Can Australia address its new fleet of nuclear submarines? | Four Corners

Foreign a single torpedo from one of those submarines can break a warship in two and put it on the bottom it's known as the silent service in the darkest corners of the ocean submarines lurk listening and waiting to strike.

We sort of have a submarine fetish in this country we are obsessed with submarines we seem to have this view that if we get submarines right you know all of our security woes will be solved the plan to build eight nuclear-powered submarines in Australia is the country's largest ever defense project will become the seventh country in the.

World to operate a nuclear-powered submarine we've never operated a military capability in such a small group before the government tells us this is a Golden Ticket an invitation to an elite club binding us ever closer to the United States I'm proud to be your Shipmates.

To say that it is not high risk would be misleading of course it's high risk there are questions whether a fleet of nuclear submarines will be enough to deter China's Ambitions in the Pacific in the meantime we are left vulnerable relying only on the Aging Collins class in terms of the catastrophic failure with the age of Collins I think there is.

A probability that we will have more accidents there's no doubt yeah the equipment will fail ing this nuclear dream will cost up to 368 billion dollars that's 32 million dollars a day for the next 32 years on this episode of Four Corners we uncover serious shortfalls in.

Australia's nuclear Ambitions and reveal major delays and safety issues within our existing collins-class submarines which must remain our Frontline deterrent for at least the next decade foreign 's class submarine is being put through its final checks.

It's leaving from HMA of Sterling south of Perth which is home to Australia's Fleet of diesel electric submarines touch on the wharf touch on the casing despite Ambitions to go nuclear it's the columns that will remain our main submarine Force well into the 2030s and Beyond the cons class submarine capability is.

Still one of if not the most cocoa conventional submarines in service in any Navy foreign the Navy tells us the Collins remains a lethal capability but as every year passes they become more unreliable and vulnerable.

The fundamental issue with Collins is we know it's in a sense on the clock now I mean it is a good submarine now and it's doing a great job now and it will for a number of years to come but there is going to become a point in time where that capability will diminish to combat this inevitable decline in China's Growing Power we're teaming up.

With the United States and the United Kingdom the US will sell us at least three used virginia-class nuclear submarines by the early 2030s Ten Years Later a newly designed UK and U.S submarine built in Australia is scheduled to hit the water.

President of United States accompanied by the Prime Minister of Australia and the prime minister of the United Kingdom the United States could not ask for two better friends or Partners to stand with as we work to create a safer more peaceful future for the people everywhere I'm proud to be your Shipmates thank you.

Since the details of the orca's partnership were announced the government has been out selling the deal the orcus agreement we confirm here in San Diego represents the biggest single investment in Australia's defense capability in all of our history strengthening Australia's national.

Security and stability in our region thank you all very very much they are trying to justify the eye watering price tag of between 268 and 368 billion dollars over the life of the project foreign submarines can maneuver while remaining undetected and strike without warning.

This I think elevates Australia to the greatest defense capability of the greatest military capability that we've ever operated and and that's for good reason because we live in a world which is much more strategically complex and more strategically threatening the situation is deteriorating and it is a very very challenging and arguably the.

Most complex and challenging environment that our nation has faced in the indo-pacific in decades ideally I like a couple of Virginia class tomorrow we don't live in an Ideal World I have to deal with the realities there are benefits in going nuclear speed is one of the major advantages of.

A nuclear submarine like the U.S Virginia class if a war with Beijing over Taiwan erupted it could leave Perth headquarters and be in the South China Sea in six and a half days a Collins would take almost three weeks.

And it would also need to surface or snorkel every few days to recharge its batteries leaving it vulnerable to detection and attack if you're the captain of a conventional submarine you're constantly asking yourself can I complete this Mission without having to snorkel will I have to withdraw from the mission halfway.

Through before it's completed if I'm detected can I escape so it does impose a lot of limits on a conventional submarine a nuclear submarine with its almost Limitless energy Supply can stay on its Mission far longer once near Taiwan a Virginia class could operate underwater for at least three.

