Executives from Britain’s defence nuclear industry have told MPs that the UK and its AUKUS partners face a serious tempo gap with China, whose submarine production is accelerating far faster than that of Western nations.
During a Defence Committee hearing, Fred Thomas MP highlighted that Beijing launched “four submarines last year” and could build “as many as 80 boats over the next decade.” By contrast, the US and UK struggle to maintain production of even a few vessels annually.
Steve Timms, managing director of BAE Systems Submarines, said the problem lies less in technology and more in political and structural factors. “It is less about technology and more about appetite, willingness and the choices we make,” he told MPs. “We need to capture the national belief and prioritisation of this capability.”
Timms argued that after decades of underinvestment and policy reversals, the UK must rebuild its industrial base, supply chain and workforce to achieve the higher output rates required by AUKUS. He pointed to progress on the Dreadnought programme as evidence of improving momentum but warned that a “multi-decade, multi-generation outlook” was essential.
Harry Holt, chief executive for nuclear at Babcock International, said China’s speed reflects “scale, ambition and the ability to direct supply chain activity in support of the five-year plan.” He added that Britain’s democratic processes and fragmented procurement culture make it harder to sustain the same tempo of delivery.
Rolls-Royce Submarines president Steve Carlier agreed that industrial consistency is key: “Having a very long-term plan that you commit to is the best way of building nuclear submarines. That just lends itself to the way the Chinese operate their economy.”
The witnesses also warned against policy drift among AUKUS partners. Carlier said the industry “does not respond well to frequent changes in tempo,” while Holt stressed that long-term certainty is vital for private investment.
I’m not sure why (other than their corporate bank accounts) these people are singling out the UK for this, the UK alone is never going to reach anything like the projected building rate for the PLAN, let alone operate anything like that number of subs, no scale of investment is going to change that. Western Nations combined might get to that point (and by that not just AUKUS but also France and more SSN users) but right now not even the US is going to match the PLAN “megafactory” scale going forward.
Exactly. But they want as much tax payers cash as they can anyway.
As I suggested on another thread, we cannot match China even if we tried.
Just build more than 7 SSN A.
I don’t think we need to match China we just need to be doing about 1/5th of what they are doing: which we are not doing ATM.
The rate we are building submarines at [equally surface ships] is incredibly slow. As I never tire of pointing out, if we want to get unit costs down we need to build faster.
Indeed, we don’t, it’s fantasy.
But 7 SSN is too few. 10 or 12.
I think the point is that one of their yards can turn out a boat considerably faster than one of our yards can, and that is a bad thing.
The Type-26 takes like 8 years to built. China would build the same boat in months.
Pmsl, we are behind China in building everything without exception! Talk about staying the obvious!
This would be big news if you’d had been living under a rock for the past two decades.
Surprise, the nation with one of the world’s largest ship-building industries, an economy five times the size of our own, with massive PPP advantages, a growing desire to secure maritime superiority and a ship-building workforce at minimum more than six times the size of our own, can produce ships and submarines at a far greater rate. Who would’ve thought it?
Perhaps it’s time to drop the act of thinking the alone UK could stand up to China, let alone threaten it. Sending the RN to the SCS in an active conflict would be a bloodbath. It’s time we prepared for the growing likelihood that we’ll be getting more regular visits from the PLAN soon enough.
I thought everything about the carrier deployment this year demonstrated that the UK would not intend to act alone. Exercising with India, Japan, Australia and the US, among others. I think some people do have an act to drop with regards to thinking the UK could stand up to China alone and that’s what it is, an act, because they don’t believe it. It is just soemthing to nitpick with reasining that, because we can’t to X,Y or Z all by ourselves, we shouldn’t do anything at all.
Of course, and the carrier deployments are a great representation of the impact and influence the UK could have in the Pacific theatre, precisely because they are an admission that the UK is no longer a global superpower, and must integrate with allies across the world if it is to exert its will.
The RN in the SCS alone will not end well. The RN alongside the Japanese and Australians is a far more intimidating prospect.
But statements like the one in the article above are unrealistic and do little but continue the obstructive delusion that the UK is a comparable power to the PRC.
Totally agree.
The thing is there are places the UK does need to be able to manage itself one its own against all comers and that is the south Atlantic. One day in the future the starting gun is going to go off on the Antarctic and extraction.. and the UK owns the very best bit and the access to this very best bit is via the UKs infrastructure and specifically the infrastructure in the Falklands.. everyone and his dog will want a bit of the south Atlantic territory and the BAT and not everyone will ask nice and since nobody at all agrees with anyone’s historic claims its going to be the geopolitical version of the Wild West with state actors instead of cowboys and Indians.
