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Buy a couple new astutes or some surplus-ish 688 flight III's from the UK or US to hold the line while the infrastructure for building nuclear boats is built up.
They're going to LoTE Collins. In the mean time every option is on the table. It's a speculators dream. Including lease. Watching the thought process on defence boards is bloody interesting. Also conspicuously absent is those with the knowledge - and bonafides not commenting.
I'll be buying the book if there's a chapter on the last couple of weeks.
You can stretch the COLLINs into the 2050s if you want to. Reduce operational tempo being an option. And here's the kicker, after the SSNs come online the best option for Australia is to sell the COLLINs to another country, much like Canada's UPHOLDER/VICTORIA subs from the UK. The subs themselves would be barely worth above scrap metal prices but there is at least half a $bil to be made in maintenance and training contracts to the new buyers, meaning there is life for the COLLINs after Australia.
I'm trying to wrap my head around this buy. For deterrence to work, any military option has to be visible and viable. There is absolutely zero doubt how viable these SSNs are. There is also absolutely zero doubt how invisible these SSNs are, meaning they're not meant to deter Chinese peacetime antics. A single Australian destroyer sitting 12 miles off a Chinese sandcastle would do wonders more than all 12 boats underwater. And you don't want those SSNs to surface. That would give hints to the Chinese where and what they're doing wrong.
I absoltely understand the need for subs but I'm questioning outloud what does SSNs give Australia that SSPs won't. Longer range, sure. But the main role for SSNs is to kill other subs and there is nothing in the China Naval inventory that could surive contact with Western SSPs and SSKs. I mean take a look at the YUAN Class. Even a land dwelling latrine digger like me can see that the Chinese knows squat about being quiet under water.
SSNs looks a hell of a lot like a solution looking for a problem. I am never uncomfortable with overkill but not if I have to pay through the nose for it. (I once toyed with the idea of using .357Mag H&H for moose ... until I saw the price tag per round). The cost of decomissioning adds zero to any defence efforts and would hobble Australain defence dollars for years/decade to come. Is this worth the price of SSNs during its life service against the Chinese? Keep in mind the Chinese are nowhere close to the Soviet Navy of old now or the forseeable future and we, Canada and Australia, hounded those to hell and back without SSNs.
Here is a pretty decent analysis of the conundrum facing Europe. If the EU want to be relevant in the Indo-Pacific, where the US is major force countering China, they need to decide if they want to take a hard power route or not.
Originally posted by Officer of EngineersView Post
I'm trying to wrap my head around this buy. For deterrence to work, any military option has to be visible and viable. There is absolutely zero doubt how viable these SSNs are. There is also absolutely zero doubt how invisible these SSNs are, meaning they're not meant to deter Chinese peacetime antics. A single Australian destroyer sitting 12 miles off a Chinese sandcastle would do wonders more than all 12 boats underwater. And you don't want those SSNs to surface. That would give hints to the Chinese where and what they're doing wrong.
I absoltely understand the need for subs but I'm questioning outloud what does SSNs give Australia that SSPs won't. Longer range, sure. But the main role for SSNs is to kill other subs and there is nothing in the China Naval inventory that could surive contact with Western SSPs and SSKs. I mean take a look at the YUAN Class. Even a land dwelling latrine digger like me can see that the Chinese knows squat about being quiet under water.
SSNs looks a hell of a lot like a solution looking for a problem. I am never uncomfortable with overkill but not if I have to pay through the nose for it. (I once toyed with the idea of using .357Mag H&H for moose ... until I saw the price tag per round). The cost of decomissioning adds zero to any defence efforts and would hobble Australain defence dollars for years/decade to come. Is this worth the price of SSNs during its life service against the Chinese? Keep in mind the Chinese are nowhere close to the Soviet Navy of old now or the forseeable future and we, Canada and Australia, hounded those to hell and back without SSNs.
RAN subs to the South, the IN to the West, JMSFD to the Northwest form the contours of a box ringing China in. The US forms the East of the box and the punch able to operate in close to the Chinese mainland with cruise missile strikes. All 4 navies together, allied or not add up numbers than the PLAN has to account for in any war plans. China can out build anyone, she cannot out build everyone. She faces being as strategically boxed in as the HSF in 1915.
