Originally Posted by
golder
If they get a firm ongoing order. The yard has said it can increase and build 3 Virginia's a year. Refer to Usni
That’s not what they are telling Congress, the fact that construction of the Columbia class SSBN has absolute priority over every other military program has meant that most of the skilled workers at GDEB & HII have been moved onto that program so the completion and delivery of new Virginia SSN’s has been adversely affected with significant delays being experienced, especially with the Block 5 boats. They are currently unable to deliver 2 Virginia’s per annum as they can’t find sufficient staff and get them trained to a competent level.
It also indicates that they will struggle to release skilled managers to loan to ASC for the construction at Osborne.
As far as getting RAN personnel up to speed on Nukes, I suspect that the USN may end up home porting 2 Virginia’s at Fleet Base West. These vessels would be manned with experienced USN trainers and RAN submariners and would be deployed on normal USN missions. In this way, the USN would retain their critically needed submarines but assist the RAN in getting sufficient submariners trained before the ASC built vessels enter service. This obviously assumes that the RAN & Government choose the Virginia over the Astute.