Re: Quiet
... Nuclear subs have much better range and endurance ...In the current strategic situation, these are paramount.
Let's assume that this is to counter China (duh). That means operations could be expected in the Western Pacific, specifically the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea and adjacent areas. From the current submarine base (HMAS Stirling) to, say the Philippine sea area between Taiwan and the Philippines, that's 6000km straight-line distance. Allowing for dog-legs and kinks to actually avoid landmasses and go through straits and channels, it's more like 7500km. The current Collins-class have the range for that, I believe they are the longest range conventional subs in operation at 21,000km at 10kn (surfaced), but time to reach that operational station at 10kn's would be ~17 days assuming no stops, for 34 days round-trip time not including actual operations. And that's all (or mostly) surfaced transit. A UK Astute could do the same round trip in ~12 days - or ~6days to get onto station - entirely submerged. In theory the Collins could do the entire trip submerged at snorkel depth, but in that case range drops down to 17000km at 10kn, seriously reducing on-station operational time after the ~15000km round-trip transit is taken into account. Of course, there is refuelling and layoevers at friendly ports, Singapore, potentially Indonesia and the Philippines, even Taiwan (although I don't think that'd go down well lol), but that means having to have some sort of forward base or baseing agreement, which is its own can of worms.
Being able to do the entire trip submerged is a huge tactical advantage, not to mention actually being able to shadow and chase down surface combatants travelling at decent (20kn+) speeds, which the diesel-electrics just don't have the submerged speed and endurance to do, certainly not for very long if at all.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
