This month, the first three RAN officers graduated from the USN’s Nuclear Power School in South Carolina and will continue their training on exchange postings at sea. At least by 2026, the 7th Astute class boat HMS Agincourt will finally be in service and Devonport will have another nuclear-qualified dry dock, offering a slight uplift in submarine availability, provided the service can maintain its manpower strength.įrom this year a growing number of Australian naval and civilian personnel will embed with the RN and USN to learn how to maintain and operate nuclear power plants. Sending a boat to the Pacific is a major statement by the UK, taking one of its precious and most potent naval assets away from the home theatre. CDS told the Defence Select Committee on 5th July that one Astute boat will be idle alongside, pending maintenance for some time, “because we do not have a dock available in Plymouth”.Ĭommitments in the Euro-Atlantic region such as protection of the deterrent boat and monitoring Russian activities already stretch this tiny force. Infrastructure issues are also hampering submarine availability. The RN cannot commit to regular visits until 2026 simply because it currently has just 6 SSNs in commission and can only manage to field 2 or 3 boats at most. The first step on a phased pathway will be an increase of visits by US Virginia class boats to Australia, starting in 2024. The joint steering group from the 3 nations has for now at least, produced a credible initial plan, adopting the crawl-walk-run approach to building up Australian capability almost from scratch. Providing Australia with nuclear submarines will be a multi-decade tri-national endeavour and will inevitably be influenced by, as yet unforseen economic, political and geostrategic changes that may occur over its lifetime. Since the formal announcement in March that Australia would partner with the RN to design and build a new class of SSNs, further details have emerged about how the AUKUS submarine programme will be structured.
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