On February 9, 2023. Andrew Tillett, for the Australian Financial Review (AFR) wrote an analysis which is in line with my earlier advise:
- Aus Nuke Sub Less Likely to Use US Design of Sept 24, 2021
- UK Clarifying Carriage of Australian SSN Program of Sept 8, 2022
and, it seems, closely based on:
- Which AUKUS Country's SSN Design Will Win? of Feb 6, 2023
The Australian Nuclear Powered Submarine Taskforce (aka simply the Taskforce) has constantly been advising Canberra based senior RAN, DoD officers/officials and, of course, politicians. This is in order for the Australian Government to announce which country’s AUKUS submarine design will be selected or a "common AUKUS design". The decision is due within the first quarter of this year (2023) (ie. by Friday March 31, 2023). From the AFR the Australian and UK PMs will likely be in Washington, with Biden, to make public a joint AUKUS SSN decision between March 16 to 19 inclusive.
At that Washington meeting it is likely UK Prime Minister Sunak will make the ambit claim "the UK will aim to design and organise the build of the first SSN(R) to be delivered to Australia in the 2030s". Against that claim the UK's very limited nuclear sub design and build manpower resources will be fully occupied with the UK's future Dreadnought-class SSBN - from the mid 2020s through to the mid-late 2030s. Hence SSN(R)s built in the UK, and/or in Adelaide, might only be available in the late 2030s, with first commissioning in the 2040s.
Also relevant in advising the Australian government is the bigger
picture Australian Defence Strategic Review - due to
report around the same time.
As an aside I’m guessing the Taskforce’s main HQ is in Canberra (at Defence Central, Russell Offices?). This is to facilitate frequent and intensive interaction with our Defence Minister, Prime Minister and with the US and UK Defence Attaches posted to Canberra. Meanwhile the Taskforce would have outstations where submarine talent is: at Fleet Base West, Fleet Base East, Adelaide and the Australian Defence and Naval Attaches in Washington and London. Taskforce HQ likely communicates with all these outstations using an Australian intranet (called?) that is tied to the broader UKUSA STONE GHOST network and to the US DoD's highly secure JWICS intranet.
My predictions of which
country’s submarine design will be selected in the AUKUS SSN competition (with
SSNs to be (party built in the UK or US) + (much built in Adelaide)) is:
UK 60% chance - If so, very likely within a UK designed future SSN(R) hull.
My prediction that a UK SSN design is most likely is part due to then UK PM Boris Johnson announcing UK jobs and funding, implicitly for an AUKUS SSN(R), on the same day, September 15, 2021, that the AUKUS pact was announced. There was no similar US SSN(X) or Improved Virginia SSN, aimed at AUKUS, announcement that day.
It is most probably significant that from the time the "About" section of the Taskforce's website was first published, from late September 2021, the photo displayed was of a UK submarine (an Astute) on display through to the beginning of 2022. I never noticed a US submarine photo or artwork anywhere on the website. To make less obvious Australia's UK SSN preference the "About" section for most of 2022 and through to 6pm today featured a definitely not in contention, Russian Borei-class SSBN. Its as if the Taskforce chaps are reading what I'm typing because they just put up a photo of the Taskforce's (hitherto "unknown" location) Russell Offices HQ on the "About" section at 6.25pm (Australian Eastern Time) Feb 6, 2023. At 6.50pm they changed back to the good'ol Borei artwork ;-)
Higher odds for the UK SSN(R ) have also increased by the UK MoD’s decision to quietly publicize, through various websites (eg. NavalNews), the expectation that the SSN(R) will have a multi-missile type vertical launch system (VLS).
VLS is very likely a major attribute for Australian selectors. This is because missiles more advanced, faster, larger and longer range than the current US-UK SSN Tomahawk VL missile will more flexibly fit into a VLS compared to a virtually unalterable 533mm horizontal torpedo tube. In short, VLS makes the future SSN(R) more competitive against the US Virginia (a SSN that already has VLS).
Relevant to Australia's submariner manpower shortage, it is highly likely the SSN(R) will have a much smaller crew (98 (as on the Astute) + 6 to operate the VLS = 104) compared to 135 on the Virginias and SSN(X)s.
An Australian order of 8 SSN(R)s on top of a UK RN order of 7 SSN(R)s will improve the economies of scale of SSN(R) production to the UK's benefit. This may translate into the UK giving Australia a slight discount, maybe of the order of 5%, on SSN(R)s.
No similar economies of scale benefit would exist for the US if Australia were permitted to buy 8 SSN(X)/Virginias - as the production run for the USN alone may amount to fifty subs over 30 years, out to 2053.
Common-Trilateral Design - Some US Contents Within A UK SSN(R) Hull
The SSN(R) will very likely be powered by the UK’s PWR3 reactor which is partly based on the US S9G reactor (which powers Virginia-class SSNs).
If Australia buys a UK or US SSN design either of the designs chosen will still incorporate the US AN/BYG-1 combat system (aka " the TCS") of a type that is already in our Collins-class submarines. US company Lockheed Martin was chosen to integrate the AN/BYG-1 combat system for our previous Attack-class project. This makes it highly likely Lockheed Martin will integrate the AN/BYG-1, consisting of sensors, databases, command center work stations, and weapons modules (including a US derived VLS) on whichever US or UK design wins.
So I think it likely a joint US, UK & Australian common (aka Trilateral) Contents Design solution has a 60% chance of being within a UK SSN(R) hull.
US 30% chance - If so this may be within a future SSN(X) or Improved Virginia-class SSN hull. These may be powered by the existing S9G reactor already in current Virginias or even by a future S9W reactor, not yet on the USN's long list.
