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The Forum > Article Comments > Future submarines > Comments

Future submarines : Comments

By David Leyonhjelm, published 9/1/2018

Surface ships will be quickly destroyed while manned aircraft and ground forces will either be wiped out or not particularly useful.

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Hi VK3AUU

A very good point. To get full value out of nuclear subs (that cost 2 or 3 times more than conventional programs ie. $150 BILLION for Australia) you need:

TWO CHANGEOVER CREWS per submarine, eg.

- the US Virginia class need 2 (Gold and Blue crew) x 135 = 270 crew per sub [1]

- the French Barracuda class need 2 ("Port" and "Starboard") x 60 = 120 crew per sub [2]

Meanwhil Australia has trouble keeping 3 x 58 = 174 fully qualified crew for the 3 available subs of its WHOLE submarine program. [3]

[1] see right sidebar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia-class_submarine

[2] right sidebar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Barracuda-class_submarine

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins-class_submarine

Australia's future submarines will still need around 60 crew per sub due to the lengthy 50+ day missions.

Missions are mentally exhausting, needing 3 or 4 shifts per 24 hour period. Exhaustion/tension will increase as more effective Chinese sensors spread south of the South China Sea.

Regards

Pete
http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/
Posted by plantagenet, Wednesday, 10 January 2018 9:32:24 AM
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Crewing subs would offer much less problems if

1/ They were reasonable boats, with a reasonable record of serviceability.

2/ Were based anywhere but Perth, [or Darwin].

While it may be possible to get sailors to go to Perth, for the crazy high pay deals, it is impossible to get their ladies to go.

Of course it is not just the subs, the navy is having almost as much trouble crewing our 2 Spanish catastrophes, the Canberra Class Amphibious Assault Ships. It is so bad that the navy is facing the prospect of having to mothball one of these billion dollar disasters, to get enough crew to man the other.

Without a number of reservists, serving for 3 months at a time, these ships would not be running at all. These reservists are being chased to go to Perth to do some sub time. As one said, "will the navy pay for the divorce"?

When my son was telling me about the problems keeping Manoora going many years ago, I commented that it was a good thing we had the air force. His reply, "dad they are the ones who keep crashing their choppers into our decks".

Enough said I think.
Posted by Hasbeen, Wednesday, 10 January 2018 11:03:29 AM
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Hi Hasbeen

I think our subs' main monitoring mission area(s) tends them to be based in Perth.

Agree about Darwin. Additional "no Darwin" reasons are:
- Port of Darwin sold (umm "99 year leased") to a Chinese Company
- hydrological conditions (port on average is too shallow, hence reliance on a long vulnerable dredged channel, tides, etc)
- close proximity to a possible future Chinese airbase at Baucau, East Timor (noting land based Japanese WWII bombings of Darwin and Broome forced US subs to be based south at Fremantle-Perth).

Any practice of "reservists" part manning Aussie submarines sounds like the makings of interrupted training/revision to handle the critical immediate actions when 101 peacetime things go wrong with subs. That valve that needed turning or button push sequence forgotten that let in seawater, upsetting buoyancy, sinking the sub.

Not forgetting that ARA San Juan, sunk with all hands late last year, probably due to mistakes that let seawater in, hitting the batteries (then poison gas > fire > explosion/crush depth implosion) see http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/2017/11/argentinian-submarine-san-juan-likely.html

If only poor two way communications with large Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) could be resolved. see http://schmidtocean.org/cruise-log-post/the-many-challenges-of-underwater-communication/

Regards

Pete
Posted by plantagenet, Wednesday, 10 January 2018 1:48:09 PM
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I heard somewhere that they have drones that can operate underwater.

I think that may be a big game changer.
Posted by CHERFUL, Wednesday, 10 January 2018 2:14:43 PM
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It may have escaped the good senators attention that the Chinese have developed a sub sea drone that is capable of detecting a wealth of data and presumably the presence of submarines.
They could carry means to attack these subs or pass the data back to the mainland for action by land based aircraft.
Putting all of our defence eggs in one basket is perhaps not such a good idea.
Australia is in a fortunate position in a case of all out war and would not need any supplies from overseas. This really means that land based aircraft would be quite sufficient to defend mainland Australia, especially if they were not the F35 flying Turkey and opted instead for a better version perhaps from Europe or Russia?
Posted by Robert LePage, Wednesday, 10 January 2018 3:29:20 PM
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Putting all of these innovative ideas together: why not unmanned submarines, operated by computer from anywhere in Australia ? And why not hundreds of miniature submarines, since quarters for crew wouldn't be necessary, except for the proverbial cleaner and his dog ? And yes, why not nuclear-powered ? And obviously Thorium-powered ?

Australia has a vast coast-line, so even a hundred unmanned midget thorium-powered submarines would each have to patrol a hundred miles of coast-line, and much further out to sea. On the plus side, they would need only a few hundred land-based monitoring 'crew' and evaluators, working three standard shifts.

Of course, their unmanned midget submarines could take out ours, and vice versa, but at far less unit cost. Sounds worth the risk.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 10 January 2018 5:00:51 PM
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