Shipbuilding woes and tired submarines — why there's more talk of an AUKUS 'plan B'
Scathing Audit of Collins Submarine Program, upended by AUKUS
Total disaster..........................The US is going to walk away from Ukraine and Taiwan best we get out ASAP.
Regards,
Scathing Audit of Collins Submarine Program, upended by AUKUS
Total disaster..........................The US is going to walk away from Ukraine and Taiwan best we get out ASAP.
Regards,
This sounds like a bigger issue than it is to me. The Connecticut suffered a bad collision, took time to repair and will be retired in 2031. After being retired in 2031, Columbia will have been in service for over 30 years.
What exactly are they supposed to do? The ship will be over 30 years old by the time it retires. That doesn’t sound unusual to me.
The US will have fully moved to Virginia Block V production and the Columbia class will be entering service around this period.
A replacement for Seawolf class will likely be in the early 2040s.
Lethe
Captain
It's perhaps to be expected that, for a politician-turned-diplomat, everything comes back to messaging and relationships. And of course, to a large extent Hockey is right: Washington's decision to supply Virginia-class submarines to Australia, or not to supply them, is a political one. The "facts on the ground" can inform those decisions, but do not determine them. That the United States may engage in an act of willful self-harm on behalf of Australia is a live possibility.
But those who value Australia's relationship with the United States should perhaps consider that pressing the Americans to part with submarines that they can ill-afford to part with, even or perhaps especially if we are successful in that endeavour, is unlikely to endear us to at least certain aspects of the American security establishment. To be sure, Washington should never have offered to sell us Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s; but equally, we should never have accepted their proposal to do so, in part because we should have recognised the challenges confronting the American submarine inventory and industrial base over the relevant timeframe.
I haven't listened to Hockey's for the full context, but to say that "the risk has increased" after "a few conversations on the Hill" juxtaposes curiously with recent ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd's emphatic on that subject. Rudd has been closer to the subject more recently, but Hockey's professed nervousness is clearly informed by conversations more recent than his own pre-AUKUS ambassadorship.
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Lethe
Captain
Michael Shoebridge offers on the Australian National Audit Office's recent of the recently de-scoped Collins Life-Of-Type Extension (LOTE) program.
My impression is that, in narrow terms, we've ended up in a fairly sensible place, in that the de-scoped LOTE, which is now basically just another round of Full Cycle Dockings, reflects what we can actually achieve within the timeframe we have to achieve it and at a manageable level of risk. In that sense it fits the classic canard of arriving at the right answer only after exhausting all other possibilities.
That, however, is but the narrow perspective. One broader cause for concern is that reduced ambitions for the Collins LOTE necessarily increases the pressure on both the Virginia transfers (including SRF-West and other aspects of the readiness to receive them side of that particular equation) and SSN-AUKUS to hold to schedule -- both items that are plausibly in doubt.
Most alarming is the shambolic process by which we got here, as outlined by ANAO and rendered more colourfully by Shoebridge at the links above. Some of that predates AUKUS but much of it does not and there is certainly continuity between some of the ministers, defence officials and institutions that oversaw that process and those that are currently overseeing the execution of AUKUS. To say that this does not inspire confidence is an understatement.
My impression is that, in narrow terms, we've ended up in a fairly sensible place, in that the de-scoped LOTE, which is now basically just another round of Full Cycle Dockings, reflects what we can actually achieve within the timeframe we have to achieve it and at a manageable level of risk. In that sense it fits the classic canard of arriving at the right answer only after exhausting all other possibilities.
That, however, is but the narrow perspective. One broader cause for concern is that reduced ambitions for the Collins LOTE necessarily increases the pressure on both the Virginia transfers (including SRF-West and other aspects of the readiness to receive them side of that particular equation) and SSN-AUKUS to hold to schedule -- both items that are plausibly in doubt.
Most alarming is the shambolic process by which we got here, as outlined by ANAO and rendered more colourfully by Shoebridge at the links above. Some of that predates AUKUS but much of it does not and there is certainly continuity between some of the ministers, defence officials and institutions that oversaw that process and those that are currently overseeing the execution of AUKUS. To say that this does not inspire confidence is an understatement.
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Lethe
Captain
The above-linked ANAO report makes for confronting reading for those inclined to the view that the adults in the room know what they are doing and that we should therefore have confidence in their judgements and public pronouncements about e.g. the deliverability of AUKUS. The single most astonishing takeaway is that the now discarded "full Collins LOTE" that was conceived and justified in part as de-risking and generating efficiencies with the Attack-class program through use of common equipment was not comprehensively re-examined after the Attack-class program was cancelled and those envisioned synergies evaporated:
One question that the ANAO report doesn't directly address is if the "full Collins LOTE" actually ever made sense, i.e. even before the Attack-class was cancelled. Nonetheless, there are clues:
Italics mine. I suspect that this was always a fool's errand, particularly insofar as it was tied to a 2-year schedule in order to maintain availability. Have we even seen comparable replacement of major equipment in built submarines elsewhere around the world? Outside of post-Soviet Russia?