Months a Collins could only stay for 11 days before needing to return to Australia and refuel you look to the 2030s and 2040s conventional submarines will not provide the deterrent effect and The lethality advantage that they currently do a Collins is only half the length of the.

Latest model of its U.S counterpart which means fewer weapons the Collins has 22 Torpedoes and missiles and no vertical launchers which are designed to hit Targets on land the Virginia submarine can carry 25 Torpedoes and between 12 and 40 vertically launched Tomahawk cruise missiles.

That's three times the payload so the submarines are designed and built as weapons of war they have exceptional capabilities when it comes to creating a deterrent effect creating question marks in the minds of regional military and Naval leaders.

Shaping their calculus every time we put a somewhere in the sea it reshapes the calculus of regional leaders as Australia waits for its nuclear submarines there are serious problems with the Collins class the submarine we filmed leaving the base.

In Perth is one of the most troubled in the Navy's Fleet in early 2021 hmas Waller flooded twice while at sea and then just Weeks Later an electrical fire broke out on board this was despite the Navy having just completed 24 months of scheduled maintenance on the submarine.

In terms of ability to put boats in the water it certainly kept wallow out of the water for an extended period of time while they well they had to repair equipment so if you lose a submarine out of a pool of six that reduces the amount of submarines that are operational the story of how the Collins class is.

Presented versus the reality is perhaps best told through its Flagship the Navy released this slick video to Mark the return of hmas Collins to service in December 2017. what it didn't say was that hmas Collins had spent the previous five and a half years out of the water being raided for parts.

The submarine is once again back on dry land and in deep maintenance it is now spent six of the last 12 years out of the water we had a situation when Collins first arrived in that the submarine was not reliable we did get improvements over time with the maintenance of those submarines but.

They're now getting a little bit long in the tooth we're going to see more and more problems Rex Patrick joined the Navy at 16 and was one of the first Australians to serve on the Collins class more than 25 years ago life on a submarine is a pretty unique experience there's very a few other jobs.

That are like it in any way shape or form it's a cramped environment you're working very closely with a highly professional crew doing very interesting work long hours sometimes you go for weeks on end without rest and without even surfacing the submarine he Likens the Collins to an aging car but Australia doesn't have the luxury of.

Trading it in as any replacement submarines are at least 10 years away when you first buy a car you have a period where there are infantile failures that are covered by the warranty period Then the car goes okay for a number of years and after a period of time you start having things go wrong that's normally the time in which you.

Might sell the car we're at that stage with Collins to investigate the problems plaguing our six collins-class submarines we went to where they were built and now maintained hi Rex hey yeah nice to meet you okay let's go up here Rex Patrick is our guide.

Up Adelaide's Port river is the government-owned shipbuilder ASC this is the birthplace of the cornless class submarines and this is where all of the deep level maintenance for these submarines occur so which submarine are we looking at here this is hmas deshano It's just come.

Out of a full cycle docking so it's basically had itself stripped apart and now it's back together and they'll be doing a bunch of Harbor testing on systems to make sure that they're working properly the deschano has been here for two and a half years being refitted we might just have a bit of company here.

What uh what are these guys doing um sorry what's up sorry I can't hear you can you say that again near the submarine yeah sorry we're filming here we're in public Waters we're filming what's the problem.

When pushed on why we couldn't film they quickly back down they're happy for you guys to feel but we just need to know who you are to make sure that you've got that permission okay sorry but yeah we're four quarters from the ABC just the ABC yeah okay no worries is that secrecy unnecessary.

It's on a river in which any craft can drive past and people can take photographs people can take videos so it's a little bit silly for the ASC to come out and suggest that it's improper to film so does this give you an indication of the secrecy that we see in defense defense is overly secret about.

Everything that it does there are many things that are secret in defense but there are lots of things that simply should be talked about openly defense is reluctant to discuss is how Australia's six collins-class submarines are performing range 4 100 yards we spent weeks cross-checking official data from the Navy website news reports.

And satellite images to see what's been going on for the last 10 years we've discovered over the last two years the Navy has not met its targets and in September 2021 we found the Navy had just two boats in the water more astonishingly at the start of this year there was just one battle-ready.

