In a huge boost to UK industry, the first AUKUS-class nuclear-powered submarine for the Royal Australian Navy will be built in Britain.
UPDATE/CORRECTION 16/03/2023 – This article has been corrected. We had claimed, based on a transcript from Hansard, that the first new submarine for Australia would be built in the United Kingdom. The Ministry of Defence has since clarified that the original transcript created by Hansard was inaccurate and has since been amended to better reflect the original words of the minister quoted. More information on this correction is detailed in the following tweet.
During an Oral Statement on the AUKUS programme this week, Defence Minister @AlexChalkChelt stated that the first SSN-AUKUS for the Australian Navy would be built in South Australia. This has been corrected in the Hansard transcript to reflect the Minister’s words. pic.twitter.com/oqfdTqhz0K
— Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) March 16, 2023
The original transcript of a statement from Alex Chalk, a Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, originally read:
“The right hon. Gentleman is correct to ask about co-ordination, because this has to be co-ordinated. The way that happens is, first and foremost, to ensure that the Australian experts who need to develop that expertise, as they have candidly acknowledged, spend time in the UK—in Barrow and Raynesway. Indeed, this Thursday, I am looking forward to going to Barrow with the Premier of South Australia, where the first SSN-AUKUS for the Royal Australian Navy will be built.”
It now reads:
“The right hon. Gentleman is correct to ask about co-ordination, because this has to be co-ordinated. The way that happens is, first and foremost, to ensure that the Australian experts who need to develop that expertise, as they have candidly acknowledged, spend time in the UK—in Barrow and Raynesway. Indeed, this Thursday, I am looking forward to going to Barrow with the Premier of South Australia—South Australia being the place where the first SSN-AUKUS for the Royal Australian Navy will be built.”
On behalf of the UK Defence Journal, I would like to extend our sincere apologies for the error in our recent article regarding the construction location of the first SSN-AUKUS submarine for the Royal Australian Navy. While the incorrect information resulted from an external issue beyond our control, the official transcript of a Ministerial Statement being incorrect, we acknowledge that we are responsible for the content we publish.
We hold ourselves to the highest standards of journalistic integrity and strive to provide our readers with accurate, reliable, and trustworthy information. In this instance, we fell short of meeting those standards.
Please know that we have taken immediate steps to correct the error in our article and have implemented additional measures to prevent such issues from occurring in the future. We appreciate your understanding and continued support as we work diligently to maintain your trust.
Once again, we apologise for any confusion or inconvenience this mistake may have caused, and we thank you for your readership.
Hmm. I’m not sure what to make of this. It may be true but could easily be a slip of the tongue.
The first aukus submarine will be built in the U.K. for the RN. RN is aiming for boats to come into service late 2030s. Australia is looking for early 2040s.
I guess we will find out in 10 years or so.
I suspect this means #1 goes to RN #2 goes to RAN both built in Barrow. I’d be surprised if the back end of all of the boats, the difficult bit, isn’t built in Barrow. The reactor will be RR Derby, the launch tubes will be BAE USA, drive motors and turbines will be UK as will the power control gear. Sonar will be probably be UK as the hull and sonar are an effective item. The one issue is that RAN like to ‘improve’ things and that will get messy trying to shoehorn their ‘all whistles and bells’ approach… Read more »
Do we still make turbines? All of the civil nuclear ones are now made in France. Hopefully the motors will be made here but I suspect the turbines, shafts, and propellers will be made abroad although I doubt that they’re something Aus would be able to contribute either.
Actually, propellers and maybe shafts could be possible in Aus, a company in W.A. last year was awarded a contract to make test examples of type 26 propellers for the Hunter frigate project to see if local production is possible. So, there’s a chance Aus could do our own for SSN-Aukus props in future too.
And the whole thing designed on Foran, the worst 3D program ever invented
Hopefully moved onto a better platform….
Agree, presume there may be a (possibly convoluted) pathway to integrate UK/US hardware, but a combination of legacy and newly developed UK and US software? 😱 Hopefully, the Americans are also accorded a significant, continuous, on-site presence at Barrow during SSN AUKUS
development, as opposed to a remote, or turn-key proposition.
And everyone believes F-35 Block 4 software development is a sporting proposition…🤔😳🥴🙏
Might be a misunderstanding of what SSNAUKUS is but as you say, we will know soon enough. It would certainly make sense for Australian technicians to work alongside their British counterparts in Barrow to build the first boat for the RAN there and you would hope that a Minister of State was properly briefed.
