Defense News – Australia won’t take possession of its first nuclear-powered submarine until 2032, but Australia and the United States are already training the officers and sailors who will operate that Virginia-class attack boat and the civilians who will maintain it.

The War Zone – The Ghost Shark is Australia’s ambitious extra-large autonomous undersea vehicle, but details about its future missions remain scarce.

Defense News – Though the submarine portion of the AUKUS trilateral alliance will take decades to fully come to fruition, development of the advanced technology under the agreement is in full swing, as Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. seek quick wins for their fleets, officials said.

Naval News – At the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra, Defence Minister Richard Marles simultaneously unveiled the first ever “National Defence Strategy 2024” (NDS) plus the “Integrated Investment Program 2024” (IIP). The latter was the first release of the IIP since its last public iteration four years ago. The NDS continues on from last year’s Defence Strategic Review, and gives the raison d’être for Australia’s major boost in defence capability. Meanwhile, the IIP lists in detail what will be procured in the next decade, alongside approximate monetary amounts.

Breaking Defense – In a bright spot for Australian defense procurement, an important domestic defense program, the first Ghost Shark autonomous submarine prototype, has come in early and on budget.

Naval News – Details have been set out for four workstrands being developed, within Pillar 2 of the AUKUS trilateral strategic defence and security partnership, to generate new underwater battlespace capability for the Australian, UK, and US navies. One new capability priority is capacity to launch and recover uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) from submarine torpedo tubes.

Center for Maritime Strategy – Once again, as the current Houthi-attacks on merchant shipping in the confines of the Red Sea show, navies must be able to effectively operate in littoral waters. Late last year two former Royal Australian Navy officers Commander Jen Parker and Vice Admiral Peter Jones wrote an Occasional Paper for the Australian Naval Institute on the RAN’s experience in the littoral and what lessons can be drawn from it. Here is a précis of that paper.

RUSI – Australia’s latest defence review – addressing the renewal of the country’s navy – charts a vision for a larger fleet over the coming decades. But it will take time, and even the best laid plans can go awry.

Naval News – Australia has already received its first batch of smart sea mines which have already been put to use during exercises.

Naval News – The Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) fleet will grow from 11 surface combatants to 26 under plans announced by Minister for Defence.

USNI News – A team of 37 Royal Australian Navy sailors are heading to Guam to learn how to maintain nuclear submarines. The officers and enlisted sailors will embed aboard USS Emory S. Land (AS-39), the U.S. Navy’s mobile submarine maintenance platform located in Guam.

Naval News – A review into Australia’s procurement of the Hunter-class frigate has found serious issues with the procurement process that led to the BAE Systems Type 26 design being selected for the Royal Australian Navy’s future frigates.

Defense News – The U.S. and Australian navies will see their submarine-specific partnerships grow in multiple ways throughout 2024.

Defense News – The shipbuilder for a $30 billion Australian program is pushing back against criticism over the design and capabilities of the anti-submarine warfare frigate.

Navy Lookout – BAE Systems recently unveiled a proposal to add additional VLS cells to the Hunter class frigates being built for the Royal Australian Navy. Here we examine the background to the requirement for more missiles and the potential opportunities for Type 26 customer nations.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy intends to sell Australia used Virginia-class attack submarines in 2032 and 2035, plus a new boat in 2038.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy is beginning to integrate its industrial base with those of Australia and the United Kingdom, despite Congress not yet passing several measures to enable the trilateral submarine-building arrangement AUKUS.

USNI News – The second group of Royal Australian Navy sailors have graduated from the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power school in Charleston, S.C..

BBC – When Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets US President Joe Biden in Washington this week, deterring an assertive China will be on the agenda. At home, Darwin – a city key to the US-led defence alliance in the Pacific – will be watching.

Defense News – The Australian government announced Friday it has decided not to cancel a Chinese company’s 99-year lease on the strategically important Darwin Port, despite U.S. concerns that the foreign control could be used to spy on its military forces.

ABC – One of Australia’s oldest submarines has suffered an on-board electrical fire while at sea, with the crew able to continue their mission after managing to extinguish the blaze.

(Thanks to Alain)

USNI News – The Australian Army is slated to shift its focus to the littorals after announcing last week several major changes, which include the redeploying a sizable portion of soldiers and equipment across the country and optimizing several brigades for littoral and amphibious missions.

Defense News – Artificial intelligence and autonomy companies from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are already feverishly developing and pitching tools to gather ever-more data and then help operators make sense of an information-overload environment. They’re hoping all this work will lead to contracts at home and with the allies soon, as more details about the second phase of the AUKUS trilateral arrangement, focused on advanced technology, come to light this fall.

Defense News – It will take two decades for Australia to operate the nuclear-powered submarines designed and built under a new arrangement with the United States and the United Kingdom, unveiled six months ago. Even so, a flurry of activity meant to get the undertaking off the ground has already begun, and experts say it’s critical to the program’s long-term timeline that the three countries meet these initial goals.

Defense News – As the two-year anniversary of AUKUS approaches, the export control debate and a separate tussle over the health of the submarine-industrial base have raised questions about how and when Congress will pass several authorizations needed to make the program into the transformational initiative leaders promised.