WA strikes AUKUS submarine supply chain alliance with US giant

The Western Australian government has officially signed off on an agreement with a division of US defence behemoth General Dynamics for local companies to more quickly plug into the nuclear submarine supply chain under the AUKUS agreement.

The agreement will see Australia initially operate US-made Virginia-class (SSN-774) subs until the UK-built SSN-AUKUS arrive, hopefully in the 2040s.

Announced by WA Defence Industries Minister Paul Papalia, the minister’s office roared that “the Cook government has formed an alliance with a global defence juggernaut, in a milestone move that will boost Western Australia’s defence industry and ensure Western Australia’s economy remains the strongest in the nation”.

“During a successful mission to the United States … Paul Papalia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with General Dynamics Mission Systems Inc, which is part of General Dynamics, the world’s fifth-largest defence contractor with expertise in submarine design, manufacturing, delivery and sustainment.”

The mission statement for General Dynamics Mission Systems is that “we engineer the brains behind the brawn for combat vehicles, ships, submarines, aircraft, spacecraft, and other advanced defense systems,” but the mothership company also does a big, unapologetic in straight brawn and firepower.

For more than 100 years, General Dynamics Electric Boat has been a foundational supplier to the US Navy of submarines, both nuclear and conventional. This subsidiary of the wider General Dynamics mothership is the same conglomerate that initially made the Tomahawk cruise missile and the venerated but now retired F-111 supersonic strike bomber.

Under the agreement with General Dynamics Mission Systems and the WA government “it is hoped the MOU will help fast-track WA businesses that are already manufacturing vital parts of Australian submarines into the Virginia-class supply chain. It also intends to enhance the local skill level and knowledge base of the WA workforce”.

That essentially is a bid for the same sort of highly trusted servicing skills (sustainment) that has been secured by Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky helicopter, where the Royal Australian Navy and Sikorsky can now do full deep maintenance rebuilds on US MH-60R Seahawk choppers.

The good news for WA is that subs need a lot of maintenance and the less distance they have to travel for it, the better.

Again, in the first instance, this will be SSN Virginia class boats that are already calling in to top-up on fresh food, water and air.

However, the Virginia class, an attack submarine, is dwarfed by the latest boat to take the plunge for the US Navy, the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine that are projected to cost a mere US$110 billion for 12 boats and will be 170m long.

The Columbia class will over time replace the Ohio class as the primary launch platform for the US nuclear ballistic missile arsenal that consists of at least 100 nuclear warheads.

The reference to “destructive power unparallelled in human history” comes from General Dynamics’ somewhat notorious fold-out infographic that also boasted that “as a result of START reductions in nuclear stockpiles, submarines will carry 70% of the total US arsenal of nuclear warheads by 2020”.

Mind you, the launching power of the Ohio class is not confined to nukes. As the US Submarine Force Pacific (SUBPAC COMMANDS) helpfully explains, four Ohio-class boats rendered redundant for nuclear warfare needs have already been affordably re-purposed as a very big underwater conventional munitions bomb truck.

“The Navy decided to transform four Ohio-class submarines into conventional land attack and SOF platforms. This allowed the Navy to leverage existing submarine technology while at the same time expanding capability to meet the current and future needs of U.S. combatant commanders.”

Dubbed SSGNS (or guided missile submarines), SUBPAC COMMANDS reckons “the four SSGNS represent more than half of the Submarine Force’s vertical launch payload capacity, with each SSGN capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles.”

“The missiles are loaded in seven-shot Multiple-All-Up-Round Canisters (MACs) in up to 22 missile tubes. These missile tubes can also accommodate additional stowage canisters for SOF equipment, food, and other consumables to extend the submarines’ ability to remain forward deployed in support of combatant commanders’ tasking.

“The missile tubes are also able to accommodate future payloads such as new types of missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and unmanned undersea vehicles.”

As the Ohio-class boats are rotated out of nuclear weapons service, there’s an obvious question as to whether they could be regionally repurposed and their lifespan extended.

“The SSGN Program Office refuelled and converted four SSBNs into SSGNs in a little more than five years at a significantly lower cost and less time than building a new platform. USS Ohio (SSGN 726) entered the shipyard on Nov. 15, 2002, completed conversion in December 2005 and deployed for the first time in October 2007. USS Florida (SSGN 728) commenced its refuelling and conversion in August 2003 and returned to the fleet in April 2006,” SUBPAC COMMANDS said.

At the same time, there’s a broader push afoot to standardise launch tubes across the US, UK, and Australia to take the same sort of ammo, mainly the staple Tomahawk.

This could well continue to extend hull life across multiple fleets. Military primes may not like it, but there’s nothing like reinventing an already sunk cost to look like a fiscal ninja. Small wonder WA is positioning hard.

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