Yes, the Chinese Navy has lot’s of ships and subs and they are building a lot more, (yes I know quantity has a quality all of it’s own) but its going to come back and bite them on the arse at some point. First they have to pay to keep these large fleets operational, Second there’s the maintenance, repair and overhaul cycle that’s also going to cost money and take ships out of service all at the same time, plus there is the logistics side of things and lots of other things to consider, just can’t think of anymore at the moment
I might be wrong, but I think they might, just maybe, have planned so that the entire fleet does not go out of service at once. Maintenance can be performed at different times, and the Chinese have the luxury of having a lot of money, a lot of people and a lot of docks. In the same vein, you do know that they aren’t just building ships. They’re building the logistics to go with them.
There’s a widespread assumption that the PLAN will somehow just collapse. Not quite sure where it came from, but it’s dangerous.
Duh! is this a scoop? not a single country in the world can compete with chinese miilitary naval production output, regardless of ship type. in fact the situation is even worse for surface warships.
European countries combined would struggle to keep pace. US is not really in a better position averaging slighly over 1 boat/year. (was1.2/year last i checked a few months back)
It’s not as good as that.. the longer range average is 1 boat between 12 and 18 months and think they will have about 30 for 2030 ( they have 25 now).
“lags” ? We get projects and promises. China get aeroplanes and warships. I really cannot see how our position is going to be improved. Starmer and Reeves have no clue what they’re doing so money for defence is somewhere down the list, probably after pot holes and re-organising councils.
UK lags behind china in submarine manufacturing capacity.. FFS a nation of 60 million people with a GDP of 3.9 trillion dollars lags behind a nation with a population of 1.3 billion and a GDP of 19.5 trillion dollars.. let’s be very very clear they UK is never ever going to come anywhere closes to where china is going with any of its naval and maritime construction..
China has almost about hit the capacity to build about 30-36 nuclear boats ( 12 bays capable of SSN/SSBN and likely 20-24 of SSN bays) at the same time for a likely ability to put 6-8 into the sea in a given year.. the only reason it has not hit this rate is that it’s never before got a boat it was happy to put into serial production.. every boat china built up to 2022/23 was an experiment and or iterative improvement… it now has and it’s used it to practice its mass production process.. the Type 93B just about does the job china wants it to do and so it’s believed they serial produced it with about 8 launched since the end of 2022 until mid 2025. But this is not their latest SSN Design and what will be popping out after the likely 12 type 93Bs ( at the rate they are going these 12 will be done by 2027/28) will be the type 95 and generally speaking most people accept that these will be if not a peer a near peer to the Virginia class and asute class.. that’s not including the ability to launch around 2 AIP or new nuclear battery boats.. ( so looking at a total of 10 submarines a year in maximum serial production)
So no the UK cannot and will not come anywhere close.. because this is not about the UK and China.. this is about powerblocks and superpowers. It’s about:
1) Chineses capabilities vs the U.S. and if China will have 30+ solid SSNs in the pacific to match the U.S. and complement its 60+ SSK/AIP boats by the time there is a sino US war over Taiwan.
2) it’s about will a solid Russia china pact develop and will china use its massive industrial capacity to help recapitalise the Russia SSN fleet.. because a couple of years of Chinese SSN production diverted to Russia in the late 2020s or early 2030s will cause Europe a massive problem.
3) it’s about will NATO survive and will the US end up fighting china on its own in the late 2020s or early 2030s because without NATO that is a war it can lose, even with NATO is a devastating war that will take a generation to recover from.
So it’s not about the fact the UK cannot keep up with Chinese SSN production..it’s about the fact the entire west cannot keep up with Chinese SSN production and it’s only the fact the US will start the 2030s with a base line of about 30 Virgina class SSNs that will stop it from simply not even being able to contemplate competing with China.. but the simple fact is by 2030 the USN will be lucky to have 34 SSNs and china will have launched 12 Type 93Bs and will have started launching its first tranche of 12-16 type 95s and the second tranche that will have started building may be up to 28 stronge.. ( with 6 launching every year).. the U.S. is managing 1 every 18 months.. that’s a losing picture.
If, realistically, UK can only afford to operate 4SSBN and 7/8 SSN, the only way is to have low rate continuous production. AUKUS may change this but on our own, we are looking at a new boat every 2.5 years for the next 30 years. Outside AUKUS, there is no export market.
I don’t think it’s fair to say we can only afford 4 SSBNs and 6-7 SSNs it’s a choice we make,the gapping of production and slowing of production for in year savings essentially made the programmes more costly than they needed to be. A single Astute with the taps open and no slow paying would have come in at under 1.5billion pounds..so without gaps and a good product run could have seen 12 for around 18 billion.. that is about 1 months NHS bill or 6 weeks pension bill.. keeping the triple lock on pensions in 2025/26 cost an extra 12 billion over just keeping it linked to one element…it’s not cannot afford it’s choices…the UK can afford a force of 12 SSNs and 5-6 SSBNs if it made the choice to.
in other related news. The US is going to help South Korea to build nuclear subs.
