Originally Posted by
Asturias56
Admiral Pappano is making sure he's heard - I'm sure he'd love to see another line for building SSN's in the USA "to help out the Aussies" and to speed up delivery to the USN. Once they start serious work on the next SSBN's it's going to be quite tight in the USA and impossible in the UK without extra capability in the yards
The Aussies want to build their subs in Adelaide, so it is not really about more UK or US building capacity, with the exception of the reactor section. It is more about extra boat building expertise. It is difficult to see that either of BAE or GDEB has the expertise to lend to Adelaide sitting around, so it will have to be grown, as an extra to the existing programmes, regardless of the design chosen. That might involve Australians in the existing build activities until they are able to build their own.
Whether that could be resourced down under whilst maintaining the Collins is another matter.
We shall see.
N