osbourne in adelaide. but due to the size of the SSN, they bought up the neighboring land and will be building a bigger one of the SSN, they have a facility for collins maintainence but a bigger facility will be needed, the plan was originally for the attack class to built there but now the SSN will be done there

We built the Collins sub at Osbourne SA. As has been said there is an expansion. Our main issue as I see it was the brain drain. The original 'continuous build program' wasn't done. We stopped at 6 and the workforce dissipated.

Osbourne has a ... chequered record ... at construction over the years but its all there is. main problem has been more attractive jobs elsewhere in SA

And the Australian Submarine Corporation incurred the famous quote by the Defence Minister at the time - "I wouldn't trust them to build a canoe". It was 8 years ago, but even so...

I know quite a few people in SA - and one of the issues seems to be training people to do ANY industrial job these days. Once the Car and white goods factories closed down the idea of working with machinery seems to have got a very bad name locally

I believe that was when PM Tony Abott was strongly in favour of having 12 diesel electric submarines built in Japan and comments like that were designed to prepare the public to accept that they wouldn’t be built locally.

I understand that ASC has been restructured by a competent CEO and is now considered to be capable of building the future submarines - provided they can find, & train, sufficient staff. This is a problem affecting most companies in Western countries.

Why I dont think the australian nuclear sub will have UK reactors

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ired-with-glue

And they were only found when the heads dropped off for a second time......................

Bit more complex than that - found during an inspection as part of the work verification process.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/212179...ne-super-glue/

Still - not exactly a brilliant story .............

It’s disgraceful and will have serious repercussions. They will now have to inspect every vessel that has been worked on by Babcock Plymouth.

This is right up there with the falsification of test results on steel used in the construction of USN submarines for about 20 years.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b1954445.html

https://www.theage.com.au/world/euro...02-p5chbk.html

I wonder if the could lead to a combined force?

yes - it'll be called the USN

and when will this "new generation" enter service?

It’s quite clear from both articles that the bolt heads that were supposedly glued on, we’re holding the insulation on to the coolant pipes and not the pressure envelope(flanges).
Still not good and calls in to question the general standards. But that’s Laggers for you!

Naïve questions - would it be technically feasible to build modules in different countries and then assemble them into a full submarine in another?
Would it be cost effective to do so - and allow an increase in output of yards in US, UK and a new yard in Australia?
EG (gross oversimplification) - the Yanks build the reactor part, the Brits build the back and the Aussies build the front (yes I know submarines are extraordinarily complex, highly integrated pieces of equipment).
Reactor and back are then shipped to Oz to be joined to front.
I suspect I know the answer.

We do it with aircraft, when I worked in shipbuilding different fabricators built sections which were then put together on the slipway, albeit in this case the fabricators were located in the same city and not international.

Theres no practical or technical reason you cant, its only economics / politics. As it stands today modules for ships are built in one location and shipped to another to be assembled. Even recently Austal was announced that they would building 2 different types of modules for virginia and a columbia submarines where they would be barged to either GDEB for final assembly

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news...arine-program/

Thank you - my reason for asking was the use of the phrase "It really is, is a genuinely trilateral effort to see both the UK and the US provide Australia with a nuclear-powered submarine capability." by Marles. I wondered if they were looking at doing something like this.

Personally I think they are, I would be bettting that it comes down to for australia, reactors, engineering and propulsors will be built somewhere not australia, either UK or US. They get assembled into part of a submarines, shipped to australia via a heavy lift ship where the a rest of the sub is joined to it, sonar, torpedo room, living and command sections. Then final assembly, launching and startup of the reactor

Canberra and Adelaide LHD were built in spain, shipped to australia via heavy lift ship and then fitout was done locally. Its would be much easier to ship half a submarine


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b8e3c032c2.jpg

I dont trust the sun. But they are claiming its done deal for astutes.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/213565...eal-australia/