In relation to the initial budget of 50 billion Australian dollars, the estimated cost was constantly increasing. Before the start of production, it had reached the amount of 90 billion Australian dollars. At the same time, the cost of using the submarines was increasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, we should take into account that 90% of the production should be done in Australia, in order to support the domestic shipbuilding industry and create thousands of long-term jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The percentage of 90% had now reached 50% with a great impossibility to implement this percentage. \u03a4he delay in the whole program forced the Australian Government to upgrade its existing Collins-type submarines at a new cost. \u03a4herefore, according to the above remarks, reasonable questions are raised for the new order of nuclear-powered submarines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The issues with nuclear-powered submarines<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1<\/strong>. There are only two options available for the new order, the US Virginia-class offensive submarines and the British Astute-class attack submarines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which of the two will Australia choose? But whichever one chooses, the cost, configuration and adjustment must be negotiated accordingly, taking into account the required changes that Australia will request. It is a time consuming and multi-year process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2<\/strong>. The second question, if the first one is answered in detail, is in which yards will the Australian submarines be built? The Virginia submarine class is produced at only two US shipyards in Huntington Ingalls at Newport News in Virginia and at General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, since the US Navy wants to build two to three submarines of this class each year, these shipyards are closed for several years. The same goes for British Astute-class submarines, which are only produced at BAE shipyards in the South West of England, with two more submarines to be built by 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With these schedules it will be very difficult to find a production site for Australian submarines. Direct construction time at US or British shipyards will be approximately three years (plus test time) for each submarine, if construction is decided to be in the US or UK. But if additional changes are requested from Australia the time will increase even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3<\/strong>. The price of a nuclear-powered submarine of the Virginia class is close to 3.5 billion US dollars. The corresponding cost for the British Astute is 3 billion US dollars. These prices are not for the construction of a single submarine but for mass production, state order, and since there is already existing infrastructure for this production. If local infrastructure is built in Australia for both the construction and maintenance of submarines, the cost of this integration will further increase the price of submarines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In our view, an adventure is beginning for Australia with unknown time and height in investment requirements, which will spark intense political controversy. Australia to make the most of this huge investment and ensure its national security will have to choose the fourth option presented below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4<\/strong>. But if Australia insists and must insist that its nuclear-powered submarines be built in Australia then the issue is even more difficult. Nuclear-powered submarines have a displacement of 7000 tons. Australia does not have infrastructure for such submarines. The French Shorfin Barracuda submarines were 4000 tonnes displaced and could not be built in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only way for Australia not to find itself at a dead end for the domestic construction of its nuclear-powered submarines is to make huge investments immediately, borrowing know-how from the US and Britain. \u03a4his is the only rational choice that will ensure Australia’s National Security for decades (please read the analysis entitled “What The Term National Security Means?”<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, both the US and the UK will have to temporarily grant their own nuclear-powered submarines to Australia until it builds its own. Of course, these solution pose a great political risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is very likely that Australia’s new choice of nuclear-powered submarines, American or British, will repeat a new cycle of deadlocks. \u0399n this analysis,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[822,390],"tags":[2949,404,2198,2948],"class_list":["post-6225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-politics","tag-astute-class","tag-australia","tag-submarine","tag-virginia-clas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6225"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6232,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions\/6232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-4.png\")