The US Virginia-class submarine USS Minnesota (SSN 783) recently paid a port visit at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia on 25 February for the first of several planned US SSN submarine visits to Australia in 2025. While in the west, members of the submarine’s crew will participate in a US submarine command course, a training program for naval officers who are preparing to take command of a submarine.
This visit is the first of several planned US SSN submarine port visits to Australia in 2025. The next port visit to HMAS Stirling later this year will be a three-week submarine maintenance period. This year’s port visits follow the recent submarine tendered maintenance period at HMAS Stirling in 2024 with the U.S. submarine tender, USS Emory S. Land (AS 39) and the US submarine, USS Hawaii (SSN 776).
The Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, AO, RAN was proud to welcome Minnesota to Australia. “The Australian and US Navies operate on shared behaviours, shared values, and a shared commitment to assuring the prosperity and security of the Indo-Pacific region,” Vice Admiral Hammond said. “This port visit follows the recent submarine tendered maintenance period at HMAS Stirling, which was the first time Australians directly participated in the maintenance of a US nuclear-powered submarine in Australia.”
These port visits help Australia and the U.S. prepare for the start of Submarine Rotational-Force West at HMAS Stirling from as early as 2027, during which one UK Astute class submarine and up to four US Virginia class submarines will have a rotational presence at the base. The start of Submarine Rotational-Force West is the first phase in the AUKUS Pillar I program, which will ultimately result in Australia’s acquisition of a future fleet of conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines.
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I sincerely hope the R.A.N. Personnel get to have a look inside and get a guided tour.Because it’s the closest they will ever get to a Virginia .
this this and the link
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/07/surface-tension-could-the-promised-aukus-nuclear-submarines-simply-never-be-handed-over-to-australia
read the link But, just three days after Australia’s cheque cleared, the Congressional Research Service quietly issued a paper saying while the nuclear-powered attack submarines (known as SSNs) intended for Australia might be built, the US could decide to never hand them over.
Arguments for Instead Implementing Alternative Division-of-Labor Approach
Supporters of the alternative division-of-labor approach for performing SSN missions and non-SSN missions outlined earlier—in which up to eight additional Virginia-class SSNs would be procured and retained in U.S. Navy service and operated out of Australia along with the U.S. and UK SSNs that are already planned to be operated out of Australia under Pillar 1, while Australia invested in military capabilities (such as, for example, long-range anti-ship missiles, drones, loitering munitions, B-21 long-range bombers, or other long-range strike aircraft) for performing non-SSN missions—can make various arguments, including those outlined below.
Our US alliance assumptions, beginning in 1942, are now out of date.
With the radical America First defence policy shift Australia cannot count on delivery or basing of any major US weapons system (Virginia SSNs, B-21s, B52s in NT, or the NT Marine Rotation).
This is no matter what AUKUS multi-$Billion gifts we give to Trump’s military industrial complex.
This mornings Australian has an article by Ben Packham saying that “it emerges the government’s submarine builder, ASC, hasn’t done the design work for the first full overhaul to proceed as planned.”
“Multiple sources said the revised upgrade scope would leave the first boat in line, the 27-year-old HMAS Farncomb, with its main motor, diesel engines and generators in place, rather than having installed new ones as planned. ”
It’s almost like the Government, DoD, RAN and ASC want a disaster to occur
Yes, I saw that. Yet another extraordinary failure on the part of Defence, the RAN and ASC. Several years ago Saab and the Royal Swedish Navy suggested a joint venture for the LOTE on the basis that Collins is a Swedish design and its little brother the Gotland class has been through a major midlife upgrade. This offer was completely ignored – of course – and now the project is one giant mess.
Whilst incompetence is certainly a default assumption, is it possible that we aren’t being given the full story on the feasibility of the LOTE? That is, even with the hugely expensive and risky effort, the class still wouldn’t make it through to the late 2030’s. If that is the case, I wonder what plan B is (or is it preparation H that we’re up to, now)?
Anything is possible. Also, cost estimates for the LOTE have been all over the place. These things should have been known years ago, and one wonders wtf ASC, RAN and Defence have been up to.