A glimpse of where this insanity came from this morning when a junior MOD minister, Luke Pollard, was interviewed on the radio and stated that the hope was to reduce SSN production time from 3 years to 18 months……
Ignoring the problems of designing a new type and ramping up production (the US is spending tens of billions to try and get Virginia production up from 1.3 to a planned 2 a year), the figures just don’t reflect reality.
Of the 6 Astute class produced so far the times from the first section being laid down till being launched were 6, 8, 9, 6, 10 and 11 years. Sea trials and commissioning added on average another 18 months. The last in the class was laid down in 2018 and has yet to be launched.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astute...s_in_the_class