잠수함 Re: 호주의 SSN 조달계획; 8척 중 버지니아급 5척, 영국 설계 잠수함 3척

[위종민]

https://news.usni.org/2023/03/13/embargoed-until-4-aukus-leaders-agree-on-path-to-nuke-subs-for-australia-shipyard-support-to-u-s-navy

호주는 SSN을 총 8척 조달 예정인데, 미국이 버지니아급을 현재는 3척, 총 5척을 판매할 계획이며, 나머지는 미국의 지원 아래 영국이 설계하고 호주가 건조하는 잠수함이라고 합니다. 버지니아급 직도입이 성사된다면 예상보다 10년 일찍 SSN을 운용할 수 있을 것이라고 하니, 타임테이블이 2030년대 초반으로 당겨졌나 보네요. 호주 자체건조 잠수함은 2040년대 건조 예정입니다. 

또한 퍼스의 호주 잠수함 기지에 미국 핵잠수함이 순환 방문해 호주 해군의 잠수함 인력 양성에 조력할 계획이며, 호주 해군의 장교단 1진이 사우스캐롤라이나의 미해군 원자력학교에 입교했다고 합니다. 인력양성이 어느 정도 끝나는 2027년 초엔 미영 합동으로 호주에 잠수함 순환배치 부대(SURF-West; Submarine Rotational Forces West)를 창설해 본격적으로 승조원 인력 양성을 시작한다고 하네요. 

그 외 호주가 미국 조선소에 수 백명의 인력을 파견하는 한편 자금도 지원하는 등 호주의 SSN 인프라 구축에도 많은 투자가 진행될 예정입니다. 

NPT 준수를 위해 호주의 SSN은 재래식 병기로만 무장할 예정입니다.

AUKUS Plan: Aussie Sailors to Serve on American Subs, RAN to Buy U.S. Virginia Attack Boats - USNI News

View all posts by Gidget Fuentes →

12-16 minutes

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President Joe Biden greets British Prime Minister Rishi Surnak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese the AUKUS bilateral meeting in San Diego, Calif, March 13, 2023. DoD Photo

This post has been updated with additional information from the announcement ceremony.

SAN DIEGO – The leaders of Australia and the United Kingdom joined President Joe Biden at the Navy’s submarine base in San Diego, Calif., Monday to mark a historic trilateral agreement aimed at bolstering security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.

The plan to eventually sell Australia a handful of Virginia-class submarines – the key aspect of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States agreement – during the ceremony Monday where he was joined by Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and U.K.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Naval Base Point Loma. The plan to sell submarines is expected to include an initial sale of up to three submarines.

The nuclear-powered submarines would be conventionally armed, in keeping with Australia’s continued commitment to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

“Nuclear propulsion is a highly complicated technology. It requires years of training to master,” Biden said. The first group of Australian submariners already started training in the United States, and later this year, more Australian personnel will begin to “embed with U.S. and U.K. crews on boats and at bases and in schools and our shipyards.”

The increase in port visits by U.S. and U.K. subs to Australia and a rotational deployment of subs later this decade will “help develop the workforce Australia is going to need to build and maintain its fleet,” he said.

Those high-tech subs “feature cutting-edge propulsion technology and provide unmatched stealth and maneuverability,” he said. If Congress approves the sale of the Virginia-class boats to Australia, it would jump-start “their undersea capability a decade earlier than many predicted.”

The sales of the existing Virginia-class submarines won’t happen for nearly a decade.

“The United States is prepared to sell Australia up to five nuclear-powered submarines, and our plan for doing so is up to three submarines at this time,” an administration official told USNI News.

Those sales would be contingent on getting approval by Congress, said the official, who spoke on background to USNI News ahead of Monday’s announcement.

Under the Australia-United Kingdom-United States partnership, known as AUKUS, Australia also will build several new nuclear-powered submarines using a United Kingdom design with the help of the United States. Australia plans ultimately to acquire eight submarines, which will be a mix of existing and new Virginia-class and new builds of the planned “AUKUS-class” submarine for the Royal Australian Navy that would be built at new manufacturing facilities in Australia.

The trilateral agreement also will establish rotational visits by U.S. nuclear-powered submarines to Perth, in western Australia, presumably to help build familiarity and capabilities of Royal Australian Navy submarine crews to operate the nuclear-powered vessels, the official said.

The Australian city is home to HMAS Stirling Bay, a naval base on Garden Island that supports surface ships and submarines and is home to a submarine tender training center. Recent visits of U.S. submarines to the base include USS Asheville (SSN-758), a Los Angeles-class submarine, which arrived Feb. 27 and has been training with Australian subs, and the Virginia-class USS Mississippi (SSN-782), which visited in November 2022.

Australia also will contribute money to help the U.S. industrial base build submarines, officials said. Details of how much and for what specifically were not provided.

Monday’s announcement in San Diego caps off an 18-month effort since the AUKUS partnership was announced in September 2021. Australia has been revamping its military capabilities, and officials want to close a capabilities gap by replacing its aging Collins-class boats with a nuclear-submarine force. The move is meant to thwart threats from China’s growing global influence and to reflect its commitment for greater participation in regional security.

