. Although the PRC would lose the element of surprise in imposing a multi-month blockade.

PRC smart mines-killer UUVs (in "shipping channels to Taipei and Kaohsiung") present an alternative to the need to seize and develop islands around T PRIOR to a takeover of T.

Temporarily, long range anti-air and anti-ship missiles from the PRC mainland, its SSGNs, warships. aircraft and large mother-drones could shutdown Western nation air and ship intervention to support T.

Post invasion, PRC take over of those islands around T would:
- more firmly guarantee PRC's ability to protect its new T possession and
- more easily transit ships and submarines through the First Island Chain that had hitherto blocked access to the Western Pacific.

Responses from Japan? South Korea? 

Singapore, India and Australia seizing or sinking PRC vessels in the Indian Ocean?

Western banking system freezing PRC assets worldwide?

Additional items for this To Do List?