Australia picking a US SSN design is less likely in part due to repeated statements from US admirals eg. key Admiral Pappano and, lately, politicians, that a US supply of Virginias to Australia, or even helping build them within Australia, will be too disruptive to the US SSN industry in its main role of supplying the USN’s pressing needs. US needs are increasing, due to the long term Russian submarine threat, but also due to the rising threat of China building subs of increasing capability. The threat from North Korean SSBs also requires more SSNs for the USN.
Furthermore APDR reports Jan 1, 2023 "The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has concluded that the country’s already overstretched industrial base faces increasing difficulties constructing Columbia [class] SSBNs and this is already causing delays on the Virginia program...In other words, for the foreseeable future it will be impossible to ramp up the speed of the construction of the Virginia class..."
In any case the USN and
broader government does not like exporting its most sensitive military/naval
technology if it can at all avoid it. The advanced tech Virginia SSN is up there with the F-22
stealth fighter. The F-22 cannot be exported under US law.
10% Chance - the Australian government decides to delay a decision partly due to the extreme cost of 8 AUKUS SSNs (whose numbers may be reduced to 6).
The UK Guardian reports February 1, 2023:
"The Royal Navy has ordered an urgent investigation amid claims that workers on [HMS Trident SSBN] fixed broken bolts in the vessel’s reactor chamber using glue.
The faulty repairs on the cooling pipes aboard the HMS Vanguard were found after one of the bolts fell off during an inspection, the Sun reported.
The bolt heads originally came off due to over-tightening. But, rather than replacing the damaged shafts, staff at the defence contractor Babcock implemented a quick fix and glued them back on.
Engineers at the contractor reported it as a procedural glitch after the problem was found, but did not mention the botched nature of the repair.
A [UK RN] source told the newspaper: “It’s a disgrace. You can’t cut corners with nuclear. Standards are standards. Nuclear standards are never compromised.”
The glued bolts held insulation in place on the coolant pipes in the nuclear reactor and were found just as workers were set to fire it up to full power for the first time, the newspaper reported...."
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On January 7, 2023 I wrote "US Nuclear Weapon Sharing Under AUKUS? Addition." at https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2023/01/us-nuclear-weapon-sharing-under-aukus.html
which included:
"Regarding SSN platforms 4 or perhaps 12 (3 per Virginia Payload Tube (VPT)) vertically launched hypersonic missiles, called Long-Range Hypersonic Weapons (LRHWs), could be carried on each SSN. LRHWs, with a range of 3,000km, may be deployed by the US Army as early as 2023 and on USN Virginia SSNs by the late 2020s. UK SSN(R)s, maybe available in the 2040s, might also be armed with 4 VPTs (hence 12 hypersonic missiles)."
Hi French Anonymous. Concerning your January 15, 2023 comment:
We of the RO-NW-WG thank you for detailing the
special nature of the French-Israeli nuclear and conventional weapons relationship
in the 1950s to 1962. I also suspect that many from the Jewish diaspora who had
been working in France’s civil and military nuclear industry has shifted to
Israel by 1962.
US intelligence was aware of all of this French help from many sources (French, Israeli, Jewish diaspora, human and technical) as early as the late 1940s. This is even though the official fiction still exists that US inspectors were "fooled" in the 1960s by hastily constructed brick walls in odd places within what the US knew to be Israel's “Dimona”-Negev nuclear weapons, HEU and Pu "factory" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_Negev_Nuclear_Research_Center#Inspections
I won’t even go into US
foreknowledge of India’s 1998 test program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II
except to say the US was quite happy that India was developing weapons to
almost match those of the mutual Indo-US enemy, ie. China.
As you say the US was too
distracted by Vietnam in the 1960s to enforce any Israeli non-proliferation. Also with the Soviets
sponsoring the “frontline Arab states” (eg. Egypt and Syria) against Israel, Israel’s enemies were generally America’s enemies (still are).
The NPT from the late 1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons#Israel changed little of what the (US, UK, Western European and Soviet) intelligence world already new since the 1950s about Israel’s nascent nuclear weapons program. That program included French supplied aircraft (Mystère IV nuclear fighter bombers protected by Mirage IIIs) and Jericho I SRBMs onwards.
Yes Israel’s nuclear ambiguity permitted plausible denial of what every major intelligence agency (and their governments) knew about Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
Nuclear ambiguity permitting Western plausible
deniability beats Australia's MAPW, the CND and NPT (that the little nuclear have nots mistakenly trust) any day.
The Guardian, January 16, 2023, reports :
"Man arrested on suspicion of
terror offence after Heathrow uranium seizure"
"[UK] Police launched
investigation after traces of radioactive element found in material at the
airport in December [2022].
… The
man was arrested after counter-terrorism officers searched an address in
Cheshire on Saturday, on suspicion of an offence under section 9 of the
Terrorism Act 2006, which covers the making and possession of radioactive devices…”
Pete Comment
The man's package (in the aircraft hold not on him?) from Pakistan, via Oman, to the UK, carried a "trace amount" (less than 100 grams?) of Uranium. See video here and above.
It sounds likely the man arrested is a Muslim, hence terrorism is immediately suspected.
Does he work in the Uranium mining industry?
Muslim majority countries with large Uranium mining industries (a country that extracts more than 1,000 tonne/year) include Niger, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Pakistan mined an estimated 45 tonnes of (non-enriched) Uranium in 2021.
The main risk from a large quantity (1+kg) of HEU is a radiological "dirty" bomb. While a better known nuclear fission bomb usually consists of several kgs of 90+% HEU and other booster substances.