Someone asked my opinion of the Australian submarine replacement selection and the following is it. Note, it is very simplistic and leaves out much information for the sake of brevity.
Here is the state of the state. The population of Australia is around 24 million. Around 9 or so million actually work. The last time the federal government had a budget surplus was 2007. Since then, deficit spending and an ever growing federal debit have now crawled into hundreds of billions. Again, see the population above. Canberra thinks: when in doubt, the problem can be solved with more federal spending. No matter how stupid the project is.
This won't end well.
Defence. Back in the days of when the Collins submarine program was launched, the Defence bureaucracy actually had a variety of engineers in leadership roles that were listened to. Even then with Collins, the diesel engine assumptions were based on taking and existing design and adding more cylinders to it to have less motors on the boat. Robust prototyping on that was not done. And the fleet still feels the affect of that today (think of all the stuff that is connected to the motors too). Note that there were a lot of things done right on the Collins (topic for another time). Even with better skilled engineering and project leadership then, the combat system requirement for the boat was a bridge to far. Real-time information sharing requirements for workstations were stressing the computer hardware and software capabilities of the day. All when the warfighter needed much less cosmic ability in this area and of course, needed something quick and reliable. The warfighter was never properly consulted in this matter. Or if they were, there were huge communication gaps. This problem: fielding a workable combat system, took years. There were other problems with the boat design. Some like the combat system eventually got fixed...to an acceptable degree. Others were fixed totally (sensor mast vibration) etc. and again like the motors, baggage to fix and sustain.
Australia started purging those who knew things in Defence and replaced them with generalist managers. This was around the late 1990s to early 2000s. Now you have a bunch of generalist managers in key locations that are unskilled at parsing the language of engineers that know what they are talking about and those who do not.
Then around the middle 2000s that failed experiment known as the Defence Material Organisation could not produce a useful sustainment plan for keeping the Collins fleet (and crews) in the water. Money was not funded to the correct levels and again generalist managers who don't know what they don't know and can't be bothered to learn, didn't help.
The Japanese submarine idea was extreme risk. Those in the government at the time hawking the idea pointed to all the advanced technology, but failed to mention whole portions of it were licensed Euro-tech. More to that but pressing on. Japanese efficient and smart project managers not experienced with exporting this kind of product mated up to a dysfunctional Australian Defence Bureaucracy including many refugees from the failed DMO. Easy right?
Germany and France actually have experience at making boats for foreign customers. Again though, with a federal budget in severe stress and wacky politicians in Canberra that refuse to cut spending on stupid, poorly thought out projects and think everything can be solved with borrowed money to be paid for by our children and grand-children...if it is ever paid off... well...
I suspect it won't be 12 subs, money what it is (in the real world an not some Canberra-more-government-spending-can -fix-anything fantasy) the number of subs built will be way less.
That assumes the unicorn world of the current state of the federal budget planning doesn't collapse under its own weight.
Finally, I have no confidence in the Defence Bureaucracy having a clue of how to deal with anti-submarine threats in the Pacific Rim in the 2020s and beyond.
One would hope these subs have a chance of returning from their first war patrol.
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