03 Desember 2022
Australia could ask eight JMSDF Oyashio-class submarines (photo : 19fortyfive)
Australia may have a way of very cheaply and quickly expanding its submarine force, improving its defences this decade and preparing for its planned nuclear-powered boats.
Australia’s first nuclear submarine won’t be ready until about 2040 if it’s built in Adelaide. By importing nuclear boats, that might be brought forward to 2031 or even 2030. But that would still leave the submarine force at its current, inadequate level in the 2020s, which are looking increasingly dangerous.
Second-hand Japanese submarines, by contrast, might be acquired very quickly and cheaply, and, having perhaps seven years of life left in them, wouldn’t hang around as doubtful assets into the 2060s.
The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force takes delivery of one submarine a year. For any other navy, that would imply a fleet of about 30 boats, since a submarine can typically serve for something like 30 years. But the force is not funded to operate so many and instead retires them early.
Until a few years ago, the fleet comprised 18 submarines. The number is now 23 and soon due to rise to 24, including two training boats.
The submarines we might lay our hands on are contemporaries of the Collins class, the Oyashio class, commissioned between 1998 and 2008.
Their surface displacement is 2,800 tonnes, compared with 3,100 tonnes for the Collins class. Their endurance and range are probably adequate for Australian missions. Their silencing and sensor performance are unlikely to be second-rate, but their crew size is largish at 70.
Australia could ask Japan for the Uzushio and the other eight frontline Oyashios as they leave service at yearly intervals. The purchase price shouldn’t be much above scrap value.
Notice that with this proposal Australia could have 13 diesel submarines in service 25 years earlier than it was planning to have 12 under the cancelled Attack-class contract.
Mission availability of second-hand Oyashios might be better than that of the Collins class, because they would never go into the two-year major refits the Collins boats will undertake.
With Oyashios arriving annually from 2023, time available for training would be short. But the delivery timeframe is so attractively quick that slowish achievement of operational capability would be acceptable.
The government should urgently examine this possibility. And it should insist that the navy and Department of Defence look not just for problems in operating second-hand Japanese submarines but also for solutions.
