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Australia will invest the equivalent of 6.8 billion euros to make one of its naval shipyards capable of building a fleet of nuclear propulsion submarines, the country’s government said. According to military analysts, it is an investment in “billionaire coffins” that will soon be obsolete.
An estimated total of 12 billion Australian dollars (about 6.8 billion euros) will be invested over ten years to renew and improve Henderson’s shipyards near Perth, western Australia, the defense minister said, said the Minister of Defense, Richard Marles.
In 2021, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States celebrated a tripartite agreement, called, intended to counteract increasing influence of China in Asia Pacific.
The agreement provides for the supply to the 3 to 5 nuclear submarines From Virginia’s US-class attack within 15 years, after which Australia will manufacture its own submarines in collaboration with the United Kingdom.
However, as Naval shipyards in the United States already have difficulty providing the US Navy, Washington announced in June an Aukus review to ensure that the agreement continues in compliance with the objectives of President Donald Trump.
“Henderson’s shipyards are a key element of the Aukus agreement,” Marles told Australian broadcaster, adding that “what Australia should do to take this strategic opportunity.”
Camberra plans to equip Henderson with highly secure dried docks for the maintenance of nuclear submarines and create installations for the construction of landing barges and, in the long run, Japanese frigates of the Mogami class, the minister added.
According to the ruler, the total cost of the development of these shipyards should reach $ 25 billion Australian, about 14.17 billion of euros.
From predator to billionaire coffin
“Speed, Discretion and Fire Power”, He told the Australian submarine agency director, Jonathan Meadregarding the future fleet of nuclear submarines in the country. “Nuclear submarine is the top predator of the oceans. ”
In the first quarter of the 21st century, nuclear submarines revealed a formidable force, capable of launching lethal attack, and practically undetectable.
This capacity is added to the important determining effect of “second attack”: Any aggression to a country with nuclear submarines is made with the certainty that There will be retaliation – From a war ship hidden under the waves.
But for the longer the nuclear submarine will be the top of the oceans?
The military history is full of the corpses of the top predators that the height dominated the battlefield, points out The Guardian. The gatling machine gun, Oating, the combat tank. All of them, in times, have detained a unquestionable power – Until they are exceeded, in some cases totally swept, for the unstoppable advance of technology.
This will be, ineldly, the fate of nuclear submarinesaccording to a group of military subject specialists in an analysis published in 2023 in.
The last years have brought rapid advances in detection technologies submarines, in most cases originating in China, including vast Sensor Networks extremely sensitive sonar, quantum sensors and improvements in satellite screening capable of Detect minimal changes on the surface of the oceans and tiny disturbances in the earthly magnetic field.
These advances add the recent and exponential increase in the processing of massive amounts of data brought by artificial intelligence.
According to this Sunday, a new study conducted by the China Defense Industry suggests that AI could soon make it extremely difficult, or almost impossible, the survival of submarines In a future naval conflict.
According to the study, an AI -controlled anti -submarine advanced anti -submarine war system will be able to detect even the most silent submarinesthrough a smart decision making in real time, and reduce your probability of survival to only 5%.
These technologies may transparent the last opaque place of the land?
Maybe it’s not linear, analysts say. Oceans may become, in certain areas, less impenetrable: strategic sea routes and contested coastal areas may be intensely watchedwhile remote and deep ocean pits may remain indecipherable.
But, according to the study conducted by The Strategist experts, the oceans, in most circumstances, have a probability of 75% (and, from some perspectives, 90%) become transparent until the 2050s.
This suggests that, regardless of progress in stealth technologiessubmarines, including those powered by nuclear energy, can be easily detected in the oceans of the world as a result of progress in science and technology.
Thus, analysts conclude, the Australian government may be investing in what will soon be “Caixions of thousands of dollars“.
