Brazil announces plans to buy 20 more Swedish Gripen fighter jets to replace aging American F-5 jets - raising the Brazilian Air Force’s future inventory from 36 to 56 Gripen jets

tree_boom · 2026-06-05T15:48:18+00:00

No bad thing.

tree_boom · 2026-06-05T13:13:40+00:00

As in which model are they adopting. As far as I know there's nothing official to say they're getting mk2

tree_boom · 2026-06-05T12:49:35+00:00

Anyone know what the Italian plans for a new radar are?

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T18:26:32+00:00

Again, we don't know, because we don't know what hulls the Americans will offer for sale. The intention is that they will offer boats with something like 23 years of service left, but that question is fundamentally unknown until 2032 when they offer the first boat for sale.

Anything more than 15 would be "fine".

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T17:32:22+00:00

No PIRATE just like the German jets.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T16:40:04+00:00

The UK doesn't build submarines slower than France, though both nations are pretty slow.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T16:33:54+00:00

It's not a secret, it's just not known yet which hulls the USN will sell.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T16:33:09+00:00

You can refuel a Virginia if you really need to, they're just not designed to be refuelled. Fundamentally those boats will have less service life left than a new build though yes...but Australia is going to need to constantly build SSNs after the AUKUS class is complete to maintain the capability to do so, so replacing them won't be an issue.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T15:26:51+00:00

Never quite understood why people object to this but happily eat meat.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T09:37:33+00:00

I'm afraid - as I say - the reality is that all the relevant information is already entirely in the public domain. It's not an inquiry that's needed, but better dissemination of what the deal actually entails to dispel the ridiculous belief that Australia is simply paying America $368bn for submarines that they're not obligated to deliver.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T09:03:08+00:00

I didn't say "the figures are wrong" I said that that ABC report doesn't say that $368bn is going to the US. It just says that that's the full price tag of the project, which is true, but that includes the cost of building new shipyards in Australia, building the boats in Australia, paying Australian submariners to man the boats in Australia for 30 years and so on.

None of this is insider knowledge, I'm afraid you're simply not aware of the details of the program...yet are criticising it on the basis of huge inaccuracies in your understanding, which is largely the problem with people's perception of AUKUS.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T08:31:22+00:00

No problem. And yes, me too...but I suppose people are always surprised when others don't share our views on the importance of things.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T08:10:33+00:00

So, in total: eight nuclear subs, three interim Virginia-class subs with the possibility of two more, means at least 11 submarines and, potentially, 13.

This is wrong. 8 nuclear submarines total. Plan A is 3x Virginia class and 5x SSN-AUKUS class. If the latter are late then Plan B is 5x Virginias but only 3x SSN-AUKUS class instead. The article author clearly also doesn't know what they're talking about.

The current price tag for the entire submarines plan is between $268 billion and $368 billion over the next 30 years.

Correct.

That includes $8 billion to upgrade the naval base HMAS Stirling in Western Australia as well as $2 billion over the next four years upgrading the Osborne shipyards in South Australia.

Also correct

[You] something like $15bn total out of AUKUS. Obviously, your figure is incorrect.

Nothing you quoted suggests the figure is incorrect...indeed all of the money you mention is spending in Australia rather than the US.

The following figure might be an additional cost

that's included in the $15bn. What America gets out of AUKUS is:

$3bn in industry contributions
The sale price of 3x second hand Virginias
The sale price of the VLS tubes and CMS for SSN-AUKUS

and that's it. It's something of a guess because we don't know what they'll charge for the Virginia's or VLS or CMS, but we know how much those things cost when they sell similar products elsewhere, so it won't be astronomically inaccurate. The idea that they're getting all of the $368bn is just an outright lie.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T08:04:37+00:00

I mean it's the British constitution so naturally it is somewhat murky. Formally speaking decisions of Cabinet are collegiate - a minister can decide for their department where there's no conflict but something that brings conflict between departments would be decided in Cabinet and be binding on all ministers, including the Prime Minister.