RAN subs to the South, the IN to the West, JMSFD to the Northwest form the contours of a box ringing China in. The US forms the East of the box and the punch able to operate in close to the Chinese mainland with cruise missile strikes. All 4 navies together, allied or not add up numbers than the PLAN has to account for in any war plans. China can out build anyone, she cannot out build everyone. She faces being as strategically boxed in as the HSF in 1915.
None of this explains the want for Australian SSNs. Canadian and Australian SSKs made life miserable for the Soviet Navy. Australian SSPs is more than enough to scare the Chinese to stay in their home waters.
Here is a pretty decent analysis of the conundrum facing Europe. If the EU want to be relevant in the Indo-Pacific, where the US is major force countering China, they need to decide if they want to take a hard power route or not.
The mistake here is to assume that the EU is a bloc. It is not. French world wide naval requirements do not take into counter German nor any other European country's desires. You're not going to see an Italian carrier doing a French patrol.
Do SSNs have a a greater longevity & lower life cycle costs over a SSK/SSP?
Fueling certainly is a cheaper concern.
And are they actually less complex...makes maintenance cheaper as well.
Again, I come at this as a failed Infantry guy who went Acquisition logistician...but this is how my brain is wired.
Six of one, half dozen of the others but Australia and Canada can swallow smaller upgrades every 3-4 years than one big one. Using USS SOUTH DAKATA as the example. It's a $1bil upgrade. That kind of money will never pass Parliment wheras a $200mil battery change (and sneaking in a few systems here and there) would.
Originally posted by Officer of EngineersView Post
I'm trying to wrap my head around this buy. For deterrence to work, any military option has to be visible and viable. There is absolutely zero doubt how viable these SSNs are. There is also absolutely zero doubt how invisible these SSNs are, meaning they're not meant to deter Chinese peacetime antics. A single Australian destroyer sitting 12 miles off a Chinese sandcastle would do wonders more than all 12 boats underwater. And you don't want those SSNs to surface. That would give hints to the Chinese where and what they're doing wrong.
I absoltely understand the need for subs but I'm questioning outloud what does SSNs give Australia that SSPs won't. Longer range, sure. But the main role for SSNs is to kill other subs and there is nothing in the China Naval inventory that could surive contact with Western SSPs and SSKs. I mean take a look at the YUAN Class. Even a land dwelling latrine digger like me can see that the Chinese knows squat about being quiet under water.
SSNs looks a hell of a lot like a solution looking for a problem. I am never uncomfortable with overkill but not if I have to pay through the nose for it. (I once toyed with the idea of using .357Mag H&H for moose ... until I saw the price tag per round). The cost of decomissioning adds zero to any defence efforts and would hobble Australain defence dollars for years/decade to come. Is this worth the price of SSNs during its life service against the Chinese? Keep in mind the Chinese are nowhere close to the Soviet Navy of old now or the foreseeable future and we, Canada and Australia, hounded those to hell and back without SSNs.
Without access to the cabinet papers or highly classified defense documents (which probably won't get marked for public release until after we're all dead) its hard to say for certain what the thinking process was behind the decision was to go with the original French design. That said, from my reading going way back to when the Australian government was first in the process of selecting a bidder our new subs and on through to the selection of the French I 'think' the decision was as you noted ultimately guided by the 'range' issue. (Anyway what follows is my own purely uniformed civilian opinion BTW).
Australia's defense strategy since Federation has revolved around the concept of deterring potential threats before they get close to the mainland. We've never had the manpower or budget to build a credible land based deterrent against invasion or attack. To much ground to cover, to few people. That was the thinking during WW11 where Singapore was supposed to be the bastion that deterred further southern expansion by Japan and all the events of the Pacific War only reinforced the idea that we had to deter threats at a distance. So since the end of the that war 'force projection' has always been the job of our Navy and/or Air force. First it was carriers, which we decided were too expensive to replace when they wore out. Then it was the F111 which gave us a strike aircraft capable of hitting targets anywhere in SEA including the Chinese mainland! I think outside of the US we were the only nation that deployed them and their range was the reason! Then they wore out.
