Before the last election the preferred option was a new local design and the fall back was an evolved Collins, this relied on a life extension of Collins and even then the timeframe was tight, realistically the decision should have been made by 2012 at the latest. With the change of government and contrary to all professional advice from the operators, maintainers, capability experts, not to forget expensive overseas consultants etc. the new government decided to listen instead to DFAT and former DFAT mandarins who were in favour of option J and killing off the local industry for reasons that were purely strategic in nature i.e. containing China through an Australian/Japanese Alliance, underwritten by the US.
The only way option J would get up would be to kill off any idea of an Australian design or the fall back evolved Collins.
Step one was to falsely claim Collins was shagged and in need of urgent replacement that would preclude local construction, let alone design.
Step two was to blame the situation on ASC, reaffirming step one, i.e. Collins is shagged, and a local build is impossible, it also ensured that no one would contemplate a local design as if ASC couldn't maintain the current fleet how could they possibly build the new one, even if a design was available to do so.
Step three was to exclude the only party other than ASC that could claim experience in designing and building a large ocean going DE sub for the RAN, Kockums.
Step four, claim the only suitable in production design was the Soryu.
Step five, order twelve Soryus from Japan after DFAT sorts out the appropriate strategic alliance (of topic but another prerequisite to this was finalising the FTA with Japan which inturn required killing the Australian Automotive industry as Japan would never sign off an FTA with an Automotive producer).
The comprehensive plan is handed to Abbott who loves it and gets Johnston (Defmin and ASCs only customer) and Corman (Finance Minister and ASCs owner) on side through promising that the new subs will be exclusively maintained in WA seeing both sharpening their knives and laying into ASC.
Johnston goes overboard and gets sacked and his replacement, though an Abbott ally and not too bright is not from WA and does not see the need to kill a sovereign capability for the sake of a hypothetical alliance, particularly a capability that has so recently been independently reviewed and found to be approaching best practice following the removal of government inspired road blocks and contractual constraints. At the same time Abbotts leadership style is on the nose with the parliamentary party and the public so it become politically impossible to so blatantly exclude a local build option. Local build is back on the table (though Corman is still sniping from the sidelines) and the CEP is pulled out of thin air (I know this because I have known the bloke who was seconded to create it, after Abbott announced it, for over twenty years) and suddenly the French and Germans are introduced to the mix for the sake of appearances.
Now that the original option J (straight near term MOTS acquisition of Soryus from Japan) is pretty much dead it is suddenly realised (for the second time in five or so years) that the Collins can be life extended economically and safely. Unfortunately we are now three years further down the road and a decision still has not been made meaning that while a local build is possible, even likely, a local design is dead as is an evolved Collins.
In a nutshell the article is three or more years out of date, a local design is impossible and a new bespoke OS design equally so. The only realistic options left are local and or Japanese construction of an evolved Soryu.
On the LI batteries, but for stability issues (they are significantly lighter than the current lead acid batteries) ASC, DSTO, RAN and DMO would be fine with using them on our current subs.
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