"€90m “break payment” if it decided to cancel when Naval Group had already submitted a basic design, rising to €250m"
€250m is $400m. Although the full plan hasn't been provided yet, it has been worked on as I understand it. I don't think we declined to go forward. At the basic design 'break payment' of €90m. So i would guess it is between the two.
Australia has spent $2.4 billion, it wasn't a decision taken lightly.

Which I what I said a couple of posts up they will be entitled to a rumored 200 million exit payment. They will also be entiltled to payments of any provable losses they incured, but they will be required to pay back any payments they recieved for work not carrierd. Compensation will be hundreds of millions and not billions or 10's of billions as many french media are saying

Excessive compensation claims from Naval Group will just confirm the stupidity of the Australian Government of the time, having been being hoodwinked into a commercial rort.

France's Indo-Pacific strategy is as pertinent to Australia as it was in Indo-China & the South Paciifc in 1940. It could go either way, friend or foe?

Germany is buying P-8's and not french second hand french atlantics. Are they going to withdraw their ambassador from germany ?

Yes - back on thread.
Aviators and submariners share a lot in common.
Use of sophisticated and expensive machines to travel through media where they don't really belong.

Maybe. But what goes up comes down.

https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/chin...ker-mentality/

China’s AUKUS Response Highlights Beijing’s Bunker Mentality

Beijing seems completely unwilling – or unable – to consider its own actions might be feeding the “China containment” push.

Beijing is in overdrive to respond to the news that Australia will build nuclear-powered submarines, thanks to technology being shared by the United States and the United Kingdom. No event since China’s 2016 loss to the Philippines in an international arbitration case over disputed waters in the South China Sea has evoked such a howl from Chinese officialdom.….

Initially, China’s response was characterized by statements calling AUKUS “extremely irresponsible.” A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that the pact “seriously undermines regional peace and intensifies the arms race.” The reaction was, diplomatically speaking, strong but measured.

But the language from China’s official news outlets devolved into insults, threats, contempt, and disparagement.……

Which I would consider as a good sign that this strategy does absolutely not suit them. On the other hand one might wonder why? They do not really expect to be attacked by Australia right out of the Blue I would assume!? Then, what is their worry?!

I suspect they're worried that the Australians are only the first in line - if the US started selling SSN's to Japan, S Korea and maybe India it would make the PLA (N) look a bit .. exposed - all that money in surface ships......... :(

Perhaps other aspects of the pact such as a coordinated strategy to exclude them from telecommunications systems and action to prevent their acquisition of companies working in advanced AI, semiconductors and other sensitive technologies. Until AUKAS they probably assumed that this would go largely unchallenged.

But India already gets SSNs from Russia! Australia has always operated submarines far from home, and missions in excess of fifty days are not uncommon for the Collins class. What makes you think that Australian submarines would be a threat to PLA(N) surface vessels and not submarines? I suspect Australia seeks a counter to an increasing Chinese submarine forces, as well as submarines operated by smaller nations that might come into conflict. I also wonder if they are look to do more task group type deployments.

Pity that they have no V/STOL aircraft to go on the twp LHDs with ski jumps.

Japanese are absolutely on the cards, the top candidate to replace Suga said it during a televised debate, dont think korea will be in the short term and india is doing their own and are not signitories to the NPT which has a section that covers naval reactors


I got a captains tour of the canberra, with the EO, way back when it was first commissioned. Someone asked this question the EO had the reply already to go, he said the canberra had been modified to make sustained flight ops impractical. The things he mentioned was that some aviation fuel tanks had been converted to diesel for vehicles it carries, some ammunition elevators had not been installed and part of the hanger had been converted to light vehicle bays. Dont pretend to even have a clue how easy or not it would be to reverse these.

There was rumors that one of the british aircraft carriers would be one deployment to the horn of africa, assume Dijbouti, but with aukus it might be more practical to do it to sydney. That might give us a some impetus to buy some or convert some the existing order to F-35bs to fly off the UK and possibly reverse the mods on one of the a Canberra to fly F-35's

In other news the guardian has got the letter, under FOI, that was sent to NG on the 15th. They dont show the whole letter

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...deal-cancelled

As engineering lead, I send out letters like that all the time.

I can confirm XX engineering milestone has been achieved and ZZ activity has been completed. This letter does not address future project, legal or commercial aspects which will be the subject of further correspondance from the relevant parties.

Depends what you mean by 'short term', but I think the South Koreans certainly have plans in that direction. They now have conventional ballistic missile submarines in service and nuclear is the next step forwards.

A really good comparison to how bad Australia's submarine policies have been is vs the US. LA Class attack subs have been in service since the 1970s, with one from the 70s and a majority from the 1980s still in service. The cost per unit was around $950million each in 1990. Australia went for the Collins class in 1990 at a cost of around $800 mil per unit, and they are saying they are obsolete after only being in service since 1996, the last one joining the RAN in 2003. We were then going to buy a retrograde diesel submarine from the French that would have had the same issues and problems of the Collins class at a cost per unit of around $3 billion, which is roughly the same cost as the current VA class in the USN.

PS for those who don't know the major differences between a diesel and nuclear powered sub. The nuclear one only needs fueling every 30 years, can stay submerged indefinitely, only restricted by food and maintenance, can maintain its top speed under water indefinitely, including cruising between operational areas submerged. Vs the diesel with about 80 days cruising range at low speed (less than half) surfaced or snorkeling to conserve fuel, limited underwater cruising speed and time and generally smaller and poorer crew accommodation, all limiting its combat service time and effective ability.

The list of Projects of Concern keeps growing.....

Noted. Except that $90B divided by 12 is $7.5B each.

What an awesome deal.

Signed by the same Prime Minister who said that running optic fibre to Australians was too expensive… copper was the way to go.

That included technology rights and stuff to build them here, no doubt any deal with the UK or US will have similar add-ons. If someone with brains gets involved and signs up for 5 or so VA class then we could theoretically offer a return deal for an Indian ocean maintenance facility for the USN, which could sweeten the terms. But that would be smart thinking, which our gov tends to lack ability in. My thoughts are that mr stupid will get involved again and we'll end up with something British, that works, but is mega expensive to operate with no compatibility to local regional partners.

I thought he would sign us up for the coal subs