Submarine in the entire fleet hi Minister Angus Creek Angus how are you yeah very well take a seat thanks defense minister Richard miles concedes relying on the Collins for the next 10 to 20 years is not ideal as we look to the Future um the issue with the Collins is even if we put more equipment on it and we will.

Um that fact will mean that it is more detectable in the late 2030s than it was when it came into service and in that sense the fundamental capability is one which is on the long-term decline but when pushed on the operational performance of the Collins the minister refused to provide details suggesting the information would compromise.

National Security we have what's your understanding of the operational capability that Collins class as it stands today we have the the number of submarines required to be an operational service that that we plan for um and I can't say more than that um but this is publicly available information that clearly shows that we're not.

Meeting the targets so how can you say we have a robust capability uh well again what Collins can do um is is a formidable capability and it's important that people understand that um I haven't made these numbers up there numbers on a Navy website and and and I can say with certainty uh that the.

Submarines that we need to have on operation in order to fulfill our nation's submarine task are there to be on operation and we are fulfilling that task I'm just not sure how the Australian people can be confident that we do have these given the data that we've been able to find very easily well I mean you've asked that question and.

Obviously you can keep asking it a few more times if you want um and for obvious reasons I can't give you anything more because you know this goes to the you know the heart of a classified space the head of the Navy has a different View at this particular point in time we're not at full capacity but the.

Forecast based upon the submarine briefs that I received earlier this week is that over the next 12 months that will normalize so it's no secret that there was some maintenance period overruns that are attributed to the pandemic and the supply chain issues but I'm confident we're over that hub as it stands now you have one Deployable.

Submarine you've got one in workup of the four submarines that are supposedly available to the head of the Navy you only have two so we are at half capacity now with our submarine Fleet that's not entirely true we are coming out of the the Shadows of the covid-19 pandemic where there have been maintenance period overruns associated.

With closed borders supply chain issues and in some cases Workforce challenges as in Industry Workforce challenges so we're not over the hump yet but we are returning to full availability of the Collins class capability but you're not there yet no not not entirely no unsurprisingly we will start with orcas and then given the state of the Collins.

Class there are real concerns about whether we can run a vastly more complex nuclear program we don't even know well in opposition Senator Penny Wong raised serious questions about the Aging Fleet yes so we nursed them through to the 2050s just so we're really clear we extend the Collins for as long as possible and hope.

That can go far long enough for us to get the time to get a nuclear submarine in the water correct that's our current the government's current plan pretty risky don't you reckon Penny was accurate in describing the problems now that she's in government.

She basically has to paint a Rosy picture because that's what governments do they like people to think that everything's okay the reality is the situ hasn't situation hasn't changed from where it was a couple of years ago she's got a fair question doesn't she oh she absolutely has a fair question and I think to be honest that's exactly the.

Plan that we inherited when we came to office it's not much of a plan though is it well it it's something of of dealing with the capability Gap but it's not a great answer to dealing with the capability Gap Former Defense Department analyst Marcus Helia worked on the Navy's submarine project.

If we don't have columns we have no submariners and you cannot bring a nuclear submarine Fleet into service without a robust number of submariners so we have to keep Collins going and again all the attention you know is on the the nuclear future we we can't lose sight of the Collins Fleet it's going to keep a lot of money to keep Collins.

Going it's going to be aging it potentially becoming more unreliable spending less days at sea but we've got to find a way to keep columns going otherwise we don't have a submarine Force that means the Navy needs to keep the ailing Collins class in the water for a further 20 years.

Costing another six billion dollars they're not getting any younger former Submariner Brent Clark served on the Collins class he's skeptical about the plan to refit them and extend their service so this is the um this is a schematic of uh the Collins um looking at here so from 2026 onwards.

They're going to do this life of type extension yes um so what are they going to pull out here uh and replace on this submarine well I think the the the particularly large items so they're going to have to cut the submarine in half effectively sort of down past the Escape trunking they'll cut that in half and they'll do that to pull out the.

