Well, I’ll leave it by acknowledging someone in charge in Australia sees the value nuke boats add.

Reading that Hennessy book that an earlier poster mentioned.
Fascinating - can highly recommend it - crikey - the risks that British submariners took in the 50s sailing up to Nova Zemlya etc.
And Rickover sounds like a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work.
The battle by the Brits to get the US to hand over the reactor technology places the significance of the AUKUS announcement in correct context.
It really is a huge deal for the Americans to agree to hand over the technology to anyone else.

Even the old Orion played the the SCS
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war...-revealed.html

The video showed a very clear footage cleverly taken by HMAS Orion. The submarine skillfully escaped the unwanted notice of the Soviet Charlie-class nuclear submarine by sneaking beneath and behind the Soviet sub as it headed towards the Soviet naval base.

The footage took images of the Soviet submarine as it was headed towards the Vietnamese port. The camera was secured on the periscope of the Orion which took the footage as the submarine dangerously floated on the rough sea. The location was set 12-nautical miles or 22.2 kilometers outside of Vietnamese territorial limit.

The Orion then took a deep dive close behind the Soviet sub and then to a barely submerged depth again following the surfacing of the Soviet submarine. The prime minister was glued to the video alarmed as he watched the propeller of the Soviet sub in close proximity to the Orion. He also took a glimpse of the Soviet Charlie-class technology from underneath including the ship’s sonar and hull.

The Orion then positioned ahead and still beneath of the Soviet submarine. Pitt then maneuvered the Orion to almost a halt. The Soviet sub hummed pass by without a clue of the watching Australian eyes allowing the Orion to get clear images of the other side of its hull. The photographs and the video itself provided intelligence that could only be gathered if spies were to infiltrate and take the images on the dry Vietnamese port.

The true value of subs. My view is that we need 6 boomers and say 6 smaller boats to cover the deep ocean vast distances and a littoral sub...

Well, you just ensured at least a few more pages from the thread with the boomer comment.

...With 24 locked and loaded specials... :E
Most Orstrayians don't realise how dead set their nation was on getting The Bomb.
Snowy Mountains Power scheme's primary purpose was to generate power for Australia's Manhattan Project.
And ANU was to be it's Princeton.
Or at least that was Wayne Reynolds case in Australia's Bid for the Bomb.
He makes a convincing if controversial argument.

tartare

Happened to at Jervis Bay today. The plan was for nuclear reactor there to produce weapons grade uranium.

I think it was only in 1969 the government finally conceded it wasn’t going to happen.

Wayne Reynolds book - short synopsis at:
https://www.mup.com.au/books/austral...onic-book-text

Personally I found his book to be very enlightening.

Allowing the detonation of 12 UK nuke bombs was out ticket to the UK show. We didn't even need to do it on our own. I don't know who said no. I think the US told the UK to tell us? End of story, no bomb, a non-proliferation treaty and under the nuke umbrella of the US/UK.
https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understan...eapons-testing
Nuclear weapons testing occurred from 1952 to 1963 at Maralinga, South Australia; Montebello Islands, Western Australia and Emu Field, South Australia.

Sure was.
Drove down to Jervis Bay with family and went out to the reactor site.
Foundations still visible.
If Gorton had his way, things would have been very different, and perhaps not in a bad way either.

The text of the aukus treaty has been released

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary...ing_considered

Wow.
There it is.
The first time since the 1960s that the United States has agreed to share some of it's crown jewels with anyone other than Britain.
Historic.

And china's reply
https://www.9news.com.au/world/china...3-a19b5dfdca18

So this is the Bangkok Treaty of 1995 - right?
Assume the proposal is to freeze in place what nuclear weapons states in the region already have?
So, China gets to keep missiles and SSBNs, and promises to build no more, but in return Australia agrees not to acquire nuclear powered boats?
If that's correct - sounds like a bit of a ****e deal...

1. The simplest tracking n' targetting solution is proximate to the home port of your playmate. Open ocean tracking sucks biggly, but there are ways n means.
2. An AUS boat assisting the defence of a USN carrier group is a lovely story, not one that the USN skimmer drivers would be so pleased about. (blood is thicker than anechoic rubber)
3. If I had a choice of target to chase between an SSN and an SSK, that is a no-brainer.
4. boat drivers still like to look n' see. Got photos somewhere of the attack periscope of a 688i (nice camo) chasing a DIII.

AUS defence needs boats, enough to have a credible number out in the playpen at any time, so that their exact location becomes both a tactical and a strategic issue for those that may have a grumpy disposition. Range is not an issue, nor is transit speed. What is needed is FOBs that permit a number of quiet boats to be an inconvenience to the planning of those with a case of excessive testosterone.

All navies have manpower deficits, particularly of long lead skills. Last time I looked, AUS had more boats than crews, Time to get reserve programs working.

As nice as a new shiny, glow in the dark toy set is, I would have thunked that a big buy of SSKs would be a better defence posture, coupled to enough manpower to keep a large number out in the open sea at any given time.

Better yet, a bunch of standoff armed drones.

Whatever, don't plan on having GPS based guidance, in the SCS area, the unannounced GPS jamming is becoming an irritant, along with the PLAF/PLANF bleatings of their hurt feelings on "their safety being compromised" by nations that are actually compliant with the UNCLOS. 121.5 is now apparently a PRC propaganda freq.

For all those Australians whining about nuclear power not being safe - and nukular reactors sitting on docks in the middle of cities - there's an astonishing story buried in that submarine book.
HMS Valiant - in 1977 - under power when the Captain gets summoned back to the tunnel above the reactor compartment, and looks down through the thick window onto the reactor (a fascinating detail in itself).
He describes it as normally well lit and cathedral like - full of complex machinery - and radiation of course; completely sealed.
But in this case, the entire reactor compartment is full of seawater - due to a pipe leak - while the reactor is running!
They shut it down, drain the seawater - then restart it.
And it runs just fine - despite having being submerged in saltwater.
Testimony to the engineering.

Except for the time they gave France, their land based, marine nuke engine. That they used to make their 'own'.

Please elaborate? (out of interest)
Are you referring to Le Redoutable's reactor?
Or the earlier Q-244?
7 May 1959: Under the Franco-American Defense Agreement of 1959, the U.S. provided France with 440 kg of enriched uranium for use only in a land-based submarine reactor prototype.
U.S. Congress refused to grant France access to classified submarine reactor design information.
1959: The Q-244 project was finally abandoned.
V comprehensive presentation here on all nations nuclear marine capabilities/history:
http://www.lynceans.org/wp-content/u...-nuc-power.pdf

Believe nixon assisted france with nuclear bomb and propulsion tech under the table, wanted more targets for russia but didn't want to be seen to be helping france develop it

Didn't know that.
V intriguing.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publica...y-to-strategic