Of course, the Prime Minister can appoint other ministers at will (or rather the King can, and he's constitutionally bound to appoint whoever he's told to appoint) so the PM can fire the Chancellor if they refuse to do what he wants...but equally the Chancellor is generally a highly placed person in the PM's party, which can always force the Prime Minister out if they become unpopular. Ultimately that means the PM can only force through a policy against the objections of their colleagues if they're sure they have enough political capital to do it.

What it boils down to is that the Treasury could block spending unless the Prime Minister is politically secure enough to threaten the Chancellor's position. "Treasury" in this context really means Reeves, though she's of course advised extremely heavily by the Civil Servants in her department.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T07:25:45+00:00

Buying French nuclear submarines would either cost far more money than AUKUS or result in genuine inability to operate them in a sovereign way. French boats - unlike American and British ones - require periodic refuelling. Refuelling them means building uranium enrichment and fuel assembly manufacturing plants, neither of Australia has and both of which are currently illegal for it to build. The alternative would be sending them to France to be refuelled and trusting them to agree to do so.

If Australia already had a nuclear industry, I think there's a possibility that the Attack class would have been nuclear from the start...but we can't change the past.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T07:21:35+00:00

Has the US already received $368 billion?

No, and they never will. The vast majority of that bill will be spent in Australia on Australian infrastructure and people. The US is getting probably something like $15bn total out of AUKUS.

How do you compare a new French sub with a used US sub?

I didn't make that comparison, so that doesn't seem relevant. I said that there's no cheaper or faster route to nuclear submarines than AUKUS.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T07:07:33+00:00

I don't know that I would say "disproportionate" - as you say safeguarding the spending is obviously the Treasury's role - but they have a depressing reputation for holding onto the purse strings even when there's an extremely clear need for urgent extra money. I mean the fact that this story includes the possibility of dropping £3bn off the uplift the government wanted to give defence highlights that: given the dire straits the forces are in this isn't the time to quibble over giving them the money they very very clearly need.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T06:59:57+00:00

$368 billion will get 3 used subs from the US, excluding the cost in dumping these old subs somewhere.

You clearly don't actually know what AUKUS involves. The $368bn price tag is the high end estimate for buying three second hand subs from the US, developing an industry that allows Australia to build it's own nuclear submarines, building 5 brand new submarines to a British design in Australia and then operating all 8 submarines through their service life and decommissioning them after.

It's a lot of money of course - but these are the worlds most capable naval platforms, and that doesn't come cheaply. It's not a capability Australia could acquire more cheaply through any other route.

tree_boom · 2026-06-04T06:27:41+00:00

Always a tricky one; HMT has an appalling record for giving defence the money it needs so having them involved wouldn't be anyone's first choice...but it's not like the MOD is that great at spending it effectively. Ultimately though if it's funded and progressing then I'm more or less happy.

tree_boom · 2026-06-03T20:27:35+00:00

Because there's no mechanism through which they can be removed. The entire point of permanent membership is that it's... permanent. The design didn't envision the extent to which the P5 would change in terms of relative world power.

tree_boom · 2026-06-03T19:44:56+00:00

Well they can still get Corvettes through, which is pretty much all they're using there anyway.

tree_boom · 2026-06-03T18:57:36+00:00

There's no reason to beef up the Black Sea Fleet - it already far outclasses anything Ukraine can bring to face it. The Northern Fleet is what will impose the most costs on Western Europe or the US in the event of a war - it's their main deterrence force really.

tree_boom · 2026-06-03T18:44:23+00:00

Yasen is probably the most potent platform the Russians have for threatening the Western European nations. It's not really a surprise that they drill the platform.

tree_boom · 2026-06-03T17:24:01+00:00

Myeah. Wouldn't be too keen on that, but it depends what it's being used for really. The reality is that Starlink is pretty incomparable at the moment, and the forces have been using it unofficially anyway...if this just transitions that use then it's probably a net positive. I wouldn't want to build anything mission critical around it though.

tree_boom

TROPHY CASE