That is very very interesting news, it seems that something that was so secret and would not be shared is now a market commodity. Russia did try it with India, but is essentially unable to even keep up its own needs.
The problem is Trump is still following a commercial America first policy over sound geopolitical sense in that the SSNs are being built in the US… at present the US cannot build more than one SSN every 1.8 years and is unable to keep up with its requirements for 60 SSNs.. infact it only has 25 Virginia class SSNs and will just about manage to have 30 by 2030.. the LAs are essentially all facing forced decommissioning by around 2030 that would leave the 30 Virginia class and the 3 old sea wolves.. they will probably be heading off by the mid 30s so by 2040 if the US can get to one SSN a year ( knocking 6 months off it’s average) the USN will have only 40 Virginia class and at that point the US will be losing its first Virgina class to old age as well.. as it is unless the U.S. can triple its production to one SSN every six months it cannot even get its own navy past 40 SSNs….. the US simply cannot match chinas SSN production as it stands.
Maybe what the west needs is a nation that has a maritime industrial base worth talking about getting into the SSN business.. after all it bounces South Korea bounces between 15-25% of the worlds shipbuilding capacity..if the liberal democracies are going to match Chinese SSN building they need to have more nations building SSNs not the U.S. selling some of the few it’s producing.
Hmmm…SKAUKUS? Future definite problem w/ acronym construction forecast, once the Germans, Italians, Japanese, Spanish, Swedes, et. al., all simultaneously realize that a serious industrial growth market is emerging. 🤔😉
I’ll believe it when I see it, given that SK has no defence nuclear enterprise, and the threats it’s most needing to counter are relatively close to its own shores- hence the (excellent) KS-III AIP submarine programme.
South Korea have signed an agreement to buy U.S. nuclear boats.. built in the US.
yes, but built by Korean Hanwa in the shipyard they just bought in Philadelphia, US
The problem is the people.. Philadelphia does not build military vessels or submarines.. so essentially to get it building SSNs would mean stealing all the workers from Groton and Newport news, but these two yards need to grow their own workforces and invest… Korea has a yard that already builds modern military submarines and has a vast shipbuilding industry.. all it really needs is the reactor design or imported reactor and high grade nuclear fuel….
yes i mentionned that below in a post just a few minutes ago 😉
Great minds 😂😂
It will take them a very long time to get a yard certified to build nuclear subs at that location let alone the skills and knowledge, maybe this a shot across the bows of the other shipyards to get their act together… another day another out there announcement from the orange one
true i don’t trust all Trump says.
all that being said it seems Korea is willing to pursue such an initiative and I don’t see anyone in the US or future administration (republican or democrat) having any issues with such a cooperation
It’s because apparently North Korean are building a nuclear boat.. it seems the Russians sold then the design to a reactor.
that is why the US is helping South Korea with the nuclear propulsion.
I don’t see what is so incredible about this. South Korea is a key US ally with a many US troops based there.
at least South Korea has a credible civilian nuclear energy industry as well as submarine building industrial base, certainly a lot more credible than Australia on both counts.
the biggest likely problem will be labour. US shipyards already have difficulty recruiting enough people so we will wait and see if Hanwha can do better in their recently purchased Philidelphia shipyard
OT. 36 new Rigs to replace M3s in £200 million deal.
God Lord, they are buying something??
😳
Surely building in bulk like China does means a lot if their vessels will be due out of service at similar times. I guess they’ll just extend a number of their lives, I just don’t understand how they can continue to build at this rate and also maintain an economy which is largely subsidised by the state. Where does all the money. Come from? This not to mention all their new mega cities that they’ve built in the last 20 years or so.
A bit of an odd one.
A) It is self evident that China’s current rate warship construction is crazy and the West (including the USA) can’t hope to match it without truly moving to a politically unacceptable WW2 type war footing, with a massive transfer of resources from social security, health, housing, etc.
B) Nuclear submarines is the one area of defence where the UK is spending BIG. Even if yet more money was found, the supply chain could not use it efficiently, it’s already at 100% capacity and the likes of BAES, R-R and Thales are expanding as fast as they can.
Regarding China, we are clearly reaching the point of maximum danger, re Taiwan and China’s expansionist territorial ambitions in both the South China and regarding the location of its borders with India, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Tibet, Laos and Mongolia. By the mid-2030’s the PLA(N) will be facing the huge problem of an aging fleet that needs major refits and expensive mid-life upgrades. Money and shipyard capacity will need to be diverted to this and the rate of new construction will inevitably fall considerably from its current peak level of basically a Royal Navy every year!