Australia has welcomed the United States of America’s submarine tender, the USS Emory S. Land to Darwin for a port visit. Emory. S. Land’s Commanding Officer, Captain Brent Spillner, and his crew were welcomed by Commanding Officer of HMAS Coonawarra, Captain David Shirvington on 28 May 2024.
While in Darwin, the crew of the submarine tender has a full itinerary of community and cultural events, so they can experience the best of the Top End. Darwin is the first port visit of Emory S. Land’s current deployment, which began on 17 May. Since January, the Emory S. Land has been home to more than 30 Royal Australian Navy officers and sailors who departed for Guam to embed on board the submarine tender.
These officers and sailors spent five months on the tender, integrating with US sailors and building unique knowledge, skills and experience in how the US conducts nuclear-powered submarine maintenance. The personnel involved range in rank from seaman to lieutenant and include electrical technicians, marine technicians and boatswain’s mates. A number of Australian personnel are travelling on the tender, deepening their experience of tender-based maintenance at sea.
Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Mark Hammond said, “For those Royal Australian Navy officers and sailors on board the Emory S. Land, this deployment is an incredible opportunity to put their training and technical skills into practice. More than 30 of our people have spent the last five months in Guam with our US Navy partners, learning the ropes of nuclear submarine tender maintenance. This unique program will contribute significantly to our Navy’s future, developing our people to have the skills to operate, maintain and steward conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines.”
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Park a future Aussie submarine tender at Christmas Island to extend our Collins subs’ limited range? It could even host US SSNs.
Related to that, I suspect there will be close to zero Australian industry involvement in supporting the rotational deployment – aka permanent basing – of US and British nuclear-powered submarines because one of these USN tenders will be parked at HMAS Stirling.
My first ship back in 1981. I thought it was decommission.
Still going strong.
And just how long is this “Friendship Visit” going to last ? In my opinion ( without anything concrete to go on) it will last as long as the Submarine Rotation of U.S. Boats through Sterling .
See my post below. I don’t think there’s going to be any significant Australian industry involvement in supporting the “rotational force.” Mind you, I’m sure that both the USN and RN will be very happy with the $7 billion Australia is spending improving facilities for them, including about 1,000 new houses.
Another argument in favour of an Australian submarine tender capable of hosting SSNs is as an East Coast resource.
Such a ship could serve as a temporary support facility or be permanently situated on the East Coast. This is noting the vaunted East Coast SSN Base will be built only slowly or not built at all (due to Not In Our Backyard/Port political pressures.) The Federal Government claiming “we don’t need extensive nuclear shore facilities because we have that Tender” could be a useful political fiction to build an East Coast Base one way or another.
If there is ever going to be an East Coast Base, planning for it and land acquisition should have started a year ago. The government says a decision will be taken in the 2030s. I have no idea where the idea of an East Coast Base came from in the first place – why not do everything at HMAS Stirling?