Originally Posted by
NumptyAussie
What about something that has already been modified to take cruise missiles such as the early Ohio's, as a stop gap?
My personal opinion I dont think stop gap subs would be particularly useful, maybe for astutes where theres a limited amount of a operational subs some other nuclear sub might be worth the money/time/effort. I mean TClasses are totaly shagged, theres 2 part documentary on the trenchent on youtube, the sub is a floating rust bucket
so nothing would be gained by puttering around on one of them. Hear contradictory stories on the 688's, probably better basing RAN crew out of their operating port because suspect they might be coming back for repairs regularly if the T Class is any indicator. Youtube channel smarter every day spent 24 hours on a 688 and thier oxygen generators were US
But for virginia's theres a large amount available for just adding a few crewman onto each or having some of them just rotate through stirling each spending a couple of months just doing training cruise or shorter "combat cruises" with RAN taking some the postions. Also specifically with the Ohio's I think the political optics of using an SSBN even modified might be a bridge to far. Also the issues with the 160-170 needed for one
If the virginia or some deriviative of it picked I think (assuming the yanks are in on it) leasing some of the early model virginia's based at hawaii for a for a few years, or some them permanently deploying to stirling would be the goto plan for the navy. Theres like 20 or so in service theres a enough that even adding a few RAN to each will get trained crew and a not have a real effect on the a crewing of the collins that will still need to be crewed during this period