No slip, the headline says it properly.
Unless the headline has been changed of course.
The first Aus boat will be built in the UK.
Well yes the headline says that and the headline comes from a statement Alex chalk made to a question.
Just this is the first we heard of this and it’s not like MPs have a great track record for their knowledge of defence topics.
We will wait and see.
We still aren’t sure if the type 32 has come about because boris got his numbers muddled up. 😂😂😂
He’s not just any MP though, he’s the Minister for Defence Procurement.
If he had misspoken he would have been corrected (slapped down) by now.
See my comment above. He may have spoken correctly but the person transcribing his words may have the punctuation wrong. If the last part of the last sentence is missing (), then you get an entirely different outcome, but spoken wise will sound much the same. Either way, I am sure a written statement will eventually be issued to make it clearer.
No. You were right I was wrong. I’ve just read he’s been corrected by Hansard.
Boris was briefed about 31…. 32 was close enough…..
The quoted statement (which appears to be a spoken rather than a written statement), is actually rather vague & can be taken both ways. He is going to Barrow with the Premier of South Australia. Is the next part meant to be a comma (as shown) or brackets ()? If (), then I take it to mean built in South Australia. One needs to be careful with spoken language. Something can sound the same but without the visual cues of punctuation you can get an unintended meaning.
It’s a mistake due to an inaccurate Hansard transcript, UKDJ has just said on Twitter. They are going to publish a correction. I thought it was too good to be true.
They should just say type 31 batch 2. Done. RN is desperate to grow it’s escort fleet at this time of extreme threats to our national interest. Democracy, freedom and the right to self-determination comes at a price. If we fail to invest in defence we run the risk of our own nation being militarily defeated.
£11 billion to be added to defence over the next 5 years… Although Hunt did muddy the water with the phrase “if fiscal conditions allow”.
Writing as I watch it (deferred) so not completely accurate, but encouraging all the same.
Cheers CR
“We were the first large European country to commit to 2% of GDP for defence and will raise that to 2.5% as soon as fiscal and economic circumstances allow.”
https://www.forces.net/news/chancellor-announces-ps11bn-boost-defence-budget
With £11bn added, the defence budget will be 2.25% of GDP.
Very fancy wording there. Large European countries U.K. included have spent much more than 2% of gdp on defence. So he must be saying that no country has committed to this amount before.
What is this commitment? Is it a law that can’t be broken or just words so he can make it seem like he’s better than everyone else. He can’t possibly commit to every U.K budget from now until the end of time spending 2% on defence.
Put more effort into the job instead of thinking up headlines.
2% GDP defence spending has long been a NATO target. In 2014, all NATO members pledged to it, but except the UK, no other major European power hit the target.
Is there a war on? Big EU powers still short of NATO spending targets – POLITICO
No, it’s not a law, but it could have prevented the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I think the £11b is set, with the raise to 2.5% being conditional on “fiscal conditions”
More dosh to waste across the board with little to show for it. Army shrinking to little more than a token force. Spend it on assets that will be effective and stand up to the aggressor – More ships better armed and air assets – FAA needs to be doubled in size for sure to start with and pass control of the F35’s (why no UK designation yet?) to them too and give the RAF some new toys to squeeze into their Super Bases.
Thanks for clarification, appreciated. Makes sense given that the bean counters are in charge.
Hunt did say something along the lines of “in response to our very persuasive Defence Secretary”… I recon Ben Wallace was seriously helped in making is point by Putin so much so that even the bean counters knew they had to take note. All smacks of the 1930’s, hopefully this time around we’ll be lucky…
Cheers CR
It’s a bit more conditional on a general election.
Well apparently Keir Starmer supported the increase, but yeh politicians of any shade are quite capable of ditching promises… We’ll see, but just for today there are “reasons to be cheerful”… Ian Dury 🙂
Cheers CR
This is where the UK needs to get wise and legislate. A party manifesto should be legal binding, the party receives votes and support based on that manifesto, then they get elected and all promises go out the window. Levelling up the economy anyone?
Trouble is those same parties are the ones that would have to vote for such an act – ain’t going to happen, sadly.
Cheers CR
Yes. It also means the plan B for Aus is less likely to be two more Virginias and more another hull built in Barrow instead.
