Australia’s Barracuda attack subs coming into view

Posted By : Telegraf
12 Min Read

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SYDNEY – The Australian government is driving past the last off-ramp to its controversial A$90 billion (US$69.1 billion) deal to build 12 large conventional submarines at a local yard after assurances made by the designer, Naval Group of France, about work for Australian contractors.

At the same time, calls are growing louder in defense circles for some of the later submarines in the program to be nuclear-powered, in order to reduce the transit times in patrolling the ocean reaches around Australia and to better reach potential conflict zones in Northeast and Southeast Asia.

A three-week visit last month by Naval Group’s global chief executive, Pierre-Eric Pommellet, appears to have headed off an implicit threat by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to scrap the deal and look for another design.

Early this year, Morrison appointed the Australian Defense Force joint capabilities chief, Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, and submarine expert Phillip Stanford, a former navy officer, to look at alternatives to the French design as well as ways of extending the life of the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) six existing Collins-class submarines.

The oldest of the 3,200-tonne Collins-class boats is due to end its service life in 2026, eight years before the first of the new French-design becomes operational, and others will follow at intervals out to 2055, leading to a “capability gap” in Australian defenses.

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