Originally Posted by
rjtjrt
One option that ticks a few box’s is early lease of the decommissioning Los Angela’s class, that have a few more years left in them, with large amount of US crew who want a posting to Perth, so we can start the learning curve, and free up Collins class for refurb for extended life.
I presume US does not have spare Virginia class hulls to sell, nor a lot of spare capacity to increase production rate for an early off the shelf purchase whilst Aust gets it’s act together.
It would also keep our crews using US combat system (Raytheon CCS Mk2 (AN/BYG-1)) that RAN are so keen on.
So lease of old boats is a way to get foot in door. Somewhat like what India has done with Russian nukes.
Have to overcome some RAN resistance to old ships given experience with Kanimbla and Manoora, but RAN will be keen to do anything to facilitate getting their foot in the door of nuclear subs so it becomes real rather than a future proposal that someone can cancel.
Have you actually bothered to read anything or watch the press conference ? Part of the deal the subs will be built in australia, specifically at osborne ship yards in adelaide. While we dont know the specifics as they have allocated 12-18 months to determine the design / winners. It believed that the a nuclear power plant will be built which ever countries sub is selected. Will be shipped to australia as a sealed black box where it will be installed onto the sub. The majority of the sub will be built in adelaide with US/UK technical support. I assume the overal program will be managed by electric boat the same way they did with the astute program