Further to Peter Lang's comment re ASC.

Not only would I not let ASC near another pot of gold, the same can be said of Defence Procurement, or whatever the organisation's current name is.

Under the current management, there is no guarantee that a foreign supplier will deliver the promised outcomes at the promised prices. For example, consider recent experience of blowouts in costs and delivery time for military aircraft, along with inferior capability.

Conventional military approaches to world stability are deeply flawed. Where are the successes? What were the costs? It's time to divert a significant fraction of Australia's and the world's military budgets to alternative pathways to peace, to focus less on the stick and to try something different.

Summarised to one phrase, when it comes to diesel subs "Just say no".

I repeat:all of this debate about the relative merits of diesel and nuclear submarines is totally irrelevant. In at least one basic performance, the "failed" Collins is far superior to the most advanced US nuclear sub- stealth. Diesel subs are able to get much closer to China without detection, and will be built as Australia's contribution to America's containment of China policy. It is merely an extension of marines in Darwin; and this is the reality of relations with Asia, not the idiot White Paper. Leslie

I see little merit in the article.
Self sufficiency, is never ever important, unless or until you actually need it, during a hostile war.
Besides, we now have some expensively acquired home grown expertise, we would simply throw away or send elsewhere, if we bought stuff off the shelf, to save say, two or three million dollars.
Better we fix the structural deficit in our inordinately complex two tiered tax system, rather than reduce defence spending or funding for all or any associated R+D!
And yes, the next generation of submarines will need to be nuclear powered!
Small inherently safe pebble reactors can be built in factories and trucked wherever they are needed, be it a shipyard or a defence base, where independent power supply is critical; but never more so, than under hostile attack!
During and since the second world war, our Subs served us as DEFENSIVE weapons, and intell gathering platforms.
We have invented almost undetectable, small acrylic subs, that literally fly through the water.
Our subs, could carry small fleets of these, remotely controlled, rechargeable Mini-subs?
Which could be tasked amongst a host of multi tasks, with simply coming, undetected, in behind Hostile shipping?
Disabling them with a few well placed, rocket propelled projectiles, that put paid to propellers.
Unable to manoeuvre, said shipping would have few choices, other than capitulation?
Less complex, solid fuel rockets perform surprisingly well under water, and at greater speed than torpedoes, giving shipping less time to take evasive action!
Miniature unmanned subs could also surface to draw sacrificial fire away from an escaping, multi million dollar mother ship!
Miniatures could undertake, shallow water resupply of reconnaissance missions etc; and act as another dozen or more protective or intell gathering eyes and ears, for a larger submarine?
Which would then only ever need to surface in relative safety, when in port?
Of course we need to build and resupply our own nuclear powered subs here.
They are primarily weapons of war, and would be virtually useless, and very costly white elephants, if we couldn't repair, replenish and resupply them right here!
Rhrosty.

You're from South Australia, Rhrosty?

I have been following a debate for the last year or so on this topic between several people who are in US/ Australian/European defense industry i.e. actually know what they are talking about (no offense OLO posters). This specific paper was debated when it originally came out and debunked for inaccuracies on both capabilities and costs. I admit I am no expert on the subject so I will leave it to you to decide, but I should at least point to the major flaws of the arguments presented in both this "advertorial" and the comments above. I will note that I have no preference of any format, rather I just wish evidence and common sense to prevail over politics and ideology.

First, while it is well publicized that the Collins class has had (and continues to have) technical problems, it is actually regarded as one of the stealthiest and potent submarines in the world. This is a fact backed by experts in the field and evidence in "war games" with our boats sinking US carriers on more than one occasion. It is political decisions cutting funding for maintenance that should be criticized. As for the usefulness of submarines as part of a defense of Australia, how do you think any potential force would invade our country? Any strategy would require several carriers to overwhelm our air force, as well as a major sea resupply network. Obviously submarines are the most important component of our defense force.

Second, we do have major problems with the current defense procurement processes, as well as maintenance of crew for the boats (note Virginia class requires many more hands than proposed subs), these all are problems of management of the subs (government) and not of the subs themselves. I completely agree that Australian designed and built subs will be more expensive and involve much more (political) waste than renting (from another wasteful government), however on the national security front, these are the most important assets we own. We should be annoyed that the first generation Collins class had problems, But that means we should demand that the second generation is an improvement! Don't just give up at the first hurdle. It almost makes me ashamed that some Australians have so little faith in our ability to engineer and innovate. Many other countries have gone through this and persevered to succeed.

Third, the author does not discuss other options. On this topic I completely rely on the advice of several Australians I know working in the US sub systems field. It seems like the favored direction is towards a joint development of a conventional large sub with the Japanese, who have very similar requirements as ourselves. Here is a link discussing some of the pros and cons of this approach: http://www.asiapacificdefencereporter.com/articles/270/JAPANESE-FLAVOURED-SUBMARINES-FOR-SEA-1000

The way some other counties develop these major assets makes our method seem quite inefficient. While Australia will build say, 6 submarines over a 10-15 year period, followed by a period of time of (in)decision regarding a replacement, many other countries will have a continuous development line, with sub building spaced out over a longer period of time, but including upgrades/improvements as required. This has the advantage of allowing technical issues to be addressed in future subs, and also avoids the stop/start problems with the local sub building industry, where significant expertise is lost between build periods.