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Image source: topwar.ru
It became known that on Monday, US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak aboard the Missouri nuclear submarine in San Diego will announce the equipping of Australia with new nuclear submarines as part of the AUKUS alliance, a trilateral defense partnership aimed at countering China in its, according to the US authorities, "the desire to achieve naval dominance in the Pacific Ocean."
The new submarines are expected to join the Australian Navy in 2032. The first batch will be American multipurpose submarines of the Virginia type - Australia will purchase up to 5 submarines worth about $ 4 billion each. Then British boats will be adopted, which are still being developed - this type of submarine will be called SSN-AUKUS and will be a further development of the current Astute type. The first deliveries will take place in the 2040s.
Everything is fine in this news, except that there is no specifics. How will additional Virginias be built if American shipyards already cannot withstand a very "tight" schedule of construction, maintenance and repair of their own submarines? Operation of two different types of submarines at once, if you believe the statements. Which will require additional training of specialists in the operation of British equipment. And the training of a highly qualified submariner, in terms of complexity and cost, is not much inferior to the training of a pilot. And finally, the question of creating a new naval base for nuclear submarines remains open.
