The defense ministers of the three AUKUS partners last Saturday announced Australia will now exclusively buy used American Virginia-class attack submarines (SSNs) and that the first “signature project” of Pillar II will be joint development of Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) payloads and enabling systems. According to a joint statement released by the U.S. secretary of defense and the British and Australian defense ministers, they welcomed a proposed approach to “streamline Australia's acquisition of Virginia-class submarines” by acquiring three in-service boats…
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