Thanks ttbn for the thread. We obviously need advanced and effective defensive weapons if we want to defend Australia from an enemy 50x our size. It sounds like the government and the bureaucracy hasn't negotiated properly with either AUKUS or France, at this point the Australian people just need to get the government to spend the money.

I suppose that is what happens when the national capital has such a high proportion of Greens voters relative to other parts of Australia. It seems to be a conspiracy of culture. Canberra probably needs to sponsor more industry so that it is less ideologically driven. The bureaucracy seems to be purposely undermining Australia's effectiveness when it doesn't agree with it.

We certainly need other weapons as well as the submarines.

Strategic Analysis Australia points to:

. B-21 Raider Stealth bombers
. 16,000 more US marines in NT
. Military exercises with Japan
. Stronger intelligence and defence pact with India
. Permanent ADF presence in Cocos and Christmas Islands

Not to mention drones and missiles.

Our defence budget should probably be 3% of GDP.

Cut out the Old Aged Welfare and go shopping with the above list from an "expert". Our resident Captain Mainwaring who I would presume has zero military experience can man the battlements. The Old Fart's a classic.

Ah, well done mhaze;
"We need to be in the western alliance and the subs are our contribution to that defence along with other items like medium range missiles."

So your saying if America's 'The Lone Ranger';
We need to be their 'Tonto' in whatever warmongering escapades they wish to engage in?

You want us to be the piss-boy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGfXiIXTpE0
- Well, I can appreciate honesty.

So it's not really about OUR defence at all?
- But doing our bit for an upcoming Western attack that will screw our country entirely, because the USA wants to retain it's Unipolar world order, and it's Rules based order (Rules for us, not you) and have dominion over the nations it hasn't yet conquered (Russia and China, and to a lesser degree Iran and Nth Korea) rather than a multipolar world order where all countries are treated with respect decency and dignity.

You want World Government. Ok.

Your response works for me, but what I actually wanted was the specific capabilities these things bring for 'Australia's' defense.
But it isn't for Australia's defense at all really, is it?

If America wants to go to war with China, why can't they keep their subs and put their own people in them?

Why can't we be more like India and have a non-aligned foreign policy, instead off the piss-boy foreign policy?
Why can't we focus on our own interests like 'Unity in self sufficiency' and not pick sides in this foolish escapade?

I care more about my cheap Chinese imports than I do about U.S. paper bills with dollar signs on them.
What have you purchased from USA recently, do tell?
I'd like to know just exactly what we're actually fighting for.

- Feel free to lay out the pro's and con's of this future debacle -

I say it's a fools errand with no pro's whatsoever, only con's.
What's more I don't think the collective West can win.

How China’s $100B+ Shipbuilding Empire Dominates the U.S.’s | WSJ U.S. vs. China
http://youtu.be/tRVVXDyg3RY

'China has over 200 times the ship building capacity than the US'

OK, I'll go along with it under one condition, you have to name one of the subs 'Piss-boy'.

So I've been away from this site for a while, mainly because I just got tried of reading the same repeated junk opinions of many people here. And I come back and like wow! AC has actually written something that's not just pure rubbish. He is right to question a sub's purpose and to say that they not needed.

A submarine can mainly do two aggressive things: 1) Fire torpedoes, and 2) Fire missiles and do it stealthily- although with modern surveillance/detection equipment they're probably not that untraceable.
But but being able to fire torpedoes is an obsolete feature because of drones (both sea and air drone) and also missiles/rockets fired from sea-surface/land/air can achieve the same objective at a fraction of the cost of building a sub.
And being able to fire missiles is restricted because the they can carry a very limited number and cannot be resupplied fast. So unless you have nuclear missiles in your sub it's next to useless. These subs will not be carrying nukes, so AC is right- it's just a waste of resources to buy them.

In general, most of our defence force equipment is for fighting battles of the last century. Technology has marched on- the future of warfare is small AI enabled autonomous weapons. There's no point building large war machines for the land/sea/air that are required to can carry humans inside to operate when a vastly smaller and cheaper machine which doesn't need humans can do the job faster and quieter.

We're seeing this shift starting to play out right now in Ukraine- thousand dollar aerial drones are destroying million dollar tanks. Soon these drones (and also small land/sea vehicles and robots) will be AI enabled and will be able to track down and eliminate threats, both men and equipment, autonomously.