https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Int...U.S.-shipyards
AUKUS submarines: A burden too big for overloaded U.S. shipyards
TOKYO -- A senior U.S. Navy official has expressed concern that assisting Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines may be too much of a burden for America's overstretched nuclear shipyards.….
https://www.defensenews.com/naval/20...st-year-doing/
What have the AUKUS partners spent the last year doing?
WASHINGTON — The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have spent the last year discussing in detail the capabilities that each partner of
the so-called AUKUS agreement will bring to the table for a future Australian nuclear-powered attack submarine, according to the undersecretary of the U.S. Navy.
Speaking at the Defense News Conference on Wednesday, Erik Raven said he doesn’t have submarine design announcements yet, but could say the three nations are focused on “how to get there in the smartest way to make sure this partnership pays dividends well into the future.”……
Top of mind shortly after the AUKUS announcement was choosing the class of submarine the Royal Australian Navy may use — the U.S. Navy’s Virginia-class submarine, the British Royal Navy’s Astute-class submarine or something new. But the conversation later turned toward
whose industrial base has the capacity to handle additional construction work.
Rear Adm. Scott Pappano, the program executive officer for strategic submarines, has closely tracked industrial base issues related to his top-priority Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, as well as what capacity remains to build and maintain the Virginia attack subs.
Although he’s not directly involved in AUKUS conversations, he said last month that, “if we are going to add additional submarine construction to our industrial base, that would be detrimental to us right now without significant investment to provide additional capacity and capability to go do that.” He added the U.K. submarine-industrial base faces similar constraints.
Despite the challenges, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday has called the arrangement “a strategic stroke of brilliance … for all three countries.”….