Bruce_the_vii Bruce_the_vii:
I don't have good information but I know there's German, Italian and British submarines. All built in small numbers, custom jobs - for the job creation and export sale. Hopefully NATO procurement will improve with time.
Who do you think built the Victoria SSKs?
It was a major blunder buying subs that had sat untended for years, but when operational, they have proven effective. As Scape said, we could have done what Australia did and spent billions for a marginally effective submarine.
And we could have bought German, Italian or even French subs, but many of their subs are smaller than the CF wants and they would have been built overseas and shipped to us, so we would have gained nothing in the way of expertise, trade or jobs.