Not enough subs to do what?

(Best buddies. So what's the big deal? Australian PM Abbott
and Russia's Putin a few days ago.)


Which goes back to what I have stated in the past. Instead of going for a handful of gold-plated replacements for the Collins-class, best to have higher number of smaller, affordable subs. How many German 214s could we buy with $20B? How many French subs?


Russian ships expose failings of Australian submarine operations

Australia was unable to send a submarine to monitor a fleet of Russian warships in the Coral Sea during the G20 meeting because all of its available boats were on the other side of the country.

The predicament robbed the navy of a chance to gather valuable intelligence against the Russian flotilla and will increase pressure on the federal government to consider a new submarine base on the east coast in the forthcoming defence white paper.

It also meant the navy could not ascertain for certain whether a Russian nuclear submarine was accompanying the four Russian ships as they sailed off northern Australia in a show of force designed to coincide with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Brisbane for the G20 meeting.

So in any event, the Australian public generously hand over billions for Defence--last budget $29B. For a population of around 24 million. Where the workforce is much smaller.

All. For what?

The submarine HMAS Rankin was in transit from Albany in Western Australia to Hobart, where it arrived this week, while the navy’s two other operational submarines were conducting work-up trials in the waters off Perth, thousands of kilometres from the Russian flotilla.

The remaining three submarines in the fleet were in various stages of maintenance in Adelaide and Perth. US warships also monitored the Russian flotilla near Japan as it headed south towards Australia.

Sources say an Australian submarine could have been sent to monitor the Russians if there had been a submarine base on the east coast — an option which has been examined by navy but not adopted by the government. The 2012 Force Posture Review written by former defence secretaries Ric Smith and Allan Hawke said the navy was studying options for an east coast submarine base to supplement Fleet Base West near Fremantle in Western Australia where all six Collins-class submarines are now based.

The current DM said that 12 probably would not be the replacement number for the Collins. 6? Maybe. And then...the exact same problem mentioned above.


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Stop the nonsense

What is available at a reasonable cost and schedule?
Spanish Sub: weight, design problems. Swedish Sub: Industry uncertain. Japanese Sub: configuration significantly uncertain. German Sub: stable design / production. French Sub: stable design / production (Scorpène-class submarine)

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