Not sure how that actually works, but I think we've all been around long enough to know that defense acquisitions don't always (appear to) make sense, especially when we don't know all the political, diplomatic, bureaucratic, logistical and/or financial considerations in play.
Regardless, I thought the Australian authorities have been flirting with the idea of acquiring F-35Bs for a while now?
Seems like a logical capability to pursue, assuming the requisite resources can be availed, especially considering the direction the RAN appears to be heading towards. If the RAN wants to add six 8,000+ ton "frigates" and SSNs to its fleet, then it sounds like power projection is the goal.
I think we can be reasonably confident that there is no
firm determination on the part of the Coalition that Australia should go in for F-35Bs, for if there were then Peter Dutton would surely have said so, mining the symbolic value of a
to naval fixed-wing aviation for political advantage: the Liberal party stands firm on the storm-swept deck of history, looking steely-eyed into the distance, while feckless Labor can't even keep an eye on Chinese ships in the Tasman Sea, etc. etc.
The
Hunter-class frigates are actually going to be ~10,000 tonne ships (with 32 VLS cells...), with most of the growth over the baseline Type 26 owing to accommodations for the domestic CEAFAR2 radar, the first ship to be delivered some 14 years after the design was selected. It's a ridiculous program, really, which is why the 2023 Defence Strategic Review recommended it be cut from 9 ships to 6 whilst simultaneously discerning a new requirement for eleven Tier 2 frigates.
Of course, if Australia had built 6-8
Hobart-class AWDs instead of cutting the line off at three, and immediately followed that program up with 6-8 more modest Tier 2 frigates (e.g. Mogami, MEKO A-200, FDI), the resulting inventory would've been (a) cheaper (b) delivered in a more timely fashion that better corelates with the evolving strategic environment, whilst having (c) greater levels of domestic industry involvement and (d) better prospects in terms of sustainment and future upgrade programs. For all the rhetoric, the record these past ~15 years has been one of chronic mismanagement, with AUKUS as the spectacular capstone to that ignominious record.
How significant of a savings in terms of manpower did the British SSN proposal offer compare to the American SSN proposal?
From a logistical and training point of view, it might make more sense to build Virginia class derivatives in Australia, if that's what your sailors are already familiar with . . . or is the SSN(R) in fact a derivative of the Virginia class as is?
I haven't encountered any numbers in the public domain, but SSN(R) has been described as an evolution of the
Astute-class boats and the numbers there suggest crew complement roughly two-thirds that of a
Virginia-class SSN. Submarine crewing appears to be quite variable: the Soviets leaned heavily into automation such that some of their SSNs have crew complements more in line with SSKs. There isn't much public visibility into the British submarine programs and industry, beyond the general sense that it is a rather marginal affair. If there is any area of AUKUS that a future Coalition government may seek to revisit, it is probably Labor's decision to favour a British design for that future boat.
Relatedly, the final piece of evidence as to the real nature and intent of AUKUS is former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's disclosure that one of the reasons the French design had been selected for the previous SSK project is that it was
compatible with a future nuclear pathway if that were ultimately to be desired, the
Shortfin Barracuda being largely an SSK-ified
Suffren, and that conversations had been held with Paris, and assurances obtained, in that regard. Notably, the French
Suffren SSNs operate a similar crew complement as our current
Collins-class SSKs, half that of a
Virginia-class submarine. So the decision under Morrison/Dutton was not so much to dump SSKs for SSNs, but Paris for Washington.