Former submariner Rex Patrick looks under the hood of the second-hand Virginia-class nuclear submarines to see what Australia has bought. Even AUKUS fans might not like what they see.
(excerpts):
In what Paul Keating has described as ‘the worst deal in all history’, we’ve decided to buy into more second hand military hardware from the US; this time Virginia class nuclear submarines.
Under questioning from Senator Jacqui Lambie at Estimates last week, the Navy revealed that the submarines we’ll likely get in the mid-2030s are boats built from 2020.
The estimated reactor life of the Virginia-class boats is 33 years. So we will hope to get about 20-years out of these second-hand vessels. The actual time they’ll be available for operations will be much less when you take into extended maintenance and refits.
(…) the fact is that the Virginia Class program has some problems Australia is unlikely to be able to deal with.
The first highly noticeable issue with the Virginia class is a problem that has surfaced with the submarine’s acoustic coating that’s designed to reduce the ‘target strength’ of the submarine (how much sound energy from an enemy active sonar bounces off the submarine, back to the enemy).
The coating is prone to peeling off at high speed leaving loose cladding that slaps against the hull, making dangerous noise, and causes turbulent water flow, which also causes dangerous hull resonance (where the hull sings at its resonant frequency, like a tuning fork) and extra propulsion noise. I know a bit about this as a former underwater acoustics specialist.
The issue, reported in 2017 and again in 2019, is easily seen on the side of the submarine and almost certainly without a fix at this stage.
(…) It’s not OK for our submariners to find that the boats they are using to keep us safe become noisy, and thus increasingly vulnerable to detection and destruction, halfway through their deployment.
Lack of availability
The bigger problem for Australia is the challenge the US Navy is encountering keeping (particularly) aging Virginia-class submarines at sea. Part of the problem is parts supply difficulties, with cannibalisation (taking parts from other submarines) regularly happening to keep a diminished number of boats at sea.
(…) If the US Navy is having difficulty with keeping its boats at sea, with significant in-country industrial capability, how will Australia hope to keep our Virginia subs at sea? Our second-hand, ageing boats may spend as much time undergoing maintenance at Australian dockyards, or more likely waiting in a queue at a US dockyard, as they might be available for operations.
We may be eventually end up getting eight AUKUS submarines, only to find we can only keep two, instead of three in a fully operational state.
Absurdity
That would be $368 billion to have only one or two submarines are sea. And that’s just absurd. There were, and still are other, more sensible and cost-effective paths available.
Sometime in the future Australia may face the strategic equivalent of Cyclone Yasi, a defence contingency in which the number of operational submarines we have available will be of vital importance to our national security.
Tragically, however, absurd is ‘operation normal’ for Defence procurement. Situation Normal: All *censored*ed Up.
If he thinks the Virginia is such a mistake. Imagine what he thinks of all the other subs, that aren't as capable?
Google's answer to "Who has the best attack submarine?" No french sub in the top 5, They could still be in the top 10?
Nope, france didn't make top 10 either. It is a sad story.
Top 5 best submarines in the world
m5dergi.com
https://m5dergi.com › defence-news › top-5-best-submar...
Google's answer to "Who has the best attack submarine?" No french sub in the top 5, They could still be in the top 10?
Nope, france didn't make top 10 either. It is a sad story.
Top 10 Attack Submarines | MilitaryToday.com
List of best attack submarines in the world. Our Top 10 analysis is based on combined score of stealthiness, offensiwe weapons and other features.
www.militarytoday.com
Top 5 best submarines in the world
- Seawolf-class, US.
- Virginia-class, US. ...
- Astute-class, UK. ...
- Yasen-class, Russia. ...
- Sierra-class, Russia. A Soviet project of the late 70s of the last century belongs to the multipurpose generation of submarines, in which special attention was paid to increasing their search capabilities. ...
Top 5 best submarines in the world - M5 Dergi
m5dergi.com
https://m5dergi.com › defence-news › top-5-best-submar...
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China says UK offering 'protection to fugitives' after bounty put on Hong Kong activists
Beijing (AFP) July 4, 2023 - China has accused the UK of giving protection to fugitives after its foreign secretary slammed Hong Kong's decision to offer bounties for information leading to the capture of prominent democracy activists based overseas.
www.spacewar.com
Today, as we mark the second anniversary of AUKUS, we look forward to continued progress with our UK and Australian partners to sustain peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and around the world. (Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor)
(breakingdefense, sept.15):
Aussies to pour $3B into US nuke boat yards, long-lead items for AUKUS subs
"It's partly long-lead items but it's also partly working on those yards where our submarines will come out of for us,” Vice Adm. Jonathan Mead told Breaking Defense.CANBERRA — Australia plans to make a $3 billion AUKUS investment in the US over the next five years for long-lead items and to help fund the expansion of American shipyards that will build and retro-fit Australia-bound Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack subs, Vice Adm. Jonathan Mead told Breaking Defense today.
