Originally Posted by
tartare
The thought of Australian nuclear submarines, or even parts of them being built in Australia is very concerning.
I hope they are not.
After a decade living and working here my observation is that compared to Britain, where I have also lived and worked, and the US which I have visited frequently for work, in general Australian industry unduly struggles to organise itself and function optimally.
It is slow-moving, unnecessarily bureaucratic, lacking in imagination and agility, small-minded and inwardly focused compared to it's counterparts in both of those AUKUS nations.
Some might say the same could be said of Electric Boat or BAE... but they have track records and established facilities with experience building nuclear boats.
Australia just cannot move quickly - and it has no sense of urgency.
Hal Brands makes a
detailed and compelling argument that as a country facing future economic and demographic stagnation and decline, China is dangerous right now and for the next 5-10 years.
I'm not even confident Australia will be able to make the obvious move to procure long range missiles as quickly as it needs to - or to build or acquire UUVs and XLUUVs to fill the gap between now and the arrival of the SSNs.
Dangerous times indeed.
I respect your experience but I have the impression that the companies that support the Australian defence industry are better aligned and working together than they were in the past. There has been a lot of effort put in to improving the structure and communication so that they can hopefully get this massive project to work.
The way that all the issues with design and pre-production of the Hunter class FFG’s have been resolved can give us confidence that these skills will flow on to the SSN’s. Despite all the adverse press, it now looks like they are on top of the issues and expect to catch up with the original schedule by the time the 4th ship is built.
You mention the very significant experience of overseas submarine building companies but, even with all the experience that BAE had in the past, they ran into major problems with building the early Astute submarines - so much so that some senior management from GD Electric Boat were sent to Britain to assist with getting the program back on track. Also, it was discovered in 2017 that substandard steel was used in the construction of USN submarines for the previous 20 years so having them built by overseas companies doesn’t mean that the RAN would get better quality submarines.
The RAN’s experience with the Oberon’s was that the costs escalated as the submarines aged and, as the parts were manufactured in Britain, were forced to pay very inflated prices. This is why the RAN focused on having the Collins (& all subsequent classes) submarines built locally. There were some major issues early in the Collins program but, it was a significantly larger vessel than the class they were based on with many changes to allow the vessels to perform their role so it was expected that there would be teething problems. No submarine had been built in Australia prior to the Collins. As well as major savings for the Defence budget, the flow-on’s for the local economy means that we have to maximise local construction content.
While there were initial mistakes, there were many positives in the Collins construction and ongoing upgrades so that they have developed into very good operational vessels. The steel used in the hulls is stronger (& easier to weld) than the UK & US vessels which contributed to why they have been assessed as suitable for the LOTE which will see some of the Collins having a service life of 45 years - a phenomenal feat. If the SSN’s are built locally, there will be mistakes made (which will be leaked to the press who are only too willing to seize on anything negative) but, I believe that they will be built to a high quality and be very effective for their service life.
The procurement of long range missiles has been accelerated due to funds being available following the cancellation of the Attack class. This is an important capability which needs to be in service as quickly as possible.
I believe that the contract with Anduril for the XL-AUV’s was because they are a company that develops cutting edge technology in the shortest time. The contract is for the first vessel to be in the water in just 3 years - phenomenally fast, which is what is needed in these times.
Personally, I’m in the group that wants the SSN’s and all surface warships built locally.