Yes. I stated similar in an earlier post. It was the best bang for buck, effective solution. Don’t get me wrong. Not an enormous amount of love for Abbott. But he pretty much had the deal done until Poodle Pyne and friends revolted at the lack of SA content.
IMO should have gone with the Japanese from the start.
Australia's Next Submarine: Did We Get It Right?
The release of Australia’s latest strategic update and defence acquisition plan has highlighted the growing risks and shorter warning times of conflict in the Indo-Pacific.
asialink.unimelb.edu.au
Sure, they don’t give the range to be able to get to Taiwan. But do we really need that capability? If the focus is your core business - denial of access to Australian sea lanes and landmass. The range of the Japanese subs was perfectly adequate.
And as I have seen Hugh White and other analysts infer. The Japanese option may have been 12 in the initial order. But if strategic circumstances warranted it, at that pricing point, we could have afforded to grow the fleet of Soryu subs to two dozen or even low 30s.
Regarding range. I have heard it discussed that on the western seaboard there probably should be a forward operating base at Exmouth in WA (tying in with the already existing forward operating RAAF Learmonth - a so called, ‘bare base’ - 35km away). And on the Eastern seaboard I have seen the port of Bundaberg suggested as a potential forward operating Naval base. There are reasons why Perth and Sydney are used as our primary bases. But you do give up some potential capabilities by doing so.
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