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.
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.
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)
“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.
in other related news. The US is going to help South Korea to build nuclear subs.