Australia to looking at buying/leasing nuclear subs to counter PLAN Subs?

Fascinating story on the front page of the Australian Financial Review today, which you can find here:



Top Coalition leaders want to open the debate over the purchase of nuclear submarines to replace the navy’s diesel fleet, a huge step up in Australia’s military capability in response to China’s plan to become a major maritime power in the Pacific Ocean.

Senior Coalition frontbenchers told The Weekend Financial Review that acquiring or leasing Virginia-class nuclear submarines equipped with conventional weapons, such as cruise missiles, would be supported by the Obama Administration.

Re: Australia to looking at buying/leasing nuclear subs to counter Chinese threat?

collins said:

Fascinating story on the front page of the Australian Financial Review today, which you can find here:

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Top Coalition leaders want to open the debate over the purchase of nuclear submarines to replace the navy’s diesel fleet, a huge step up in Australia’s military capability in response to China’s plan to become a major maritime power in the Pacific Ocean.

Senior Coalition frontbenchers told The Weekend Financial Review that acquiring or leasing Virginia-class nuclear submarines equipped with conventional weapons, such as cruise missiles, would be supported by the Obama Administration.

Click to expand...

i understand that this proposal has serious momentum inside Coalition, which is likely to be elected Australia's next government. but they are worried about the politics, so will only soft-peddle.

it would be a massive game-changer for foreign affairs in the region...interested in comments!

Australia to counter PLAN threat with nuclear subs?

This report just appeared in the Australian Financial Review:



Top Coalition leaders want to open the debate over the purchase of nuclear submarines to replace the navy’s diesel fleet, a huge step up in Australia’s military capability in response to China’s plan to become a major maritime power in the Pacific Ocean.

Senior Coalition frontbenchers told The Weekend Financial Review that acquiring or leasing Virginia-class nuclear submarines equipped with conventional weapons, such as cruise missiles, would be supported by the Obama Administration.

Re: Australia to looking at buying/leasing nuclear subs to counter Chinese threat?

collins said:

Fascinating story on the front page of the Australian Financial Review today, which you can find here:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Top Coalition leaders want to open the debate over the purchase of nuclear submarines to replace the navy’s diesel fleet, a huge step up in Australia’s military capability in response to China’s plan to become a major maritime power in the Pacific Ocean.

Senior Coalition frontbenchers told The Weekend Financial Review that acquiring or leasing Virginia-class nuclear submarines equipped with conventional weapons, such as cruise missiles, would be supported by the Obama Administration.

Click to expand...

Pretty amazing.

Would they be looking exclusively at technology from the US and the Virginia Class? Britian perhaps?

Very interesting. I'd love to see the Aussies deploy 6-8 SSNs.

Nice turn of events. Hope Obi Wan chimes in on this.

Re: Australia to looking at buying/leasing nuclear subs to counter Chinese threat?

There are several factors in this whole proposal that say.. nope.. ain't gonna happen.

1) The RAN has never operated a Nuclear ship of any type.

2) there are zero nuclear trained techs in the RAN.

3) that means that those techs would need to be trained in the US.

4) further training would be need for Virginia class sub-systems. This training would take about two plus years for each enlisted sailor involved. Nuclear power officer training is longer.

5) there are zero shipyards in AUS to upkeep an SSN or any nuclear ship.

6) The ship cost initially $2.3 Billion USD with an operating cost of $50 million USD a year.

In my opinion..not gonna happen.

Re: Australia to counter PLAN threat with nuclear subs?

collins said:

This report just appeared in the Australian Financial Review:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Top Coalition leaders want to open the debate over the purchase of nuclear submarines to replace the navy’s diesel fleet, a huge step up in Australia’s military capability in response to China’s plan to become a major maritime power in the Pacific Ocean.

Senior Coalition frontbenchers told The Weekend Financial Review that acquiring or leasing Virginia-class nuclear submarines equipped with conventional weapons, such as cruise missiles, would be supported by the Obama Administration.

Click to expand...

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Re: Australia to looking at buying/leasing nuclear subs to counter Chinese threat?

bd popeye said:

There are several factors in this whole proposal that say.. nope.. ain't gonna happen.

1) The RAN has never operated a Nuclear ship of any type.

2) there are zero nuclear trained techs in the RAN.

3) that means that those techs would need to be trained in the US.

4) further training would be need for Virginia class sub-systems. This training would take about two plus years for each enlisted sailor involved. Nuclear power officer training is longer.

5) there are zero shipyards in AUS to upkeep an SSN or any nuclear ship.

6) The ship cost initially $2.3 Billion USD with an operating cost of $50 million USD a year.

In my opinion..not gonna happen.

Click to expand...

Let me tell you why it could/will happen:

1/ Strong political support and from defence experts;

2/ Australian submariners currently train and serve on USSNs;

3/ Australia is currently looking to spend $36 billion on 12 conventionals, which does not have strong public support given problems with conventionals so far;

4/ 2-5 years of initial set-up, building and training is actually a short-time compared to the current project;

5/ They would be built in the US. Current Viriginia production could be scaled up further--there is no plan to build them in Australia;

6/ They would be maintained out of Hawaii and US for first 10yrs while a joint US-Australian submarine facility was being built in the west of Australia.

Re: Australia to counter PLAN threat with nuclear subs?

Well thought out..not going to happen. The present US administration is just play lip service to our allies. The Aussies need to wait four more years to run this idea up the flag pole. And the real bottom line is that it is to expensive. Just my opinion.

collins, read the forum rules.

[h=3]FORUM RULES: Things to Remember Before Posting, important, please read![/h]

Re: Australia to looking at buying/leasing nuclear subs to counter Chinese threat?

bd popeye said:

There are several factors in this whole proposal that say.. nope.. ain't gonna happen.

1) The RAN has never operated a Nuclear ship of any type.

2) there are zero nuclear trained techs in the RAN.

3) that means that those techs would need to be trained in the US.

4) further training would be need for Virginia class sub-systems. This training would take about two plus years for each enlisted sailor involved. Nuclear power officer training is longer.

5) there are zero shipyards in AUS to upkeep an SSN or any nuclear ship.

6) The ship cost initially $2.3 Billion USD with an operating cost of $50 million USD a year.

In my opinion..not gonna happen.

Click to expand...

Australia is as secluded as it gets because of its geography and the Chinese and Russians have never ventured anywhere near that continent AFAIK. If they ever do decide to get nuclear subs, some weapons lobbyists must be doing their job right.

Re: Australia to looking at buying/leasing nuclear subs to counter Chinese threat?

Jeff Head said:

Pretty amazing.

Would they be looking exclusively at technology from the US and the Virginia Class? Britian perhaps?

Very interesting. I'd love to see the Aussies deploy 6-8 SSNs.

Nice turn of events. Hope Obi Wan chimes in on this.

Click to expand...

Check out the full story here:



Basically they will look at Virginia and Astute class, but Virginia is favoured. Astute has excellent Thales towed array but otherwise has been beset by problems. Virginia has run very smoothly in comparison.

Fleet size targted at 8 SSNs, with option to go to 12.