From Attack Class SSK to AUKUS SSN to now Suffren SSN ![:rotfl:]( "ROTFL")
“The Best Option Remains the Suffren”: Australian Admiral Peter Briggs’s Live Against AUKUS
https://opexnews.fr/aukus-sous-marins-s ... australie/
06 May 2025
In an interview with Point, former Royal Navy Rear Admiral Peter Briggs sounds the alarm: "The AUKUS Agreement on Submarines is a calamitous plan." After participating in the aborted negotiations for French submarines in the 2010s, he now advocates a strategic return to France. Briggs points to the inconsistency of the AUKUS calendar, which provides for a transitional delivery of Virginia-class American submarines while US shipyards are already under stress. “We will not have submarines available in 2031, when we need them, and these submarines will be too big for a country of 27 million people like Australia. This plan, as a whole, goes straight into the wall.”
The difficulties of recruitment, the exorbitant cost of the future British Aukus SSN – three times heavier than the current Collins – and political uncertainty in the United States add to the doubt: “Waiting for Aukus is waiting for a dream.” Faced with these risks, Peter Briggs defends a plan B: relaunching industrial cooperation with France around nuclear attack submarines of the Suffren type, already in service in the French Navy. “France was treated very badly when the Attack Class program was cancelled. She had proposed the Suffren, and we refused. But we need to consider a plan and the best option is the Suffren.”
According to him, the Suffren has decisive advantages: more suitable format, crewed (65 sailors compared to more than 100 for AUKUS), better manoeuvrability in the shallow waters of Australia, and interoperability with NATO standards. The Admiral proposes a pragmatic formula: “France today does not have the capacity to welcome and train our crews. Only the United States can. Our sailors could continue to train with the U.S. Navy and then convert to Suffren, via a short formation in Australia. On the maintenance side, "the Suffren reactor requires recharging every ten years. Nothing insurmountable.”
Built locally, with transfer of know-how and gradual adaptation, the Suffren could restore Australia’s sovereign nuclear submarine capability. As critical voices begin to emerge in Australia’s political debate, including from former Prime Minister Malcolmur Turnbull, Briggs hopes for a strategic uprising: “We will have to pay the price for our mistake of rejecting France in 2021. But it will always be cheaper than AUKUS. For God alone knows what the gigantic British AUKUS SSN will cost. We should soon sit down with France to discuss.”
“The Best Option Remains the Suffren”: Australian Admiral Peter Briggs’s Live Against AUKUS
https://opexnews.fr/aukus-sous-marins-s ... australie/
06 May 2025
In an interview with Point, former Royal Navy Rear Admiral Peter Briggs sounds the alarm: "The AUKUS Agreement on Submarines is a calamitous plan." After participating in the aborted negotiations for French submarines in the 2010s, he now advocates a strategic return to France. Briggs points to the inconsistency of the AUKUS calendar, which provides for a transitional delivery of Virginia-class American submarines while US shipyards are already under stress. “We will not have submarines available in 2031, when we need them, and these submarines will be too big for a country of 27 million people like Australia. This plan, as a whole, goes straight into the wall.”
The difficulties of recruitment, the exorbitant cost of the future British Aukus SSN – three times heavier than the current Collins – and political uncertainty in the United States add to the doubt: “Waiting for Aukus is waiting for a dream.” Faced with these risks, Peter Briggs defends a plan B: relaunching industrial cooperation with France around nuclear attack submarines of the Suffren type, already in service in the French Navy. “France was treated very badly when the Attack Class program was cancelled. She had proposed the Suffren, and we refused. But we need to consider a plan and the best option is the Suffren.”
According to him, the Suffren has decisive advantages: more suitable format, crewed (65 sailors compared to more than 100 for AUKUS), better manoeuvrability in the shallow waters of Australia, and interoperability with NATO standards. The Admiral proposes a pragmatic formula: “France today does not have the capacity to welcome and train our crews. Only the United States can. Our sailors could continue to train with the U.S. Navy and then convert to Suffren, via a short formation in Australia. On the maintenance side, "the Suffren reactor requires recharging every ten years. Nothing insurmountable.”
Built locally, with transfer of know-how and gradual adaptation, the Suffren could restore Australia’s sovereign nuclear submarine capability. As critical voices begin to emerge in Australia’s political debate, including from former Prime Minister Malcolmur Turnbull, Briggs hopes for a strategic uprising: “We will have to pay the price for our mistake of rejecting France in 2021. But it will always be cheaper than AUKUS. For God alone knows what the gigantic British AUKUS SSN will cost. We should soon sit down with France to discuss.”
Statistics: Posted by Rakesh — 06 May 2025 20:38