“It’s partly long-lead items but it’s also partly working on those yards where our submarines will come out of for us,” Mead said on his way out from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference here.
While he did not provide many other details, it’s clear that most of that money will not start to flow for at least two years, since Australian defense spending is actually dropping $1.5 billion during that period. Previously an Australian lawmaker said the $3 billion would go to US as well as UK shipyards. Mead only mentioned Virginia-class subs made in the US, and American lawmakers have suggested the $3 billion is all US bound.
Mead also told the ASPI conference during a moderated session that Australia is “investing early in the US industrial base in order that we can have those Virginias fast-tracked to us in the early 2030s.” That will include “the deep maintenance done before they come to us,” he added.
Australia faces a vast defense spending bill over the next three to five years as it begins grappling with the expansion and transformation of its own naval infrastructure to handle resupply and maintenance of Virginia-class submarines.
For example, the defense subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade recently visited several defense bases. “Committee members were particularly disturbed at the state of disrepair while visiting the pier supporting diesel refueling of the Harold E Holt Naval Communication Station,” a committee statement said today. Holt is the site of a huge Very Low Frequency array used to communicate with US and Australian submarines.
“The old adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ seems to have been ignored, and urgent action is required within the next few months as this is a critical capability for Australia and the United States,” Julian Hill, chair of the subcommittee, said in a statement today.
The main facility for Virginia-class submarines (and much later SSN AUKUS) is expected to be HMAS Stirling, a base near Perth in Western Australia. The base will need to be upgraded substantially over the next three years, with roughly $1 billion to be spent over next four years, with another $7 billion committed to be spent over the next decade.
But the Australian money Mead discussed today will be spent in the United States. How it will be transferred and whether it will be paid to the US government or to companies or to a mix of the two remains unclear. /end
AUKUS security pact should expand to include space monitoring: MITRE - Breaking Defense
"Each nation possesses unique advantages, technological capacities, and strategic geographic positions that, when combined, have the potential to significantly advance humanity's understanding of what's going on in space," the paper says.
when is the aukus class expected, 2050? 2070?
(opex360, sept.26):
--------------
Fortunately, no one was hurt.
(opex360, sept.26):
An electrical fire broke out on board the Australian submarine HMAS Farncomb
Acquired from Sweden in the 1990s, the six Collins-type submarines deployed by the Royal Australian Navy [RAN] have often been criticised for incidents and technical problems. A report published in 1999 - known as the McIntosh-Prescott report - was harsh in its criticism of the submarines, stating that they were "incapable of operating at the level required for military operations".
Among them, HMAS Farncomb does not have a good reputation among Australian submariners. So much so that they renamed it HMAS "Farn-Koursk" [ 
], in reference to the Russian submarine Koursk, lost at sea in August 2000.
], in reference to the Russian submarine Koursk, lost at sea in August 2000.
This bad reputation probably stems from an incident in March 2007, the details of which were revealed five years later. Five crew members were rescued after falling into the water while attempting to repair the vessel's propeller. At the time of the incident, the Sunday Times reported, it was patrolling the area around the island of Hainan, where Chinese submarines are based...
In any case, the HMAS Farncomb has been in the news again, after a fire broke out on board, probably due to an electrical short-circuit. This was reported by ABC News Australia on 26 September.
The incident occurred in August, while the submarine was on a mission. An ABC News source "close to the matter" described it as "worrying", especially as HMAS Farncomb has just entered its twenty-fifth year of service.
"The operations of the six Collins-class submarines are shrouded in secrecy, with Defence refusing to confirm where HMAS Farncomb is currently located or what repairs would be required after her return to Australia," the Australian media outlet said.
However, a spokesman for the Australian Department of Defence confirmed that there had indeed been a "small electrical fire" on board the submarine. "There were no injuries and the submarine continued its operations", he said, before declining to comment further.
Last year, however, HMAS Farncomb was unable to take part in the Rim of the Pacific [RIMPAC] exercise as originally planned, due to a delay during "planned maintenance" carried out in Hawaii. But the specialist press was unable to find out more. "Defence does not comment on current operations except to say that the submarine force is meeting its readiness requirements," was the response from Australia Defence Magazine in September 2022.
More recently, HMAS Farncomb stayed longer than expected in Surabaya [Indonesia] last December. Here again, no explanation was given...
