Can Australia handle its new fleet of nuclear submarines? | Four Corners

We can’t crew them ,we can’t build them, we can’t afford them. The whole idea has got more holes in it than a sunken U Boat.

Since there is AUKUS, maybe the Australian navy should be allowed to lease Los Angeles Class nuclear submarines that is near retirement until their own nuclear subs are ready for delivery.

As an ANZAC from the South Island of New Zealand, it would be great if our big brother Australia had some really good submarines. Some Aussies try to get stuck into us Kiwis over our defense investment, completely ignoring that our total Population isn't as big as Sydney's! New Zealand's Population is just over 5 million compared to our big brother 26,000,000. Anyway NZ has invested in brand new P-8A's, a magnificent aircraft and perfectly designed to patrol our massive Airspace and Oceanic territory. New Zealand works in well with the USA, Australia in the pacific region and our P-8A's will be working in well with our Aussie, US, Japanese, South Korean, Taiwanese and British cobbers! The Fiords at the base of the South Island would be a great place to hide some submarines. Maybe Aussie could have purchased German Subs, they are non nuke, but run on Fuel Cells and are reputed to be the quietest subs in the world, Israel has purchased these subs! OK their range isn't that crash hot in the massive pacific.. Anyway I'm backing our Allies, mates and cobbers!

Canadian here. It's quite interesting that you have a former RCN sub captain commanding one of your Collins boats. Our Victoria-class boats (4) are also aging, so we'll have to see what the next few govts will do to plan the future path for our submarine capabilities. Submarine capabilities are core defense/warfighting competencies, and they must be maintained. Allowing any lapses in these key capabilities would be catastrophic, and extremely expensive to re-establish from scratch. Really, we should also have a nuclear submarine fleet, but previous govts have always balked at the costs involved. We will follow the progress of AUKUS very closely to see if it could suit us in some form.

The fact is our strategic situation has changed, and the nuclear option is a better fit. The whole hysteria in the report on the 'problems with waste and handling of technology' is moot. The SG9 reactors for the Virginia class will be manufactured in the UK or US, and sent here as a module that drops into the sub and doesn't need refueling or replacing for the service life of that sub (33 years).

Paul Keating summed It out well. A waste of resources

Improper to film? With national security potentially compromised? And the ASC officer just took their word.

The war will be over by the time we get any submarines.

Navy has a long and terrible history or mistreating it’s people and platforms. There is no way in hell they will pull off this project. When I was a sailor in our Navy there were more suicides than I can count. The culture of bullying combined with the near complete lack of accountability in the Chain of Command will result in dysfunction and despair at every level. We don’t have the infrastructure or the engineering talent to pull this off. Our government has delusions of grandeur. If we MUST have nuclear subs why not buy them for the Americans? At least they have proven they have the skills, the knowledge and a Navy with a team that works.

If we had of just stuck with the Japanese Soryu, we would have five boats in the water right now.

I think the actual age of the pro submarine deal talking heads should be added to their name when interviewed. That way when every part of this deal lapses we have a data point showing what their individual agenda was with 20/20 hindsight.

worked on these horrible cramped things at ASC for over 6 years. The amount of times they'd need to come in for maintenance was ridiculous. they take filming super serious i remember one dude on site uploaded a selfie taken on board to insta, he got raided by AFP the same day

If WW2 taught Australia anything, it's that it is better to deal with aggressors as far away from your shores as possible. Nuclear boats can reach China and maintain extended patrols off its shore -- conventional boats are far more limited and thus, if there should be a fight, it moves closer to Australia.

It says a nuclear powered sub will take around 6 days to reach taiwan strait from perth as compared to 3 weeks for a colin class. in the first place, why do you need to go there to fight it is not your war (if any) ?

I think a lot of journalists and people for that matter in Australia talk ourselves down too much, and there were a lot of holes based on little facts that officials would not fill, to make it easier for the journalist to absorb, so as usual, the journalist went down the negative track because it was safer for him. Not that he did anything for the Servicemen that are out there trying to protect and safe guard our security, they should be praised for what they do, we need more people doing this job, so how about a bit more praise for what they are doing then please!

Perhaps I am just a stupid man, but why not ask General Electric to build a submarine yard in Australia instead of doing all that? All the US has to do is ship sealed reactor sections, and you are good to go. If the cards are played right, Australia could build Virginia Class subs for the US! God knows we need an additional shipyard.

Just doing some quick napkin maths, if we just went for the French nuclear subs which shouldn't cost more than $5B each we could have about 73 subs for the price of 8... I'm sure there's more than just the subs and facilities to build them that $368B is paying for but I'm not convinced it's worth it. Also those French subs run on low enriched Uranium which would be less of a concern internationally and we could scale up lucas heights or build another facility to supply those subs rather than relying on the US to supply us.

Billions dollar for military budget but minimalism for prevent floods in Australia

27:19 that’s a strange comment given the current Astute is considered, by the Americans, to be a game changer and probably the best SSN in the world. How would the next design be inferior to the Virginia Class? Keep changing your mind you’ll have nothing in 30 years. The British have a bad track record on procurement, but most certainly not on design. Problem is, you’ve at have so far only copied their procurement errors, rather than learned from them. The design will be first class, SSNs don’t come cheap, and the USN and RN know that business well.

Long live AUKUS. God bless Australia