Some people are actually starting to overthink this. The exact criteria of the acquisition in an existing boat so its either the Astute or the Virginia, It wont be some shrunken down boat for Australia, It wont be the SSN(X) or SSN(R).
Designing a smaller nuclear boat for Australia means trying to shrink the tech that we could potentially use from the US and UK, it also means even more time spent on the design and reinventing the wheel which will drive up costs and risks which is exactly what they want to avoid,
The SSN(X) and SSN(R) while on paper very solid boats are still just that paper boats which means if anything goes wrong at all and when you and jumping the boundaries that much in an environment which one could argue is the toughest in the world (as they say, easier to build a rocket then a submarine) its very easy for problems to occur and delays add up. Now there might not be any delays potentially but at the same time considering all 3 of us are planning to bring a new class of submarine into service around the same time from it would have Australia with the least skilled workforce building a boat without any lessons learnt from either nation for that particular design.
OT but if the US finds delays in the program potentially popping up they are in a position to order extra Virgins so they are set, the UK on the other hand wouldnt be.
The Virgina and Astute are roughly the same size, Benefits and drawbacks in both both in operations, production and maintenance.
For the Astute having the existing tooling freed up and 20 years of knowledge in building and operating them could be a huge gain, But with the PW2R not in production anymore we would have to see if the S9G would fit in along with the other US systems we use and whats risks/costs it would entail. Having the smaller crew would also make it potentially easier to man all the submarines we are aiming for.
For the Virginia's as the tooling is still in use we would have to start it from scratch with all new tooling, We would also have to see if their boats could be operated with a smaller crew or if it has to stay at 135 persons. We would also have to see if any potential tech we may want from the Astute would safely fit into the Virginia. But having the Virginia's would also give us a solid knowledge base to expand our maintenance and support of them which could flow on into supporting the US pacific and Indian ocean boats in a big way. More scale for us to lower per unit costs benefitting our fleet while for the US having a facility that could fully support their boats would be a big gain for them. Having the bulk of their production and maintenance facilities on the East coast I dont imagine makes it easy for them.
We have 18 months for the 3 of us to review both classes, the tech in them, and what to do to get the most capable boat we can in the timeframe we are working to. Not enough time to work out a new class or the SSN(R)/(X) but enough time to get an idea on existing boats and work from there.
Had politics not delayed the Collins replacement originally launched in 2009 we could potentially have already been building the replacements.. And if that had been the case I would have been all for skipping the Virginia and Astute and looking at their future replacements as that would fit in with such a time line but we didnt so we cant.
