Took a look at some of the issues from down under the last couple days and had one bookmarked the day I watched it on Jan 3rd 2025 about the renewable energy issue(s) being experienced that although made sense to me. I'm sure would offend many member of this forum as incomplete. This one is about a secret, well it was brokered in secret, with implications and international intrigue that dates back to the last great war and agreements ratified at its conclusion up until present or at very least before this brokered deal. Just my take from what I've learned in the last few days. I hope it brings to light some facts and holds the here say to a minimum, for others to make their own of it. wiki AUKUS - Wikipedia !yt - an hour long
^ Saved for later. @ aukus A-UK-US was a 'thing' in 2021 after the folks down on Oz FINALLY realized they were getting......um.....'somewhat taken advantage of' by an unnamed nation that rhymes with 'Prance.' The Aussies are trying to develop an in-house boat building programme and the last time I thought about this subject they were trying to decide between the UK's Astute class or our own Virginia class of submarines. I think that they came up with some Rube-Goldberg scheme of taking delivery of two 'gently used' US Virginia class boats while they learn to build AND OPERATE their own boats. NUCULAR boats - and remember, OZ doesn't even believe in commercial nucular power - even though (I'm told) they have some significant uranium reserves. The clock has been ticking on the AUKUS thing since 2021 and I haven't really given it much thought since the US is experiencing a LOT of trouble with getting OUR boats into the fleet - so I have questions and doubts about us giving up two 20-year-old 774s when we still have 40-year-old boats that OUR sailors are riding down to test depth. We're well behind schedule getting OUR Virginia and Columbia class boats into our fleet, and some of the remaining Los Angeles boats are getting a little long in the tooth - to say nothing of the Ohios (In commission since 1981.) OTOH, submarines are built MUCH MUCH differently now than they were when John Phillip Holland was tinkering with them in 1900 - and the Aussies have an opportunity to white-sheet a new ship building facility from scratch and....we can use the additional hulls in WestPac!! If I were king for a day I would encourage the UK to become more involved in a 'mod Astute' hull with some of the Virginia's brown water capabilities, and see if we can get a shipyard going down in OZ using 2020's submarine building tech. It would be better for the A, the UK and the US.......AUKUS!
It's amazing to me what's showing up on open channels from and about other countries behind the data walls up currently. Just to get a glimpse besides the simple text from at least one expatriate currently posting here at priuschat. With that, here is the Title Yangzte Shipping Industry 21 minutes
I'd seen a few days ago a tube about the history of france after the big second conflict which included a few presidential names of france and some political intrigue along with it. It's subject was the FR AU deal for subs that was pulled out of by AU when the AUKUS project was agreed to. I'll try to relocate it, but yesterdays attempt to do that failed using the aukus search term. adding charles degualle might provide better results today.
