Well, it's a strategic Bomber. So far only Russia and the US have strategic Bombers. And this one is a VLO Strategic Bomber. So far only the US has such toys.

Should we be thinking of some new platforms for the RAAF.

Example: F15EX replacing Super Hornet.

Does the single engine, short range F-35 cut it in the theatre of long range projection.

So, Macron wont answer the phone.
And “ You “ will decide when its over……..
Let me see. A pissed off France or Virginia Class subs ?
Really difficult choice. Not.
Why does France have tickets on itself ?
Nobody else cares.
Nice place to visit but thats about it.
Get over yourselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...volving_France

You need to read more often , mate !

The French don't worry me much. I'm probably more grateful, that we didn't cancel the Swedish Collins. Those Vikings can be a handful.

Which sub will Australia build?
https://www.australiandefence.com.au...ustralia-build

I think it has all been said "I suggest everybody here to get informed a little bit more" and highlighted that before you make such a hubris comment you had better have the information yourself.

The French tantrums over a legitimate exit from a basket case contract cannot be all there is to this saga. It has been apparent for a number of years the French were not delivering on offsets and work for local companies. As well, the final capability was questionable and loaded with more and more risks, with a project blow-out from 50 billion to 90 billion AUD, which was always going to be terminal once our Allies onside with nuclear propulsion. Below is an excerpt from today's newspaper The Australian.

"Mr Hamilton-Smith said the deal with the French started with a commitment to 90 per cent of the work being done locally, which dropped to 80, then 70 and “after quite a scuffle” to 60 per cent."

While the French outbursts are complex, and you can look no further than within this thread, I'd invite those interested to spend an evening on deep and very researchable historical information of the French in the South Pacific ( you'll nee a lot longer if looking at Indo-China ). 1939 onwards is probably most relevant in getting an appreciation of what weight to place on French policy in the region moving forward.

Australia is facing a deteriorating security situation and whilst cooperation with France is important in the Pacific, the reliability of such a relationship to extend toward a coherent mutual defence of interests would be a folly now as much as it was with the Japanese steamrolling through the region in the early 1940's. In this century, a strategic investment with the French would always be at the mercy of a better deal for that European nation with the Chinese Communist Party.

A well equipped Australian military, with a committed UK and US in the region, will probably well suit the French eventually. It will allow for fence sitting and minor defence commitments to the South Pacifc whilst others are left to challenge a rising China ( in whatever form that may take ).

EU and France talk of not honouring contracts.
EU refused to allow COVID vaccine purchased by Australia from Astra-Zenica to be exported from EU.
Then they decided they didn't want to use it but still refused to allow it to leave EU.
Hypocrisy rules.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f34a0b5a9e.gif

Decades?

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/20...emains-strong/

Gilday: Australian sub deal ‘brilliant,’ partnership with French Navy remains strong

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy’s chief of naval operations is committed to helping Australia with its newly announced nuclear-powered submarine program and equally committed to operating seamlessly alongside the French Navy, after the recent Australia-U.K.-U.S. submarine agreement caused a political fallout between the triad and France.

Adm. Mike Gilday called the so-called AUKUS agreement, in which the U.S. Navy and U.K. Royal Navy would help Australia design, build and support a nuclear-powered attack submarine program of its own, “strategically … very important and, I think, a brilliant stroke with respect to our posture in the Pacific, particularly vis a vis China.”

He said the arrangement would require the U.S. Navy to work “very closely with the Australian Navy to help determine what the optimal path will be to safely deliver not solely the submarines, but the enterprise that has to support them. This is everything from a defense industrial base in Australia; to a community inside the Australian Navy that’s able to man, train, and equip those submarines; to sustain them; to have the oversight mechanism similar to what we have in the United States Navy to oversee those nuclear power vessels.”

“This is a very long-term effort that’ll be decades, I think, before a submarine goes in the water — it could be. I don’t see this as a short-term timeline. We have an 18-month exploratory period that’ll get after a lot of these questions and help Australia come to grips with exactly what they need to do to get in the path akin to the United States Navy,” Gilday continued during his remarks at Defense One’s State of the Navy event online.

The U.S. Navy not only has program offices that support submarine design, construction and maintenance, but a Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, or Naval Reactors, program exists under the U.S. Department of Energy to handle the nuclear-powered propulsion system design, maintenance and safety……

Good to see the topic has allowed the Francophobes another opportunity to get things off their chest….

Personally I’d be wary of assuming keeping the project within the “Anglosphere” is automatically a good thing since I think there’s a tendency towards thinking a shared language (of sorts) means Brits/Aussies/Americans are all singing from the same song sheet, have the same interests or do business in the same way….that’s not always been my experience having of worked in/lived in a few of the countries involved in this spat.

Oh, has Suez been mentioned?

Well that was 65 years ago, global security is a completely different paradigm now.

I would argue that AUKUS is not simply an ‘Anglo’ alliance; all three countries share a commitment to a relatively liberal democracy, stable governance and a willingness to act as reasonable global citizens.
Relatively of course.

