Babcock International Group and Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) have entered into a strategic agreement to support the AUKUS fleet of nuclear submarines in Australia.
This partnership brings together experiences from the Commonwealth of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and builds on the existing agreement between the two companies to cooperate in the United Kingdom and the United States in nuclear decommissioning, waste disposal and national security opportunities.
Babcock and HII will work together to develop optimal sustainment models for the nuclear submarine fleet, including infrastructure, servicing and necessary skills development, to support the Anglo-Saxon Triple Alliance AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, United States). The parties will engage Australian industry to optimize specific solutions.
Both Babcock and HII are trusted defense companies with many years of experience supporting nuclear submarine fleets in the UK and the US and conventional submarine fleets in Canada.
The decision to create AUKUS and purchase SSN-class nuclear submarines by Canberra is the result of the Australian government’s resignation from continuing the program for building conventional Attack-class submarines (12 units for the Royal Australian Navy. Their base project was the Shortfin Barracuda Block 1A), implemented with the French Naval Group, which was announced on September 16, 2021. Currently, the development plan for the Australian submarine fleet includes the design of a new generation unit in Great Britain that will be common and standard for two navies – the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Navy, referred to as SSN-AUKUS. With the first RAN aircraft not due until the early 2040s, Canberra will purchase three Virginia-class SSNs from the United States to fill the operational hole.
Source : zbiam.pl
