From the President
President Kelly advised that Saturday
Kelly and Gorby are attending the Peace Assembly at Como Primary following today's meeting.
Como Primary is a recipient of a Peace Pole from RCMP.
Guest Speaker Peter Durrant (LCDR Ret) – Australia’s Submarine Legacy and the Future with AUKUS
Peter Durrant started his 23-year Military career as an Electronics Technician in the Navy volunteering for the Submarine arm in 1976.
Mid-career, Peter was commissioned and served as the Electrical Engineer on three different Submarines, culminating as the Electrical Engineer on HMAS Collins the first of the then New Submarines.
Peter continues to pursue a career across Industry in the fields of Asset Management, Maintenance and Operator Driven Reliability and has stayed in touch with Defence and Submarine related matters.
Peter is also well known to us as Founder and Chair of the WA Rotary Relief since 2020. He is twice Past President of Karrinyup Rotary Club (2013-2014 and 2021-2022) and D9455 Rotarian of the Year for 2021-2022.
Peter began by giving an overview of where we are at now. Australia has been involved with submarines for 110 years, 2014 being the Centenary. In that time, we have stopped and started the submarine arm eight times! The fact that we are now going to nuclear subs is that the “Yanks” have finally given us the technology (otherwise we would have done it a long time ago).
Historically, we started with the famous AE1 and AE2 of World War 1.
Post WW1 we had six J Class submarines obtained from Britain.
1927-31 were the “O” Class submarines with Oxley and Otway.
WW2 saw Allied and the Dutch K9 submarines with Fremantle being a very busy base.
1949-69 Royal Navy’s Fourth Submarine Flotilla was based in Sydney, with shared costs between Australia and New Zealand. During this time the Oberon Class subs were being built with crew training in the UK.
1967-2000 saw the diesel-electric Oberon Class in service.
1992 saw the start of the Collins class submarines.
A limitation of the conventional submarines is that batteries must be charged up every day, like your EV… With a SSN (Ship Submerged Nuclear), you can stay submerged for a vey long period, the only limitations are the amount of food you can carry and how long your people can last.
- 85% of all nation states are coastal
- 70% of the earth’s people and 95% of Australians live within 150km of the sea
- 70% of the earth’s surface is sea
- 99.5% of trans-oceanic trade is shipped
To get to an area, such as the Indo-Pacific, the transit time can be significant. Submarines from Australia would take 5-7 days to reach the South China Sea and 11-14 days from the west coast of the USA. During the Falklands War, it took the four Royal Navy submarines a transit of 26 days. The covert presence of these nuclear powered submarines, and the sinking of the light cruiser General Belgrano, effectively kept the Argentinian Navy bottled up in port.
To keep two deployable submarines consistently available would require a total of six in the fleet. This would comprise three consistently available for tasking, one in shorter-term maintenance and two in long-term maintenance and upgrade.
The AUKUS (Australia/United Kingdom/United States) Agreement will see Australia acquire nuclear powered, conventionally armed submarines. This will occur in two Pillars:
As noted by Professor Ross Babbage in his excellent paper (https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/deterrence-alliance-power-why-aukus-submarines-matter-how-they-can-be-delivered):
- Significant progress has already been made
- Australia will host up to five allied SSNs within three years
- AUKUS partners will more than double the number of forward-deployed allied SSNs
- Personnel expansion for the Royal Australian Navy will be one of the greatest challenges for the AUKUS program.
JAUKUS is currently a conceptual initiative to include Japan, but yet to be formally established. Like AUKUS this will be focussed on defence and security cooperation in response to growing geopolitical tensions, particularly regarding China’s influence.
In question time, we got to ask Peter how a man of his size fitted in to a submarine? In response, he “has several submariner friends who are 6’4”…..”
Peter’s full presentation can be viewed at:
millpointrotaryclub.org.au>members only (password)> this link>Guest Speaker Presentations>DURRANT Peter – Australia’s Submarine Legacy & AUKUS
Directors' Reports and Announcements
President Kelly:
Reminded those members who have not submitted a survey form to please do so. Hard copies are available from KG this morning.
Joy B:
Alerted members to the updated list of Silent Auction items for BNB has been placed on each table and the folders will be available at Friday meetings from next week if members wish to lodge bids.
Diana Goh:
Advised that the sausage sizzle planned for East Vic Park Bunnings has been cancelled as it will not realise a reasonable return for effort.
Fines (verbatim)
- Ian K was quick to text me (Wayne) the other morning when he won a croquet match against a top team early in a competition. I never heard a later score from him all day!
- Kelly spent a day with me on some rough roads for BnB. When we got through the Julimar Forest we stopped for me to look at my tires. 'Why?' He asked. His face changed colour when I told him my car carries no spare wheel.
- All those ABC listeners - please dob in a coin for the bungle they made altering a section of film to add gunfire that was not there in the original.
- All those with children or grandchildren at school. With one child banned every 2 minutes you must be doing a lot of babysitting.
- With a threat that the Windsor Theatre may be demolished, we will have a donation from everyone who has attended that place in the last 10 years.
- Anyone that has a Tupperware storage container at home can add another coin to the mix.
Winner of Heads and Tails
Attendance
35 attendees in all, including guest speaker Peter Durrant, Rotarians Kaye Durrant and David Tyler (?), and visitors Zander (Alison's grandson), Andy George, and Ajith Gunasekera.