Suez ?

The lesson of Suez is that adventurism by the UK and France without sanction from the US is a really bad idea.
Sort of proves the opposite of the point you are trying make.
Gareth Evans has written a very balanced article in todays Financial Review.
Another one in the New York Times.
France is pissed off because their long term positioning in the Pacific has been thwarted.
Maybe the real question is “ is France a major power anymore ? “
Its the internal politics leading up to an election that has really what’s wound them up.
Nothing to do with being Francophobic.

You are correct with the point about 65 years so maybe some upthread need to stop using events that happened even further back than that as justification for views held in 2021.

However if there’s still insistence on arguments along the lines of “well in XXXX you did this so there” :ugh: then a reminder that there was a much more recent event where the actions of one of the AUKUS triad dropped the other two in the mire to a certain extent and ended up being accused by some of being an unreliable ally.


As to the sub deal - There may well have been good practical, contractural and strategic reasons why the French/Aus contract fell apart but I think ultimately it might be a tad naive to think the new arrangement/agreements will automatically be plain sailing by virtue of the Anglo aspect..most especially once the industrial-military complex gets it’s teeth into the sharing of work so I suspect stories about this deal will be surfacing :} on a regular basis over the next couple of decade…

Finally (hurrah) a gentle nudge that plenty of non Anglo countries have values that claim to involve liberal democracy, stable governance and a willingness to act as reasonable global citizens….

How much metal has been cut on the now-cancelled subs? Or is it all just been prep work?

None. They hadn't even got to the stage of approved design.

Looking at those facts it is not so surprising that the Alternative of a combination of a Security alliance and more capable Subs was attractive enough to switch horses. That the French didn't see that coming is to quite some extent their own fault. That said, French Companies tend to act similarly when having taken over foreign Companies - they exploit and marginalise them so that the French locations get the Cherry Picking while the foreign entities take the hit. The French Government tends to back such activties up whereas other Countries Governments typically don't intervene, so the big French Companies are not used to negative impact when they try to exploit other companies or state institutions. In the short term, French Companies are often benefitting from this but in the longer run the French Industry as a whole has lost competitiveness.
This time -it seems- they gambled too high and didn't see the writing on the wall.
For Australia it is a win- win. For France it hurts in multiple ways: Loss of Influence in the Asia Pacific Theater. Loss of a big Deal. Loss of reputation (massive Price increase, drop of local share, way of dealing with unhappiness of customer). And all this after multiple other Military Programs that shared some of these problems. The planned phase- out and replacement of the Tiger helicopters was a clear warning. They should try to learn from this instead of acting as a petulant child.

Certainly we should. The retirement of the F-111 was a highly political event. The nonsense about maintenance costs was a fallacy, some of the most advanced aircraft like the F-22 require something like 100 hours of maintenance for every 1 hr of flying time. It is completely unfathomable that the F-111 would have been anywhere near that ballpark. Yet it was a good solid platform with the capability of carrying weapons that the F/A-18F (a pigmy by comparison, a 5th of the combat radius, a third of the load and much, much slower - yet it was touted as an F-111 replacement. Replacement my a-se)....... and the F-35 cannot carry some of those weapons either. Anyway, the F-111 has gone now unfortunately but I've often thought the F-15SE or the newer F-15EX would have been a FAR better replacement. The F-35 is simply NOT going to be able to do everything the F-111 could and an advanced F-15 at least has close to the weapons load and almost the combat radius (short by 300 miles or so but much more than the anaemic F-35 and the totally pathetic -18F - Defence carried on about how 'range isn't important', the same ADF was expressing interest in conformal fuel tanks for the F/A-18F so, yeh, range IS important) and the F-15 is slightly faster than the F-111 (Mach 2.5 for the -111 and either 2.6 or 2.7 for the F-15)....

One analyst has suggested we should be scaling back the Army, putting the money into 24-32 Nuclear Subs including some SSBNs with nuclear weapons and a strong aerial strike capability. The logic is that any large scale operation to 'invade' would have to come by sea and we need a force that can sink them on the way and strike back. The striking back bit of course is the deterrent part.

It is entirely arrogant IMHO for China to be throwing a hissy fit when they are churning out ships and aircraft like a sausage machine. Nuclear powered and armed Subs with a very capable strike platform (12 B21s would be nice but the yanks probably won't sell them to anyone, but they wouldn't sell their subs to us until now so you never know.......) simply sends a message that we are more than capable of defending ourselves and retaliating so go bully someone else.......

Rumors are MRH-90 is going as well. No idea what options there are to replace it, navy dumped thiers and are going to seahawks

The contract was 2 parts, one was the design and then a construction contract based on the final design. The construction contract has not been signed because there was no detailed design yet

The were to be paid 600 million for the phase 1 contract that covered the design. That was broken into sub phases, a basic design and the detailed design for construction. If australia cancelled the contract after the basic design, NG get 200 mill for contract cancellation, if after detailed design they get 400 million,