SW1 wrote: ↑01 Oct 2023, 18:09
Poiuytrewq wrote: ↑01 Oct 2023, 17:32
new guy wrote: ↑01 Oct 2023, 16:43
first boat starting 2028
So unless Barrow speed up the drumbeat SSN numbers will not increase before the mid to late 2040’s unless Astute extends the OSD beyond 2035.
Otherwise it will be decades before AUKUS starts making a material difference for RN.
If you wanted to increase the submarine fleet to say 16 eg 4 ssbn and 12 ssn then you would need to go to an 18 month drumbeat as reactors have a 25 year life and won’t be refuelled.
You need to make a long term decision to prioritise submarines above all else’s to make it so. Would help if they also prioritised switching the grid to nuclear power as well and widen the people and skills base with it.
The only way the RN will get back to 12 SSN's, is first off, a sustained increase in the defence budget and initially running on the Astutes, so SSNR boat 8 replaces HMS Astute....
Obviously that won't happen, so we will have to run on the later Astutes, boats 4 to 7 and so the first three SSNR boats will replace the the first three Astutes, like for like.
I would love to see a fleet of 12 SSN's, but building back that mass and indeed retaining it, will be an enormously expensive undertaking.
To retain an active fleet of 12 (plus 4 bombers) in the next 40 years, you will need to be able to concurrently design replacements for both the AUKUS SSN and Dreadnought Class and slot both builds in together!!
That's assuming you can build up the Submarine Service back to the point you can man 8 active SSN'S and two active SSBN's, that itself will be extremely difficult, unless you offer far higher levels of pay and an excellent pension, based on shorter service...
The whole undertaking will be 'exquisitely' expensive !!!