Retired rear admiral Peter Briggs, who led the navy’s submarine squadron, told a national security conference organised by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull that AUKUS was a “wasteful folly” that needed to be jettisoned as soon as possible.

“We’re facing the loss of a submarine capability,” Briggs said on Friday in Canberra.

“It is never too late to stop a plan that is not going to bloody well work, and it is not going to work...We are heading for a train smash.”

Briggs, who had a 40-year career in the navy, said the US navy would have “nowhere near the number of submarines they need” in the early 2030s to provide Australia with the three Virginia-class attack submarines envisaged under the AUKUS plan.

“There will be no surplus Virginias in 2031-2032 despite all the best efforts going on,” he said.

Briggs said that, because of notoriously slow production rates in American shipyards, the US would only have around 49 attack submarines available in 2032, far fewer than the 66 it says it requires for its own needs.

Donald Trump’s America First agenda has challenged the US-Australia alliance by imposing tariffs, demanding greater defence spending and probing the AUKUS submarine pact.
AnalysisAUKUS

“The president of the day has to certify that there will be no reduction in capability,” he said. “If you’re going to sell Australia three [of your] frontline submarines, I don’t see how it is possible for the US president of the day to make that certification.”

Briggs said Australia also had to confront the likelihood that SSN-AUKUS - a new class of submarine Australia plans to build with the United Kingdom - will fall behind schedule because of backlogs in the “hollowed out” British submarine service.

“We need some political courage,” Briggs said, urging the Albanese government to pursue an alternative to AUKUS.

He said Australia needs at least 10 nimble submarines, rather than the eight large vessels planned under AUKUS.

The SSN-AUKUS, currently under design, is intended to enter service with the UK in the late 2030s and Australia in the early 2040s.

Briggs has previously called for Australia to seek to acquire a fleet of Suffren-class nuclear-powered submarines from French builder Naval Group instead of sticking to the AUKUS plan.

Retired British rear admiral Philip Mathias told this masthead earlier this year that “there is a high probability that the UK element of AUKUS will fail”.

Mathias said: “It is clear that Australia has shown a great deal of naivety and did not conduct sufficient due diligence on the parlous state of the UK’s nuclear submarine program before signing up to AUKUS – and parting with billions of dollars, which it has already started to do.”

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/headed-for-a-train-smash-former-commande...

The idiots have overrun Ozpol in panic, delusion and women & children last

Don't you just like Superiors who needs to make something from nothing, because they make nothing when something actually happens.