Diesel engines yep and they'll do that to replace the submarine Bay motor so they're getting a new submarine made motor and new diesel engines they'll be uh electronic and system upgrades throughout the rest of the submarine as you get that submarine sort of back up as modern as you can make it do you think it's realistic that in two years.

They can have the boat back in the water I I think that will be a stretch if he's right the Navy will struggle to have its full Fleet in the water in the years before the nuclear submarines arrive Australia is in this position after years of missteps and political indecision.

The government has been talking about replacing the Collins for almost two decades they'd originally planned for the next generation of submarines to be in the Water by the mid-2020s when the Collins class replacement was first announced the Rudd Gillard Rudd.

Government wanted to have an Australian designed son of Collins we Mr Abbott came along he wanted a Japanese submarine Mr Mr Turnbull came along he changed the pathway to a French submarine and then we've seen Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese going to a U.S followed by a British submarine oh.

the Japanese proposal was going to cost 50 billion dollars French deal eventually blew out to 80 billion now the nuclear deal is forecast to cost almost five times this amount hitting the taxpayer for 32 million dollars a.

Day every day for 32 years that's well over half of the Navy's budget you know potentially two-thirds of the Navy's budget so you know that illustrates the nature of the opportunity cost if you're spending that money on nuclear submarines you're not spending it on your surface Fleet on.

Your amphibious Fleet on your Patrol Fleet I think the the bottom line is is you can't have nuclear submarines plus all of the other capabilities that um the government seems to want the Prime Minister confirmed this at the release of the government's latest review of defense spending this represents a document for today.

What he didn't say was that making submarines the number one priority meant 7.8 billion dollars worth of cuts to other military projects what we've done here through the defense strategic review is look at what assets do we need and where do we need them so we make no apologies for that just.

Not being all pluses you could say a lot about life at Sea money is not the only hurdle to get a nuclear Fleet the Navy will need to navigate a complicated three-stage process submarines are a bit like a queen in a game of chess you think very carefully and strategically about how you position.

And employ them we're talking about underwater Aerospace technology we're talking about Naval nuclear propulsion two things that that our nation has to come to grips with so of course it's high risk and we're being very very transparent about that the first step is having us and UK.

Nuclear submarines in Australia training our Navy then in the early 2030s the Virginia class will arrive I don't think we'll have as many problems with the Virginia class they are a proven design the United States Navy knows exactly how to operate them and keep them running.

Rex Patrick is worried about the next step the difficulties of building our own nuclear submarine it will combine a U.S nuclear reactor and weapons system with a British designed submarine the British are consistently late they're consistently over budget and there are some questions as to whether.

Or not the submarine that pops out of their industry will in fact be as as good as the virginia-class submarines that they will purportedly replace he doubts we will ever get this anglo-american submarine it's unlikely in my view that once we've established ourselves on the Virginia pathway when we've got some good highly.

Capable U.S submarines that we will then step off that pathway and onto a very risky and costly program I don't think a future government would necessarily embark on that final stage nuclear submarine let's say you know Marcus Helia says despite the destructive capability of nuclear submarines Australia will still only.

Have a small Fleet even with the U.S Fleet in the Pacific there's concerns that will struggle to match China's Firepower Beijing has the world's largest navy with 66 submarines 12 of which are nuclear-powered a fleet of eight will give you two or three that are Deployable so that you.

Know 268 to 368 billion dollar investment potentially gives you three boats at Sea very capable powerful boats but still only three boats Commodore Peter Scott spent 34 years in the Navy captain in two collins-class.

Submarines he retired in 2017 as director General's submarines he says one of the biggest risks of going nuclear is the lack of submariners and that the Navy may need to Triple the number to nearly 3 000. I think there's no doubt that we've under-resourced the submarine.

Capability over past years no doubt if you fail to bring in for example an adequate number of Junior Warfare officers in any given year you will end up with a dearth of commanding officers a decade or so later because there's no other there's no Side Avenue people need.