Hi Jon, As I have said elsewhere having this type of political and contractual agreement makes much harder for one of the parties to bail out of the deal as the others will hold them to the terms of the agreements. This was exactly what happened during the Concorde programme back in the 60’s and 70’s with both the UK and French trying to get out of the programme at different times in the programme. So I am reasonably confident that this will go forward successfully, especially with the Russian’s bringing down drones and North Korea firing ICBM’s… Things are… Read more »
I really don’t want to get my hopes up about this. The government taking submarine numbers seriously is almost too good to be true. 10 first rate SSNs would be a monumental force internationally
It depends from which end of the argument you are looking at. 10 would absolutely be welcome, but going back to the first 1998 Defence Review, it was suggested that 13 was the minimum number of SSN’s to field a capable force, allowing for refits and working up to operational status post maintenance ( the latter no simple thing with an SSN). Bare in mind, this was the projected number in 1998 based on Russia being a low threat and China still very much in the rear view mirror. So 10 is welcome, but let’s aim for 16, looking at… Read more »
16 is a lovely thought, but there’s just absolutely no way the government are going to fund an extra 11 boats and find the crews for them over what we have now, as much as we wish they would.
They says we are going up to 19 total with 15 SSN’s and 4 SSBN’s. Barrow workforce is almost doubling.
Assuming productivity remains flat then and the workforce is increasing from 10k -> 17k then 70% more of something is being done?
Part of that is larger more complex boats +1 whole boat for AUS
Anyway you look at that UK SSN fleet is increasing which is very good news. That said it has been clearly flagged for ages that this was in the thinking if you look at the smoke signals.
CSG + fully fledged top end SSN capability is the real deal.
We have top end SSN but just not enough Astute ATM.
Agree, the war performance of an astute class is hinted at but in reality unknown. Can they defeat virtual a whole carrier battlegroup single-handedly? Well evidence from trials off the east coast of USA would indicate yes. So a couple Astutes prowling around, let alone 7 being in service, is going to be a big concern for any enemy unlucky enough to have to face them. 7 is admittedly far to low a number but hopefully SSNr will resolve that issue. If we can get to 12+ SSNs we will be the 2nd most powerful navy in the world behind… Read more »
Yes. That’s the kind of figure we need. Our SSNs are a key capability easily technologically superior to any shite the Russians and Chinese are chucking out. China are however likely to mysteriously field advance submarine designs fairly soon on account of being able to steal the designs of the French Barracuda class. This quasi state sponsored industrial espionage contributed to Australia cancelling their Short-Fin Barracuda SSK design. They quite rightly reasoned what’s the point in investing in a sub design that is inferior to the design the Chinese have just stolen and now know everything about. Macron the little… Read more »
Love those numbers. Would be great.
I believe – based on a scientific study involving the back of a beer mat – that 15 is the natural number of SSNs. Astute was limited to 7 because a) they hadn’t built anything in years and the workforce had ceased to be b) the first 3 were effectively prototypes and c) Rolls were having serious problems with PWR2 which was at the end of its life.
Who says this?
never gunna happen, public wont support it
Starting from the bottom up. HMG has accepted that 7 is too few and that 10 – 12 is a realistic number. If the build is 19 and AUS want 8 then presumably RN gets 11? And lets be honest most of us with any degree of insight would suggest that 12 is a sensible number and proportionately a massive capability boost as well as restoring critical mass to Dolphins. Also putting in place recruitment plans for Barrow 10k -> 17k is a really good step change of rebuilding industrial base. Further afield expanding from just BAE building warships to… Read more »
A figure of 11 makes sense. Given a service life of 30 years for a boat, and given that we intend to keep 4 SSBN’s 11 SSN’s would indicate Barrow would be required to deliver one boat every two years. Given that kind of guaranteed forward load would mean that the shipyard could make solid plans for its workforce needs. There are two flies in this piece of ointment. Firstly can anyone rely on the politicians to see long term rather than only tomorrow’s headlines. And secondly, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, how are you going… Read more »
Haven’t we seen this before with the Carriers though? The most sensible way to future-proof the quantity of boats is to hold HMG to a too expensive to contemplate exit clause. The number of RN boats hasn’t been plucked out of thin air because HMG are feeling generous. The US and Aus will have insisted upon it and that there is politically capital for BAE to use when drawing up contracts with HMG. Any wriggling by the bean counters and the AUKUS partners will soon know.
If this is true, then the big increase in Barrows work force starts to make sense. I assume that after AUS boat 1, major elements for later boats will be built here mainly the reactor compartment. How that will be transported to Oz I have no idea
I can’t see any UK government being happy that Australia will have a bigger fleet of the same sub as us. So perhaps more likely that UK numbers will increase to at least 8?