Although Australia would remain a non-nuclear weapons state, a nuclear-powered submarine would increase the country’s capabilities, including the longer operation range nuclear-fueled submarines have over their conventionally-powered cousins.

“We think we’ve come up with an approach that will deliver capability to Australia quicker than everyone expected, shares some of our most sophisticated technology – almost without precedent – and is constructed it in a way that really lifts both the undersea capabilities and the industrial capacity of all three nations,” one administration official told USNI.

Australia is expecting to build shipyard facilities to produce submarines in the western part of the island nation, Albanese said in a TV interview during a weekend visit to India.

“This is about jobs, including jobs in manufacturing, and Adelaide, in particular, will be a big beneficiary of this announcement, as will Western Australia,” the prime minister said, according to a Reuters report.

The United Kingdom has been undergoing a broad review of its defense and security forces, in part due to Russia’s war with Ukraine and China’s growing aggressive stance across the globe.

“In turbulent times, the U.K.’s global alliances are our greatest source of strength and security,” Sunak said in a statement, Bloomberg reported Sunday. “I am traveling to the United States today to launch the next stage of the AUKUS nuclear submarine program, a project which is binding ties to our closest allies and delivering security, new technology and economic advantage at home.”

In signing the enhanced trilateral security pact, the U.S., Australia and the United Kingdom agreed to shared goals to strengthen security and defense interests; promote information and technology sharing; further integrate security and defense-related science, technology, industrial bases and supply chains; and deepen cooperation on more security and defense capabilities.

AUKUS “will make a positive contribution to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region by enhancing deterrence,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Australian and U.K. defense counterparts said in a statement after a December 2022 meeting at the Pentagon.

The trilateral pact has prompted sharp complaints from China. Last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing that the three countries should “do more things that are conducive to regional peace and stability,” Bloomberg reported.

Multi-phase plan

Able Seaman Combat Systems Operator Benjamin Stewart participates in an Anti-Submarine Warfare exercise with a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine during Exercise ARC21 in 2021. Royal Australian Navy Photo

The first phase of AUKUS is already underway, officials said. The first groups of Australian officers have joined their U.S. Navy counterparts at Nuclear Power School in South Carolina, an administration official told USNI News.

“We will increase port visits over the coming years, from both U.S. and U.K. submarines” to Perth, the official said. “We also will be embedding Australian sailors in our submarine forces and in our nuclear power schools. The first cohorts have already arrived at Nuclear Power School.”

Australians are fully committed to training their people appropriately “and take the time to do this right,” he added.

The agreement also calls for “bringing hundreds of Australian workers into the U.S. to the shipyards,” the official said. That will parallel efforts by Australia “to build up its own infrastructure” that will enable it to house and support its own submarines, as well as visiting U.S. submarines.

“Once we feel that Australia is ready to do that – and we think it could be as early as 2027 – we’ll establish a rotational force of U.S. and U.K. submarines in Australia, the construct we’re calling Submarine Rotational Forces West,” or SURF-West, the official said.

The goal of the rotational force of U.S., U.K. and Australian submarines is to put sailors “shoulder to shoulder” to help build Australia’s capacity.

Then Australia will transition to its future submarine, “a state-of-the-art platform that uses the best technologies from all three nations, a submarine we’re calling SSN AUKUS” and that’s based on a U.K. design known as SSNR, the official said. “It’ll incorporate critical and cutting-edge Virginia-class technologies from the United States. It’ll be the future submarine for both Australia and the United Kingdom,” which in turn will shore up critical supply chains and strengthen partnerships and interoperability among the countries.

The U.K. expects to deliver the SSN AUKUS “in the late 2030s,” the official said, and Australia will have its first one built in Australia for the Royal Australian Navy “in the 2040s.” That timeline will ensure there’s no capability gap as Australia retires its older submarines, he said. Those Collins-class submarines are planned to undergo service life extensions that would continue them in service until they are replaced by the new submarine.

Albanese hailed the plans to work closely with the U.S. and with the U.K. to build the new submarine for Australia’s defense forces. “This will be an Australian-sovereign capability, built by Australians, commanded by the Royal Australian Navy, and sustained by Australian workers in Australian shipyards,” he said, “with construction to begin this decade.”

The “whole-of-nation” effort behind AUKUS will provide “transformative opportunities for jobs and skills and research and innovation,” he said, noting work planned for shipyards in Adelaide and in Western Australia. Those opportunities “will shape and strengthen and grow Australia’s economy for decades and create around 20,000 direct jobs for Australians from many trade and specializations.” It will also grow and support the necessary supply chains across all three countries, he added.

“This is a genuine trilateral undertaking,” Albanese said.

In its support for AUKUS, the United Kingdom will invest more into its defense budget. Sunak announced a bump from the existing 2 percent of gross domestic product to 2.25 percent, or 5 billion pounds of additional spending over the next two years.