To come in at the bottom learn the trade build their experience build their expertise to be able to move up through the chain and perform at higher levels and take greater responsibility now investigation also found Australia is heavily reliant on overseas commanders to run the fleet using open source naval data we.

Discovered four offices from foreign navies have kept an Australian submarines over the last three years well I think it goes to that point that we perhaps haven't had the depth and strength of our submarine Workforce that we might have needed in the past how then are we going to accrue much larger and more complex submarines as part of a.

Nuclear program yeah so it's not an unsolvable problem you know with a submarine capability absolutely with a nuclear submarine capability you cannot leave your Workforce um to chance and it requires determination so how are we going to have 12 to 14 captains to crew three class of vessels well we'll.

Need to do better than we've done in the past at submarine headquarters in Perth we met a foreign trained officer captaining an Australian submarine hi there good morning good morning sir welcome aboard one of the Collins class submarines thanks very much I'd like to go down below yeah can we have a look.

Please Commander Paul transferred across from the Canadian Navy two one and your dad okay wow it's welcome aboard yeah thank you pretty tiny it can be yes yeah wow okay should we uh have a look around let's go he was tasked with showing us around but was not allowed to speak more broadly.

Okay so just right down this way watch your head as we go through so this is the control room where we run the operations and the daily routine from the submarine we like to consider it the brain we can control all of our systems from forward as need be depth control weight calm fueling diesels and.

Then we drive from up forward here and these guys this guy's driving the sub he's driving the submarine yeah so it's one person here who controls both the depth and attitude so moves us around and then of course the thing everyone loves to see is the periscopes so this is our forward Periscope to search if you'd like to use it on the right here.

Is to turn it left and right and the left side to look up and down okay so this is how oh wow I can see oh okay yeah nice huh amazing we need to be very very careful we can't set ourselves up to wholly and solely.

Rely on overseas people coming and commanding our submarines we again will fail ultimately this has got to be a sovereign submarine capability for Australia we have to develop our own people we have to train our own people and we have to make sure that that's what we're doing Submariner Brent Clark fees the lack of.

Captains may even spark tensions with our allies there's a difference between people making a decision to immigrate to Australia and be part of the Australian nuclear program and us as a country going out and recruiting them and I think if we started to go out and actively recruit out of the United.

States and actively recruit out of the United Kingdom one would imagine those governments would be reasonably upset with us the Australian way of life is very appealing I think that what we offer is enticing we don't deliberately seek applications from submariners from other.

Navies the reality is there's a lot of interest in what we do and particularly the Collins class capabilities a lot of respect for it and people want to be part of what we do diving now diving now hi sir driving now Derby now this is what life's like on one of Australia's collins-class submarines so.

This is the ward room or the officer's mess if you like and if we go through here you've got to watch your head it's very cramped in here and this is where five of those officers would sleep and really only this curtain for privacy bear in mind they could spend up to three months on a mission living in these type of conditions and that's one.

Of the reasons why it's so hard to recruit people for Australia's submarine program foreign a critical challenge will be building a whole new industry and an entire Workforce to support it this is Australia's only nuclear reactor used almost entirely for medicine and.

Scientific research over the course of the next 30 Years the plan is to add at least 11 new reactors to power our new Fleet of submarines that's going to require a whole new industry built around safety maintenance and the always controversial issue of what to do with highly contaminated waste this is the reactor pool yes Heaven.

Griffis is the chief nuclear officer at an stove the Australian nuclear Science and Technology organization previously worked in the British Navy's nuclear program sort of the size of that reactor how does it compare to a nuclear submarine well ours is 20 megawatts a submarine you could say might be 10 times more.

Than that so the same size but 10 times more powerful yeah essentially yeah and that's the high enriched uranium it gives it that yeah that pool yes foreign as part of the orcas agreement Australia will be responsible for storing this weapons-grade waste which remains radioactive for 20 000 years.

At the moment we can't even agree on a permanent place to store low-level nuclear waste we don't have a permanent facility for that at no stage that is the national radioactive waste Management Facility that's been developed by our uh in in Kimber and South Australia which has been held up for a long time.