Why not 10. I’d actually advocate for 12 being the correct number. Eg same number the RN had in the last cold war.
12 SSBs are frequently stated to be the required number to ensure GIUK gap is screened and some additional subs are needed for task force protection, pursuit of enemy shipping. I thought the RN has going to settle on 12-15 SSNs which is exactly what is needed to help face down a resurgent Russia and the military threat from China.
China perhaps, not sure about a resurgent Russia. Biggest risk is a bout of tetanus from a rusty hull
It says in thisarticle “the UK is rumoured to be looking for at least 10, expanding the SSN fleet from seven.”
“Rumoured”. Given that we have just had a 65 page Strategic Refresh, why not say that is the ambition, even if it’s too far in the future to be a plan? But increased numbers are looking more likely.
That would be in the command doc?
The strategic review sets out the threatscape and how to deal with it.
Announcement yesterday said 15 SSN’s for UK Royal navy, fleet doubling.
Link?
Manpower? unless they are going to be un-crewed drones? Services finding it hard to get youth in the front door as they dont want to work hard and get dirty these days.
How many Type 26 are they going to have?
I’d imagine they’d want to segue into Type 83 shapish, so unless that’s a GCS in disguise, I think there’ll be no batch 3 T26.
It was in response to Peter’s comment about subs
Agreed, i don’t see the issue. Australia and Canada will both get more T26 than us. Money talks….
Transporting a fuelled RC from Barrow to Australia is something I have yet to see addressed anywhere. I doubt there would be anybody would be happy with it going through Suez and the Gulf so it would have to go all the way south and around The Cape.
Thinking out loud – modify one of the James Fisher PNTL nuclear waste transport vessels which live here in Barrow?
According to the article on Navy Lookout these boats will be in the region of 9000tons submerged displacement which is yet another step up in size and probably capability, especially if they get the three Payload Modules (each of which can hold 7 VLS). These bigger boats will require quite a few additional work hours to build over the Astutes plus the additional workload for hull and possible modules for the Australian boats. No wonder BAE System are buying up old shops next to the yard for training people… BAE must be putting quite a bit of their own money… Read more »
Kier Starmer supported it too, which bodes well if Labour are the next government. We know where the extra funds for the next two years are going, lets hope some of the increase for the following 3 years is in sorting out the army.
Longer term we may hit 2.5%, especially if NATO make it their new target as rumoured.
So yes I agree, reasons to be moderately optimistic.
I am hoping that Putin’s behaviour has finally managed to achieve something that I thought was impossible in British politics, some kind of cross party consensus on defence. I’m feeling optimistic today 😃 so may be I’m getting a bit carried away…
Cheers CR
Excellent. Hopefully this will boost our own regeneration & growth to a better global RN force too. Todays war in Ukraine & PRC threats are the real “peace dividend” when our leaders ignore the threats & only seek to cut defence to chase votes. No strategic joined up thinking.
I think important bit of all this is RN getting 10..
Please do not cut this number!
It makes massive sense from a Defence and commercial standpoint. As I have said elsewhere if the AUKUS boats have commonality they can be supported as a single class. Although the life ex of the reactor is 30 years it does need periodic dockings for inspections and refit of ancillary equipment.
Really happy with all the was outlined yesterday, I have been advocating doubling UK SSN production since 2010 and now it has happened.
But who knew SSN’s could be an export earner as well.
Always seemed crazy to me that when our SSN’s were so good and only cuts £1.3 billion why we did not build way more.
Time to sell to Canada and Japan now and reindustrialise the North West of England.
re NW England – wouldn’t that be something?
Get the band back together with SSNs being built in both Barrow and Birkenhead..
Wouldn’t it just, might even stop a few on here crying about Scottish yards building frigates.
CL and H&W could easily be building modules for final assembly at barrow.
There are few notable others to mention in the NW with lots of forward work
1000 F35 rear fuselages built already at BAE Salmesbury and at nearby BAE Warton Typhoon new orders and replacement Tempest/GCA just firmed up a little today at DSEI Japan
Also there is the MBDA plant in Bolton doing a lot of our advanced missiles ASRAAM, Brimstone, CAMM, Spear and Meteor
Lastly there is the WFEL plant in Stockport building tactical military bridges and a partner on the UK Boxer AFV
Would be nice thought.
Your new brand SSN’s-R-UK 😀
I believe this is slip of the tongue, they are referring to modules for the Australian AUKUS being built in Barrow as the Australian government has said all 8 will be made in Australia.