The obvious question that presents is just why, beyond institutional dysfunction and the sunk cost fallacy, Defence doggedly pursued the "full Collins LOTE" up until late 2025, rather than accepting the more modest "sustainment" path that the facts on the ground have now dictated. One answer is clearly because that sustainment path also entails considerable risks. I suspect that a second answer is because Defence is not nearly as confident in the Virginia and SSN-AUKUS schedules as public pronouncements would suggest.
After all, if Australia is to receive three Virginia-class SSNs by 2038, it's not entirely clear why we would need to retain five Collins-class boats at that point (assuming HMAS Farncomb retires in 2038 as scheduled, followed by HMAS Collins in 2040). If SSN-AUKUS also holds to schedule and delivers its first (Australian) boat in 2042, the notion that the RAN is going to operate three types of submarine in the mid-2040s (with the last two Collins boats, HMAS Sheean and HMAS Rankin, retiring in 2046 and 2048 respectively) also stretches credulity. Clearly, the notional future Collins pathway is intended to mitigate risks elsewhere in AUKUS, and the "full LOTE" was an attempt to maintain Collins as a credible capability for as long as possible.
That preferred pathway has now been acknowledged to be unachievable. The de-scoped sustainment pathway may be more deliverable, but it adds additional medium-term risk to the prospect of sustaining our submarine capability, and places greater pressure on the Virginia and SSN-AUKUS pillars to hold to schedule. The ANAO writes that government failed to appreciate the extent to which the full Collins LOTE, as originally conceived, de-risked the Attack-class procurement at the cost of transferring those risks to the LOTE. Insofar as the sustainment of an Australian submarine capability is concerned, the AUKUS "Optimal Pathway" entails three interdependent elements, each of which entails considerable risk. Odds are that there will be more entertaining hijinks to come.
One question that the ANAO report doesn't directly address is if the "full Collins LOTE" actually ever made sense, i.e. even before the Attack-class was cancelled. Nonetheless, there are clues:
Italics mine. I suspect that this was always a fool's errand, particularly insofar as it was tied to a 2-year schedule in order to maintain availability. Have we even seen comparable replacement of major equipment in built submarines elsewhere around the world? Outside of post-Soviet Russia?
The obvious question that presents is just why, beyond institutional dysfunction and the sunk cost fallacy, Defence doggedly pursued the "full Collins LOTE" up until late 2025, rather than accepting the more modest "sustainment" path that the facts on the ground have now dictated. One answer is clearly because that sustainment path also entails considerable risks. I suspect that a second answer is because Defence is not nearly as confident in the Virginia and SSN-AUKUS schedules as public pronouncements would suggest.
After all, if Australia is to receive three Virginia-class SSNs by 2038, it's not entirely clear why we would need to retain five Collins-class boats at that point (assuming HMAS Farncomb retires in 2038 as scheduled, followed by HMAS Collins in 2040). If SSN-AUKUS also holds to schedule and delivers its first (Australian) boat in 2042, the notion that the RAN is going to operate three types of submarine in the mid-2040s (with the last two Collins boats, HMAS Sheean and HMAS Rankin, retiring in 2046 and 2048 respectively) also stretches credulity. Clearly, the notional future Collins pathway is intended to mitigate risks elsewhere in AUKUS, and the "full LOTE" was an attempt to maintain Collins as a credible capability for as long as possible.
That preferred pathway has now been acknowledged to be unachievable. The de-scoped sustainment pathway may be more deliverable, but it adds additional medium-term risk to the prospect of sustaining our submarine capability, and places greater pressure on the Virginia and SSN-AUKUS pillars to hold to schedule. The ANAO writes that government failed to appreciate the extent to which the full Collins LOTE, as originally conceived, de-risked the Attack-class procurement at the cost of transferring those risks to the LOTE. Insofar as the sustainment of an Australian submarine capability is concerned, the AUKUS "Optimal Pathway" entails three interdependent elements, each of which entails considerable risk. Odds are that there will be more entertaining hijinks to come.
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Lethe
Captain
This development likely occurs in the context of an imminent new Multi-Year Procurement contract for future Virginia-class submarines to be delivered beyond the mid-2030s. Australia wants non-VPM boats, but America is now building only VPM boats. The notional new boat that we were to receive in 2038 was supported by notional transition of American production to non-VPM-equipped Block VII. USN may have decided to order more VPM boats such that there will now be no new non-VPM boats available in the relevant timeframe. Alternatively, the schedule for execution of VPM-equipped Block V/VI boats currently under contract and in production may have blown out further.