Interesting look-back to.....(only 2-3?) years ago..... Most of my presumptions about AUKUS are pretty much unchanged excepting that we're falling way behind on SSN-774 production. I cannot blame this on one administration or another because the 774s have been in serial production for over 20 years now and thus many many authors exist for this sad story. We were supposed to be putting over 2 hulls a year into the water and lately we've fallen well short of that goal. AND....they've blown through the budget as though they were on-time. The GOOD news is that the first 4 blocks (774-797) are performing well as far as I can tell from this side of the fence. The BAD news is that lately we've only been putting one new hull in service per year lately. That's not bad as far as it goes since our national debt may mean that we have to do EVEN MORE with EVEN LESS......but the Block-5 Virginias (ssn-802 to SSN-813) are SUPPOSED to replace the first four Ohio boats (SSGN-726 to 729) which are now 40+ years old. At the current rate of production the 802 boat may not be in service until USS Ohio is nearly 50-years old!! The gap that this may create will be fairly big. We were originally supposed to build 24 Ohios but that got shaved down to 18 because we won the cold war and: Clinton. Not a complaint. Those were wise cost cuts. The oldest 4 Ohio SSBNs were supposed to be turned into razor blades because of the various START treaties that the Russians regularly flaunt their genitals at. HOWEVER (comma!!!!) They were BIG, damned well built, much faster and slightly more maneuverable than expected AND quiet as a Kamala Harris victory party. SO....they were converted to SSGNs and now carry 154(!) cruise missiles and a gaggle of SEALS. 25 years ago. The Block-5 Virginias are supposed to back-fill them. The Columbias class (SSBN-826) are the follow-on to the Ohio-class SSBN (missile boats) the remaining 14 of which are ALSO getting older every day. Columbia is ALSO behind schedule and over budget and is supposed to be a 12-boat class to replace the 14 remaining SSBNs we have in service. A 336 present missile capability (presuming all boats are in service) being reduced to 192. Not great but - cost reductions need to happen here too. The USN already expects this number to be cut to 10 - but I expect 6 to 8 eventually. If anybody is still reading? Here's the interesting part!!!!!! (at least to me......) Ohio Class SSBN......24 Trident D5 missiles. 560' x 42' with 18,750 tonnes of submerged displacement. Columbia SSBN now being built........16 Trident D5 missiles. 560' x 43' with 20,810 tonnes of submerged displacement. 40 years newer - with all of the space savings for equipment that have been developed since the 80's..... 8 Fewer D5 missiles..... Bigger hull with an extra 2000 tonnes of displacement..... Sorta makes ME wonder what they're doing with all of that extra space! (Things that make you go....hmmmmmm......)
still hoping to find the long cold deal with the french to the diesel powered fish the french already provided the australians, while wishing them the best on the new french sub deal, I've still only seen snippets of. this is a couple years old, with news of what was being planned on all sides as seen by the AU gov and media. almost sounds like what's happening from sea to shining sea.
ideally, I'd like to put this post under a different title about china, but I probably wouldn't have found this info without watching sky and other channels in the region. Anyway I stumbled onto the channel China Update. It's channel intro piece of the day is 34 minutes long and after the first 4 minutes or so of the channels principle presenter intro, the rest of the video sounds like it's and ai presentation about all things china. statistics, economy, etc etc etc and etc. It's not easy to keep engaged for 30 minutes which there is a warning about in the first 4 minute intro. I'd forgotten about ai advokes on this side of the pond rave about as the best of the best in ai, but I searched it out and also learned about some other ai apps on the current stage as seen at this slashdot page. Page 2 | Top AI Tools in China in 2025 which is where I found that deep seak is the name that typically shows up in current media that I've consumed in the US relative to the so called ai race for dominance and efficiency. I hope this like will be current tomorrow and in a week as I don't know how the video will be moved off it's channel introduction space into the channels video library in the future, possibly. youtu.be/GOklA2c9ymg the title of the video does not necessarily describe the video content. still trying to better understand, what I can.
https://www.cpf.navy.mil/Newsroom/News/Article/4077424/uss-minnesota-ssn-783-advances-aukus-with-port-visit-to-hmas-stirling/ ^ More deets about the current AUKUS thing as it stands about three weeks ago. Most of this will happen in the 2030's - or about 2 POTUSES and maybe a China blockade from now, so some things will undoubtedly change. If I were POTUS for a day I would forward deploy one of our two sub tenders - USS Emory S. Land (AS-39) or USS Frank Cable (AS-40) down to Oz. This would probably serve as a REALLY GREAT recruitment incentive and it would facilitate the establishment of a joint AUKUS submarine squadron in Stirling. This would help all three of us with training and logistics.......
from #4 - a week ago Here it is if you know how to add a timestamp on the end of this url it is youtu.be/Px9qhDGv300?t=1063 don't forget to add Canada to the list of countries currently looking as mentioned on the Canadian based youtube channel The Cold War that I've watched a few programs this last week. I also found a newspaper article dated 1951 I saved as I was searching out the context and will post the picture and the link to where I got it as soon as I locate it, hopefully less than a week from now.
