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Closer links – and more training - with Australia as RN’s AUKUS ties are strengthened
26 September 2024
Hundreds of Australian submariners and civilians will receive specialist nuclear skills through training from Royal Navy engineers as UK-US-Australian military cooperation moves up a gear.
Following a landmark meeting at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich – birthplace of nuclear training in the Senior Service – between the Defence Secretaries/Ministers of the three allies, our nations will work more closely together to boost global security.
Under the AUKUS agreement, the trio are working in lockstep to develop Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine capability, building up to the joint AUKUS Fleet submarines entering service at the end of the 2030s.
To that end, 250 Australians have already been taught the skills necessary to operate, maintain, sustain and regulate a nuclear-powered submarine.
And three RAN officers completed the UK Nuclear Reactor course in July; they are now serving on the Royal Navy’s latest Astute-class submarines. A second group of Australian officers will begin the course at HMS Sultan in November.
Defence Secretary John Healey committed to more UK-delivered training courses,with hundreds more Australians lined up to be instructed by the Royal Navy in 2025.
The AUKUS agreement embraces far more than nuclear-powered submarines, however, and covers all aspects of mid-21st Century military operations.
AUKUS teams have been involved in this autumn’s major test of military autonomous systems in the air, on land and at sea hosted by the Portuguese, while Australia is about to host the second of its similar exercises (last year Royal Navy divers/mine warfare experts and patrol ship HMS Tamar were involved).
The nations also agreed to follow the UK’s lead by integrating Sting Ray torpedoes onto P-8A submarine-hunting aircraft.
Sting Ray – which is about to undergo a multi-million-pound upgrade to deal with the latest submarine threats – is the principal anti-submarine weapon of the Fleet Air Arm and Surface Fleet.