Australia will never be self-sufficient except in stupidity, deserts, and choosing the wrong friends!

Rhrosty, the reason we couldn't man the Collins class subs is because they were pieces of junk, built by a workforce that should have been locked up not paid. From the horses mouth, "no one with half a brain, or a smidgen of mechanical ability would go near one".

As for conscripting the dole bludgers, so many of them are middle eastern Muslims, that we would be training & arming our own fifth column. Not a great idea.

Military self sufficiency when just a quick glance at those Collins subs, & what is going on with the frigates should get that idea out of your head. Hell we had major difficulty just repelling invasion by a few fishing boats until Tony won government.

We even had to use Kanimbla a large slow amphibious warfare ship as a patrol boat a couple of times when our real patrol boats couldn't handle the work load. Do you really think we're equipped to repel a shooting invasion.

We can't even build cars that anyone wants, what chance do you think we have of building engines to drive tanks & ships. Ours & buckle's springs to mind, or about as much chance as those Collins have of getting north of Broom, in one go, under their own steam.

I would ask, what do we actually use a submarine for?
In previous wars they were used to attack mainly merchant ships and deny supply to the UK and Japan for instance.
Who are we going to attack and deny supply to?
I think that a fleet of submarines are an admirals wet dream, close to having an aircraft carrier again.
The only way that we could justify a submarine, is to attack an invading fleet approaching Australia. Aircraft and drones would do this much more efficiently AND cheaper.
While on the subject please could we not buy the totally useless F35 and buy a cheaper option from Russia, China or UK instead.
We do NOT have to do everything the US tells us to.

Hi Robert LePage

Yeah, like, whadda we need armies for, neither?

Yeah, like, whadda we need armies for, neither?
Posted by plantagenet:

Fairly obviously to defend the country but I cannot see how a submarine would come into it?
The point of my previous post is: why do we need weapons of offence unless we are going to invade someone?

Robert, now we no longer have F111s & as we don't have nuclear armed cruise or surface to surface missiles, submarines, if we actually had any that worked, are about the only weapon we would have to even damage, let alone take out an invasion force.

As history should tell you, once an invasion force has landed, it is very hard to stop them, particularly with just the few pop guns we actually have.