Originally Posted by
Asturias56
Back to topic........ in a post above Going Boeing shows a timeline with 8 SSN's - I can't see Australia managing to afford 8 - the UK will have taken 19 years to get 7 Astute's in service - the latest ones cost £ 1.5 Bn each
I had it explained to me by someone I trust, it originally came up when I ****ting on the french about the time the suffren took. He pointed out to me that both the UK and French long build times were sorta intentional. Both countries have been burned in previous generation by building them and 20 years later build the next one, meanwhile all the skills had atrophied. I dont think we are going to get 8, think its going to 6 nuclear and 6 conventional. But time will tell. Also note the cost of the astutes are actually going, astute actually came in massively overbudget and it was thanks to GDEB to save the program and made the boats cheaper