Assembled is the word we are looking for not Made. Most of the items will come from outside Auz as they dont have the industry there and never will have.
They are saying 4,000 rising to 5,000 in the shipyard in 20 years, 8,500 in the shipyard supply chain, they will also become a Virginia class component supplier (rumour they will begin manufacturing Virginia VPM/VPT’s) they already manufacture the combat information system which is common between Collins and Virginia class. So yeah a lot of the electronics likely wont be made in Australia but they are looking to do the bulk of the steelwork.
Regardless. Great news. Long overdue. I’m slightly concerned about timeframe as PLAN are believed at current ship building rates to equal or surpass USN in fighting power by 2035-2038. So we need SSNr in service in significant numbers and cranking out at least 1 sub a year in UK and Aus combined. The Virginia class payload bay if not filled with Strike length missiles can apparently function as a special forces/ diver deploying dry dock. So I can see RN filling 2 vls silos and leaving the 3rd for that purpose. Or have a couple of the SSNrs allocated to… Read more »
Remember though that China’s only two “friends” in the area : N.Korea . . yep & Russia . . yep. Whereas the US has Japan, Australia, S.Korea, UK, Singapore, even Vietnam and technically Taiwan too 😉
That’s what I think also.
Grammatically, the relevant sentence looks more likely to mean ‘built in South Australia ‘. Quick but careless reading, wishful thinking + crowdpleasing = ‘it’ll be built in Britain’ 😒🙄
Replace the comma with () & it would read as built in South Australia. Spoken wise it would sound much the same. This does not appear to a written statement, but a report of a spoken statement.
What isn’t clear to me is whether the £11bn announced today includes the £5bn announced recently i.e. 5+6 =11.
It does. 5+11 would be to good to be true.
It’s actually an ambiguous sentence. Depending on how you read it, the place “where the first Australian submarine will be built” could refer back to either Barrow or South Australia – both of which are mentioned earlier in the sentence.
hate to be the fly in the ointment but do you think he is referencing S.A. instead of barrow when saying where 1st Aukus-ssn will be built. Also nowhere else has this idea been stated among all that’s been said/released.
The official AUKUS announcement doesn’t say that any boats will be UK built. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/03/13/fact-sheet-trilateral-australia-uk-us-partnership-on-nuclear-powered-submarines/
I’ve spent some time trying to find an Australian source that EXPLICITY states that the first RAN SSN-AUKUS boat will be built in the UK. Unfortunately most are specific that all eight of the boats will be built in Adelaide, Southern Australia. I thus think we need more than Chalk’s statement to confirm this story, but maybe we will get that on Thursday.
People have mentioned crewing the uplift in platforms, noted.
However, reflecting on a PWR3 reactor can power 25k homes and the Con announcement of small reactors distributed around the country, is there the potential for reactor prices to come down, see a substantial uplift in nuclear apprenticeships with concomitant increase in numbers that might be interested in Short Service Commissions in the RN?
With lower unit price reactor prices because of scale, the commissions could have a financial premium placed on them.
Just a thought.
Hansard no longer bears this out. It may have been quietly corrected.
Chalk
In retrospect, the original wording is ambiguous, but I admit I didn’t spot that when I first read the article.
First UK built boat in 1930s is for RN. RAN boats will be built in Adelade with fist deliveries early 2040s…according to this.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/joint-leaders-statement-on-aukus-13-march-2023/fact-sheet-trilateral-australia-uk-us-partnership-on-nuclear-powered-submarines#:~:text=SSN%2DAUKUS%20will%20be%20based,Australia%20and%20the%20United%20Kingdom.
I don’t mind if Australia builds all 8 subs themselves. There is clearly a good volume of the hardware being manufactured in the UK.
Additionally Australian construction capacity is desperately needed for Western Alliance countries to have the capability to oppose PLAN proliferation.
The RN has to get 12-15 of our own SSNrs if we are genuinely going to be able to safeguard our national interests and those of our allies.
I was going to post that the Australian Defence White Paper, THE AUKUS NUCLEAR POWERED SUBMARINE PATHWAY: A PARTNERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE, is absolutely clear that the first SSN AUKUS for the RAN will be built in Australia. The lead boat for the whole class will be a RN boat built at Barrow.
See https://www.defence.gov.au/about/taskforces/aukus The good news is that the RN will be probably getting this sub years earlier than expected under the previous SSNR plan. Some delay to the final Dreadnought may even be acceptable to enable this.