Australia I understood is to acquire Tomahawk missiles for its submarines under the AUKUS agreem
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
I know that the announcement was on the AusGov Defence website, but I would still hold off on making that assumption. The (US) DCMA announcement previously issued on approval for the sale of up to 220 RGM-109E Tomahawk missiles did not mention any inclusion of the sub-launched UGM-109 version and so far I have not come across any new/updated DCMA announcement, or related approvals from either State or the Senate authorizing the sale of sub-launched Tomahawks, or the kit which would likely be needed to convert a ship-launched to a sub-launched cruise missile. So at this point not sure if there is another announcement coming out, or if there is something else which we have missed.
TBH from my POV Australia going to the time and expense of changing Tomahawks into sub-launched versions seems like an unwise and unnecessary waste of time and resources.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
IIRC assuming the Australia goes actually gets one or more Virginia-class subs, it, or at least the first of them, would not actually enter Australian service until sometime in 2034 or later, some nine years from now. This in turn would really mean that anything about it announced by Defence, even on the site, would really be more of an idea than a fixed, it-is-going-to-happen type real capability.
I also do not see a reason why Australia would go and purchase sub-launched VLS Tomahawk (the TTL is out of production, so no way to fire Tomahawk from the Collins-class without VLS installed) for a class of vessel that is not expected for nearly a decade. This then leads to it being unlikely for a DCMA announcement yet since it is so far off into the future. The other consideration for this though is that the Defence announcement makes it look like a done deal, that sub-launched Tomahawks will be entering Australian service. I am dubious of this for a few reasons.
The US could, for a variety of reasons, ultimately decide to not authorize sales of sub-launched Tomahawks to Australia. Since we are also talking about a capability which is set for about a decade into the future, it is also distinctly possible that one/both of two other things could occur. Sub-launched Tomahawks could very well be out of production by then, since we are talking about a missile design which originated in the 1970's and first entered service in 1983. There have been a number of improvements in the design of missile bodies since then, so it is also quite possible or even likely, that a newer sub-launched LACM would be entering service with capabilities beyond what Tomahawk can achieve in terms of LO flight profile or something like this.