Normally, the Royal Australian Navy would have begun withdrawing its Collins-class submarines from 2026. But with the AUKUS alliance, which is due to result in the delivery of eight nuclear attack submarines [NAS] to Australia as part of a cooperation with the United States and Great Britain, they will have to play the long game... And therefore undergo modernisation as part of the LOTE [Life-of-Type Extension] programme.
"Submarines are dangerous places, and incidents happen all the time. The problem we have to watch out for here is that the Collins class submarines are ageing. And as they get older, their propensity for problems increases and we need to be mindful of that," Rex Patrick, a former submariner turned senator, summed up for ABC. /deepl
--------------
Fortunately, no one was hurt.
London launches detailed design phase for future AUKUS nuclear attack submarines
In September 2021, at a time when Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom had just announced their intention to form a strategic alliance [known as AUKUS], London kicked off the development of a new class of nuclear attack submarines [NAS] by awarding two contracts worth a total of almost €200 million to BAE Systems and Rolls Royce.
At the time, the two companies were carrying out preliminary studies as part of the SSNR (Submersible Ship Nuclear Replacement) programme, while the seven Astute-class SNAs had not yet all been delivered to the Royal Navy (the last, HMS Agincourt, named after the Battle of Azincourt, is due to be delivered in 2026).
"HMS Astute has already been in service for more than a decade and given the complexity of building nuclear submarines - as well as the pace of technological change [...] - preparatory work for the next generation of ANS must begin now," the Royal Navy justified at the time.
Since then, it has been confirmed that the Australian navy will have SNAs from this programme [but with American technologies] in place of the 12 Attack submarines [or Shortfin Barracuda] that Canberra ordered from the French Naval Group before changing its mind after the announcement of the AUKUS pact.
That said, the SSNR programme - now known as SSN-AUKUS - took another step forward on 1 October, with the UK Ministry of Defence [MoD] announcing that it had launched the detailed design phase by awarding three contracts to BAE Systems, Rolls Royce and Babcock.
These "contracts, worth a total of £4 billion [€4.6 billion at current exchange rates], will take the programme forward through the design, prototyping and procurement of the key long-term components for the UK's first submarines", the MoD explained, before insisting that this move would "ensure the stability and resilience" of the "domestic supply chain". It will also "support highly skilled jobs in the UK".
At the same time, the MoD announced that the infrastructure at the Barrow-in-Furness shipyard and the Raynesway site, dedicated to the manufacture of nuclear reactors, would be "developed and expanded" in order to "meet the future submarine construction programme". Although he did not mention it, this also concerns the ambitious Dreadnought project, which aims to replace the four Vanguard nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs).
For the Royal Navy, the aim is to admit the first SSN-AUKUS to active service by the end of the 2030s, thereby beginning to replace the Astute class. The first SNAs for Australia "will follow in the early 2040s″... but only if the Australian Defence Technology and Industrial Base [DTIB] is up and running... since it will be up to the DTIB to build them. In addition, the United States still has to amend its legislation to allow the technology transfers expected by Canberra. But Congress is holding up on this point...
The MoD has not given any details of the characteristics and performance it expects from these SSN-AUKUS, except to say that they will be the "largest, most advanced and most powerful ever operated by the Royal Navy". /deepl
US Navy sub boss reveals new details on AUKUS Virginia class sub sales to Australia
Vice Adm. Bill Houston said the sales of in-service Virginia-class subs will be in 2032, 2035 and a newly produced sub in 2038.
Yes, the only question I have is where China will be in 2038 when Australia will presumably have 3 SSNs if every thing go well.
I think if that happened you'd laugh less than you do now.
US Navy's best kept secret: USS Boise has sat idle since 2017 waiting for shipyard availability. Newport News is scheduled to begin its Engineering Overhaul in 2024.
The americans are a funny bunch..
“Maintenance work on visiting UK and U.S. submarines will see hundreds of Australians employed to provide support and the sheer scale of infrastructure we will need to home port our future submarines, not to mention to host submarines that are visiting or on rotation, will be a boost for our local industry.
“Typically, about 70 percent of these Defence programs are spent on sustainment. That’s potentially tens of billions of dollars which will go into the economy and WA will get its fair share. We don’t even know exactly how many jobs this will eventually create. But it’s safe to say it will be in the thousands.”
“Maintenance work on visiting UK and U.S. submarines will see hundreds of Australians employed to provide support and the sheer scale of infrastructure we will need to home port our future submarines, not to mention to host submarines that are visiting or on rotation, will be a boost for our local industry.
“Typically, about 70 percent of these Defence programs are spent on sustainment. That’s potentially tens of billions of dollars which will go into the economy and WA will get its fair share. We don’t even know exactly how many jobs this will eventually create. But it’s safe to say it will be in the thousands.”
That price will slip..It will be well over 400b in total. the actual sub is the cheap part.