“This will allow us to replenish the war stock and modernize our nuclear enterprise, delivering AUKUS and strengthening our deterrence,” he said. And it’s the first step for a defense spending level at “a new ambition of 2.5 percent” that he said would allow the U.K. to remain “one of the world’s leading defense powers.”

The first of the new AUKUS subs will be built in the U.K. – at naval shipyards at Barrow and Derby – with the plan to share the process with Australia, “so they can build their own fleet,” he said.

The AUKUS subs “will also be truly interoperable,” as both U.K. Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy will operate the same boats, he said. “And we will both share components and parts with the U.S. Navy. Our submarine crews will train together, patrol together and maintain their boats. They will communicate using the same terminology and the same equipment, and through AUKUS, we will raise our standards of nuclear nonproliferation.”

“This is a power partnership,” said Sunak. “It will mean three fleets of submarines working together across both the Atlantic and the Pacific, keeping our oceans free, open and prosperous for decades to come.”

The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, plans to wind down its purchases of Virginia-class boats in the mid-2030s as it develops the next-generation submarine, SSN(X).

No nuclear weapons

Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS Albuquerque (SSN-706) and Royal Australian Navy Collins-class submarine HMAS Rankin (SSG-78) operate together in waters off Rottnest Island, Western Australia on March 4, 2015. Royal Navy Photo

The sale of nuclear-powered submarines and sharing of sensitive and super-secret nuclear propulsion technology is as historic as it is rare. The United States “has not shared nuclear-propulsion technology to any country, except for the U.K.,” since 1958, the official said. “So this is a major shift.”

Australian officials have said they want the capabilities of nuclear-powered submarines and are not seeking nuclear weapons or nuclear weapon-capable submarines.

Administration officials said Biden insisted on adherence to standards under the non-proliferation treaty as important as U.S. officials worked closely with both Australia and the United Kingdom to develop the detailed AUKUS framework.

“This is extraordinarily important to the president,” one official said, and “we worked very closely with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and others to make sure that is the case.”

“Australia’s commitment to making it clear that it is seeking to develop nuclear propulsion but not nuclear weapons has been indicated at every stage of the process,” the official added.

[백선호]

Astute 후계함 SSNR을 오스트렐리아용으로도 만드는 셈이네요.

" a submarine we’re calling SSN AUKUS” and that’s based on a U.K. design known as SSNR "

[위종민]

2040년대까지 콜린스급으로 버티는 건 무리라고 봤는지 버지니아급을 넘겨주겠다고 하는데, 5척을 추가 건조해서 주겠다는 건지 운용중인 물건을 넘겨주겠다는 건지.. 후자는 아닐 것 같은데 건조 스케줄도 빠듯할 텐데 5척 추가건조할 여유가 있을지도 모르겠고요.

영국은 차기 공격형 원잠 물량도 추가로 확보하는 선에서 적당히 멈췄네요.

[마로]

호주측이 미국 조선소 CAPEX를 일부 지원하여 생산능력 확장하는 것을 돕고 버지니아급을 확정 3척, 최대 5척 중고로 도입한다는 계획입니다.

[ssn688]

버지니아 5(3+2)에다가, AUKUS SSN이 3척이라는 부분은 어디에 있지요? 일단 AUKUS SSN을 2030년 말에 영국이 인도하고, 호주산 초도함은 2040년대라는 언급은 보았습니다만... 하긴 조선소 일감을 위해서라도 계속 하긴 해야겠죠. 그런데 미제든 영국제든, 가뜩이나 콜린스보다 승조원이 곱(...)으로 필요한데 함정을 기존의 6척보다 증강할 수 있을지 모르겠습니다. 어쩌면 버지니아는 갭필러(!)로서 중고로 도입해서 오버홀 시기도래×자국산이 건조...에 맞춰서 밀어내기 퇴역할지도 모르겠습니다.

[위종민]

명시적으로 SSN AUKUS가 3척이라는 부분은 없긴 합니다. SSN 8척 조달 예정이고 버지니아급이 5척 판매 계획이니 ( "The United States is prepared to sell Australia up to five nuclear-powered submarines, " SSN AUKUS를 세 척이라고 봤는데, 어쩌면 말씀대로 급한대로 버지니아 10년~15년 굴렸다가 자체건조하는 잠수함들로 바꿀 수도 있겠다 싶은데 핵잠이 한두푼하는 물건이 아니라는 게 문제네요.

[ssn688]

"ultimately to acquire eight submarines" 아, 이 부분이 있었네요. 한편 원래 콜린스를 대체하려던 어택급 사업(SEA 1000 project)을 보니 12척으로의 증강을 전제로 하고 있긴 했더군요. 그렇다면 원잠으로 8척도 그럴싸한 규모 같습니다(인력충원은 여전히 의문이지만 그쪽 사정이니...). ; 어택급 사업 하니 다시 떠오릅니다만, 그냥 2016년부터 쉬프랑 선택해서 사업 진행했더라면... -_-

[Minowski(김유철)]

미해군에서도 버지니아급 빼가는 걸 탐탁치않아한다고 하고... 지금 3+5+3이 리스크 분산이 될지 아니면 대환장파티가 될지 가늠하기 어렵네요..