On the back of the visit by Australian Defence Minister Pat Conroy to the UK for the latest Australia-United Kingdom Defence Industry Dialogue (AUKDID), the Australian government announced a first AUS$310 million payment “for the acquisition of long lead items from the United Kingdom to support Australia’s future sovereign conventionally armed, nuclear powered submarine capability”.

These items, while unspecified, revolve mainly around the nuclear propulsion systems for the first 2 Australian SSN-A submarines. Under the AUKUS project, the SSN-A (for AUKUS) submarine will utilize a Rolls Royce nuclear reactor. While the Australian submarines will be built locally at the Osborne shipyard, the United Kingdom will deliver complete, welded, sealed units comprising the nuclear propulsion systems for each boat.

The reactors proper are manufactured by Rolls Royce at its Raynesway factory in the Derby area. The reactors will be integrated into their hull section by BAE Systems at Barrow-in-Furness before being shipped to Australia. This first Long Lead order is in addition to Australia’s contribution of £2.4 billion over 10 years to expand the production capacity of Rolls-Royce.

The Raynesway’s plant is almost doubling in size ahead of AUKUS kicking fully into gear, with BAE Systems planning the construction of a new, large facility in Barrow as well to generate a double production line for submarine blocks. The SSN-A, expected to be in the 10,000 tons size range, will also integrate US elements, mainly large diameter vertical launch tubes and related weapons and at least part of the weapon system, although it should be noted that the physical tubes are now manufactured by Babcock in Rosyth, Scotland, already for the UK DREADNOUGHT class SSBNs and US COLUMBIAs, as well as for the VIRGINIA SSNs.

In November 2025, BAE Systems, Raytheon Australia, General Dynamics Mission Systems and Thales have agreed a teaming arrangement to develop a shared Combat System by evolving the existing AN/BYG-1 shared by the US and Australian Navies. Thales and BAE Systems have concluded their own separate MoU to signal the birth of the 2176 evolved sonar suite, a major evolution of the 2076 suite found on the current ASTUTE class boats and considered world-leading.

Other parts of the SSN-A have been identified in the course of 2025: at the end of August, Huntington Ingalls Inc was awarded by the Pentagon nearly $33 million for “the development, maintenance, and delivery of the Common Weapon Launcher and Multi-Tube Weapon Simulator” in the context of AUKUS, with UK and Australia funding included. This would appear to confirm that the torpedo tubes will be of US origin.

The next generation forms of the MK48 torpedo family are expected to be used on SSN-AUKUS, surely for Australia, although the UK has not yet ruled out the development of a national successor to SPEARFISH. In July 2025, Babcock had revealed that it had started work to develop the Weapon Handling and Launch System for the SSN-AUKUS.

Again, at DSEI in September 2025, Babcock and HII signed an agreement to work together on solutions to ensure HII’s REMUS uncrewed underwater vehicles can be launched and recovered through the torpedo tubes and into the weapon handling system by Babcock, with obvious implications also for SSN-A. The detailed design of SSN-A is in progress, and the UK plans to acquire further long lead items this year and the next ahead of the expected beginning of construction of Boat 1 in 2028. Notably, the national steel acquisition pipeline released by the UK government shows over 40,000 tons of special steel plating for SSN-A due for acquisition beginning this year.

Earlier this month, the Australian government announced a new AUS$3.9 billion “down payment” for infrastructure project for the delivery of the new Submarine Construction Yard in Osborne. The existing shipyard will expand massively in size and will become perhaps the most complete and advanced submarine construction site in the world, according to the ambitious project.

In the words of Australia’s government, “at its peak, at least 4,000 Australian workers will be employed to design and build the infrastructure for the submarine construction yard. Around 5,500 direct jobs are expected to be created to build the nuclear-powered submarines in South Australia, when the program reaches its peak”.

The site expansion will involve the development of 3 areas, two of which entirely new. Area 1, also known as “Osborne North” is a partially already developed building site as this was going to become the assembly area for the ATTACK-class submarines that the AUKUS project replaces. The incomplete infrastructure will be adapted to become a manufacturing area for SSN-A which will include an enormous 420 meters-long fabrication hall. The Area 2 will see the construction of whole new facilities for blast and paint workshops for the submarine blocks, while Area 3 will have a covered consolidation hall where the blocks will be joined into a complete submarine; shiplift and graving dock. “Australian Naval Infrastructure (ANI) projections show an estimated projected investment of $30 billion over the coming decades, to build the construction yard in Osborne. Enabling works and the Skills and Training Academy (STA) are expected to cost approximately $2 billion and more than $500 million respectively”.

Construction is expected to use 66 million man hours and 126,000 tonnes of structural steel. The difference in scale with the still relatively recent development of “Osborne South” (the integrated shipyard that now is building the HUNTER-class frigates) is enormous: 10 times larger and 44 times the amount of man hours.

In the meanwhile, the Royal Navy ASTUTE-class SSN HMS ANSON has reached HMAS Stirling for a month-long stay and a first maintenance period involving Australian personnel. Beginning next year, an ASTUTE-class SSN, alongside US VIRGINIA-class SSNs, should return to create the “rotational force” the Allies have pledged to assist Australia on the way to fielding SSN of her own.

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