It is gone through appropriate judicial challenge at the moment but I guess that shows the scale or just how difficult the problem is that even low-level stuff like this at the moment we're struggling to find a disposal for that yeah I think the um we're as as close to finding a a solution to that as we as we have been.

We need only look to the UK to see how bad the waste problem can become there are two floating nuclear graveyards in Southwest England for 21 submarines the Royal Navy can't get rid of this includes HMS Dreadnought which has spent 43 years at this dock more than twice as long as it was in service.

this carbon fiber Yeah Yeah so basically the next obstacle is training enough Engineers to build and service the nuclear program so is this the type of place we're going to train the next generation of Engineers oh absolutely Laboratories like this and other state-of-the-art.

Teaching facilities we need to pretty much double the number of Engineers that we're training anyway and what about orcas how big of opportunity is that Jane McMaster from Engineers Australia says defense will be competing for talent in a tight Market the whole Workforce will be required to support the orcas capability even before.

August we projected that around 50 000 or more Engineers would be needed across the Australian economy before around 2030. it's quite hard to to put your finger on a definitive number but it's in the order of tens of thousands so would we when we bring orcas into the picture it's another few thousand Engineers on top of that and so it's.

Already an enormous challenge this scheme goes to the two vital needs of Australia the former aerospace engineer Likens the challenge of going nuclear to the snowy Hydro scheme of the 1950s and 60s the nuclear-powered submarine capability is an order of magnitude greater in terms of scale and complexity and.

Uncertainty but I think it is possible it just depends on how we all work together from here on in so you're saying it's bigger than snowy Hydro this National project we're embarking it is a huge project that covers the entire Workforce many professions many layers of complexity and it's not as simple as buying a.

Off-the-shelf product from the UK or the US so there are layers of complexity here that I'm not sure that we've grappled with before oh by the time the first locally built nuclear sub goes into the water it could.

Be compromised by large numbers of uncrewed underwater drones to counter this the Navy is rushing a drone into service it was 161 days from first approach to us being in contract in a true co-development program name the Ghost Shark it will be built by.

A Silicon Valley startup and will use artificial intelligence this is the dive LD it's the commercial variant that we sell to a range of different Industries David Goodrich is the executive chairman of Andrew Australia which is funding half the 140 million dollar project with defense what's the urgency I think the urgency.

Is that the indo-pacific and the geopolitical circumstances writ large have never been more unstable than they are at this point in time I think everybody understands there's also an undersea capability Gap that's looming what's the capability Gap that you see looming I think there's a difference in the time frame between the life of the.

Collins-class submarines and the new orcas nuclear-powered submarines that needs to be filled no this has got nothing to do with vulnerability of the columns class this has got everything to do with the development of capabilities that could be deployed from the Collins class or our future classes of submarines or from surface ships or from.

Land it's a recognition that there is a role and a spa and a place for unmanned systems underwater and that technology is now developing to the point where we can start to leverage those opportunities the Chinese are years ahead they have already deployed drones to the deepest parts of the ocean and are at.

The Cutting Edge of unmanned technology we are falling behind and the reason for that is because in in China specifically there is no gap between the commercial market and the defense Market there's this thing that they called civil military Fusion and the West has not actually done that very well in the past.

Particularly in the United States the battle space whether it's air land or sea will be saturated with large numbers of uncrewed uh cheaper disposable platforms those cheaper autonomous systems while they may not be able to replace a nuclear submarine they can potentially stop it from doing its job you know they.

Can make the operating environment too dangerous for a nuclear submarine to go into there's China embarks on the biggest military buildup since World War II Australia is entering a dangerous decade despite a staggering price tag for the new submarines the country will have to wait 30 years for the full Fleet to be.

Built until then we have no choice but to rely on the ailing collins-class submarines to be our silent Strike Force in an Ideal World we would be looking at a new class of Submarine today and we wouldn't be spending six billion dollars keeping an old submarine going but we're not living in an ideal world.

Today so every major regional Navy has expanded and modernized their submarine fleets in the past 20 years and we have not so if there's an undersea arms race in the indo-pacific we are not leading it today.

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