laststandonzombieisland

The Virginia-class USS Colorado (SSN 788) arrived at Perth’s HMAS Stirling last week for a scheduled month-long Submarine Maintenance Period, marking the fourth SMP in Western Australia since the AUKUS security partnership began.

The previous three boats included USS Hawaii (SSN-776), supported by the USS Emory S. Land (AS-39), from August to September 2024; USS Vermont (SSN-792) without tender support from October to November 2025 and with a blended USN/RAN workforce; and the far-ranging RN Astute-class sub HMS Anson (S 123) from February to March 2026, which integrated local Australian-made components and systems into the boat.

Key activities to be undertaken during Colorado’s upcoming Maintenance Period include:

• The installation of an Australian-made sail maintenance scaffolding, also known as a ‘racetrack’, which will sit around the submarine during its time at HMAS Stirling –  giving workers safe and rapid access to carry out submarine maintenance work
• Personnel from Australia, the UK and the US working side-by-side to conduct off-hull capability demonstrations using specialized training equipment and locally produced submarine components
• Australian personnel conducting in-hull maintenance work, including replacing the thin line towed array and ship repairs
• Use of the newly upgraded Diamantina Pier at HMAS Stirling, demonstrating Australia’s increased readiness to sustain conventionally-armed nuclear-powered submarines.
• Australian personnel (supported by US personnel) conducting simulated radiological scenarios that exercise radiation safety practices and procedures, with no radioactive waste being transferred ashore.

This is important as Colorado, a Block III Virginia packing 12 VLS slots along with her torpedo tube-launched weapons, is a fairly new boat, just eight years in the fleet. Based at Pearl, she is slated to be the first boat assigned to the Perth-based Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West) beginning in late 2027. The deployment will last about one year.

The Australians, whose submarine arm dates back to 1914 with HMAS AE1 and AE2, currently operate six aging Collins-class SSKs (the youngest commissioned 23 years ago) and have roughly 850 men in the branch.

They plan to buy purchase three-to-five used Virginias in the early 2030s as a decade-long stopgap measure between the retirement of the Collins-class and the acquisition of five new-built 10,000-ton British-designed/American armed SSN-AUKUS class submarines, which are tentatively set to begin construction at the Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia in 2027 (hold your breath) with the first entering service with  Rolls-Royce PWR3+ reactors in “the late 2030s.”

Read that as the RAN will probably run their surplus Ginnys for 20 years without replacement.

Either way, RAN says it has 230 personnel in various stages of the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine training pipeline, with 400 to be on hand by 2030. A retired Australian admiral says a force of 3,000 nuke-qualified submariners will be needed to operate five SSNs, and recruitment will obviously need to step up robustly.

Further, the Brits are putting all their eggs in the SSN-AUKUS basket, intending to buy “up to 12” boats, built at BAE Systems’ Barrow-in-Furness shipyard and Rolls-Royce’s Raynesway facility, to replace their seven hard-used Astutes. Steel cutting for the first British SSN-AUKUS is scheduled for 2027 and operational entry in the late 2030s.

Read that as the Brits will probably get six Ginnys of their own in the 2030s. Perhaps with a Submarine Rotational Force-Atlantic (SRF-Lant) kicking off in the late 2020s with a forward-deployed Ginny at, say, Holy Loch.

I mean, I want AUKUS to work and would love the Brits to have 12 and the RAN to have at least five, but the track record isn’t there.

Hopefully I am wrong.