Until China started to reveal its true colors I think both sides of the politics (and the DoD) were more or less content to 'make do' with air and seas systems we had in place. That all started to change the last couple of decades. We've acquiring JSSM (ER) cruise missiles for our air force and they're apparently going to be the centerpiece of our air strike arsenal for some time to come. Yes we're getting F-35s and yes they and the F-18 can both carry the JSSM but they are most definitely NOT in the F-111s class when it comes to range and payload! And again although we have and are acquiring modern DDG and FFGs which can project force they are risky assets to deploy in confined waters against a continental power. (For that matter I doubt the US Navy would look fondly at the idea of contesting enclosed waters with large vessels.) And we don't have many.
Which brings us back to submarines. I believe the SSNs we are acquiring will have the Virginia class Block 4 extensions (or similar) making them 'mini' SSGNs and cruise missile capable. We needed a platform that had long legs, is hard to detect, can carry a diverse range of strike packages and still have some chance of surviving and withdrawing when facing a large well equipped adversary i.e. subs. The Collins class was already larger than any currently available potential replacement SSK like for example the Sōryū class and any sub we purchased as a replacement was going to have to be heavily modified to meet our needs. Nominally at least the french proposal could have given us something close to what we wanted. But it was unproven and the longer it want on the riskier it started to look. This deal at least gives us access to classes in ongoing production equipped with proven tech.
So that's how I think that's how the reasoning goes. By its my uniformed, amateur opinion. So as always happy to be corrected.
If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.
If you're going to the SSGN route (and I don't even want to touch the NPT headaches that comes with that), then it makes even less sense to go SSN. You let the missile do the sneaking in rather than try to sneak the sub in yourself. Hell, during the Iraq War, even surface ships were launching cruise missiles.
Sir, SSN/SSGN (all new nuclear attack subs are functionally SSGN/ SSN(G) can do high speed transits to get on station. Conventionally powered boats can't without creaming thier range. As most economical speed the trip from Perth to Manila is half the Collins class fuel. In a highspeed run it will be a lot more than that. In a nuke boat that's not an issue, plus they are faster.
A nuke boat can do an easy 20kt from Perth to Manila in 6 days.5 days if they do 30kt. No non-nuke boat can do that.
Sir, SSN/SSGN (all new nuclear attack subs are functionally SSGN/ SSN(G) can do high speed transits to get on station. Conventionally powered boats can't without creaming thier range. As most economical speed the trip from Perth to Manila is half the Collins class fuel. In a highspeed run it will be a lot more than that. In a nuke boat that's not an issue, plus they are faster.
No, they're not. Not unless you want to ring every bell on a Chinese sonar.
A nuke boat can do an easy 20kt from Perth to Manila in 6 days.5 days if they do 30kt. No non-nuke boat can do that.
30 knots is the homing beacon for an incoming torpedo. If you require stealth, both SSP and SSN are restricted to the same speeds (4 knots). If stealth is not required, send a destroyer.
Originally posted by Officer of EngineersView Post
If you're going to the SSGN route (and I don't even want to touch the NPT headaches that comes with that), then it makes even less sense to go SSN. You let the missile do the sneaking in rather than try to sneak the sub in yourself. Hell, during the Iraq War, even surface ships were launching cruise missiles.
In a blue water engagement no problem perhaps, plenty of room to maneuver and lots off standoff space. The US, Canada and (to a lesser extent) Europe largely have blue water approaches (or perhaps I should say they're chief opponent only has a few, very narrow bottlenecks it can approach them through). Albeit both Canada and the US also have the complexities of dealing with Arctic approach routes as well. Australia? We have the worlds largest island chain to our north, exactly the direction any threat is most likely to come from.
I imagine the subs missiles will be doing most of the sneaking anyway once launched. But the point is watching all those choke points for approaching surface threats isn't going to help against subs so that means we can get much closer and therefore launch much deeper into any (unnamed) country that might be threatening us than we could using surface vessels. So I think its a case of maximizing the potential threat you get for your dollars your spending. (Bang for bucks).
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