France wins Australian sub competition

French ship maker DCNS has won exclusive negotiation rights for the Australian Future Submarine Program, with the Shortfin Barracuda A1 submarine. The contract will be worth Australian $50B ($38.7B USD).

The contract is expected to be signed in 2017, and the 12 subs will be built in Australia. Either Raytheon or Lockheed will be selected late this year to integrate US built sonar and weapons systems.

www.defensenews.com...

Oh great!

3 speed subs. Forward, Reverse and Surrender gears.

It was between German, Japanese and French designs and the winner is .... The French?

Such is life. At least they will be made here and that is very good news.

P

They finally decided ?

The Russian AU contract discussion went on and on and on. I forced myself to listen to them when driving in one they ended up discussing travel entertainment allowance

a reply to: pheonix358

My uncle was a French sub operator. He's a badass.
And overall, French military tech is pretty great; it has been for hundreds of years, but especially after the second world war, wherin the obliteration of Paris was avoided due to surrender, but an effective and deadly resistance was maintained against occupying forces until the city could be liberated again. My grandma knew about Nazi boot heels first hand.

I think you'll find that French arms production is top of the line.

a reply to: Unresponsible

They've had their fair share of problems. Their carrier has spent almost as much time in Drydock as sailing it seems at times. But they do have some damn good equipment.

It seems senseless to me, why take an off the shelf Nuclear Powered sub design and convert it to a Diesel Electric.

Can you imagine the trouble we are going to have.

a reply to: Forensick

Because it's actually a lot easier to do that than convert shore facilities and drydocks for nuclear powered subs.

a reply to: Zaphod58

True, didn't think about that.

But the Japanese design is conventional designed from scratch, of course they would take all this into consideration with the evaluation but I don't know how you can put a price on the engineering risk of converting a design to one already designed.

Time will tell but I see as many problems as we had with the Collins Class.

Apparently one of the key requirements is for a staff complement which can rotate to prevent fatigue on the long sorties Australian Subs need to go on, the Japanese accommodation was too small as Japanese are usually smaller than their Aussie counterparts whereas the French design is bigger because it is Nuclear Powered...so there you go, Japan can blame genetics for missing out on the deal!

a reply to: Forensick

Interesting take on the deal.

Didn't think of those aspects.

Kind regards,

Bally

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Forensick

Because it's actually a lot easier to do that than convert shore facilities and drydocks for nuclear powered subs.

And it's possible the French wouldn't allow export of naval nuclear reactor technology (cough Chinese espionage risk). Anything submarine is highly classified, anything nuclear is classified, and the combination of the two is double secret probation classified.

Many naval nukes are fueled with near weapons-grade Uranium.

Are there prior examples of sales of nuclear-powered naval vessels to other countries?

Are there examples of non-nuclear weapon states operating nuclear powered naval vessels?

(These are honest questions, I really don't know the answers).

a reply to: Forensick

Part of the problem with the Japanese design was its range/endurance. The Barracuda had already had some company funded design work at extending it and including AIP.

defense-update.com...

a reply to: Forensick
Oh dont worry its already coming apart at the seams. This story talks of the huge complexities this project is facing, and its written by the former managing director and chairman of ASC.
While over here we already have a story on fraud in the program. There is also a story on The Australian that discusses how the Australian Govt was duped by the French into choosing the DCNS design, unfortunately it requires a subscription to read.
And then we get to the Executive director of Naval Group making the following public admission last October about the subs key technology selling point. ABC story. Yep like I predicted the wheels are starting to fall off. Really should have gone with the German boat instead.

a reply to: thebozeian

At the very least, there is a book in this for an author to write about another trouble plagued major defense acquisition...

a reply to: Zaphod58

does this mean we threw our Collins Class duds in the trash Zaph ?

What a mess that was eh

a reply to: scubagravy

I'm still amazed any time a Collins makes it out of port, let alone tries to deploy.

Hell, I was utterly flabbergasted a couple weeks ago. The USS Wasp made it all the way to Japan, and went the really long way.

a reply to: Zaphod58

How's the US sub fleet doing these days, Zaph? Pretty solid, or not so much?

a reply to: TheBadCabbie

They recently added a couple more Virginia class boats. They're getting ready to start on the Columbia class SSBNs.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: TheBadCabbie

They recently added a couple more Virginia class boats. They're getting ready to start on the Columbia class SSBNs.

The Virginia's are attack boats, I presume? Replacing the Los Angeles class? Are the Colombia class pretty similar to the Ohio class? Slightly smaller, I'm guessing?

a reply to: TheBadCabbie

The Virginia is our new attack sub, yes. The Flight III is arguably the most advanced sub built anywhere. They're all nasty though.

I'm not sure about the final specs on the Columbia layout, but they will lose at least two Trident tubes,but may get a bigger VLS punch. They're smaller than the Ohio (anything but a Typhoon is already), but make the Ohio sound like a Flight I LA on sonar.