Navy

Attack-Class Submarine Program Moving Forward

The Royal Australian Navy’s Collins-class submarines were the first locally produced Australian submarines built in partnership with a few European countries during the 1990s and are expected to reach the end of their service lives in 2026 although plans are for all six Collins submarines to undergo upgrades to prolong their lives until the Attack-class enter service as reported in Naval News.

Despite being locally produced, the Collins submarines had inherent design problems as they were loud at higher speeds and their combat systems didn’t perform as expected. These issues were attributed to the bad design of the hull, the poor shipbuilding experience of Australia at the time, the poor quality of manufacturing and mechanical engineering, and the poor quality of the hull welds. Thus, Naval Group strives to help build an efficient and local Australian supply chain to maximize Australian content while building the future Attack-class submarines with better knowledge, quality, and expertise than the Collins-class attack submarines.

The Attack-class design is based on a conventional version of the Barracuda SSN (Suffren-class) and has a sloped-front sail, bow diving planes, and a pump-jet propulsor (instead of a propeller) with an X-rudder.