USS Colorado to be the first US submarine rotating through Australia under AUKUS

The nuclear-powered Virginia-class attack submarine USS Colorado (SSN 788) will be the first to join Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West), the force of submarines that will rotate through the HMAS Stirling naval base near Perth, Western Australia. The selection was announced on Monday, October 26 in a joint statement by the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, the three AUKUS countries.

The joint statement calls the selection a “significant milestone for AUKUS” and a “decisive step in strengthening collective deterrence in the Pacific”. SRF-West is expected to rotate up to four US attack submarines and one British. The force is expected to reach initial operating capability in 2027, and Colorado will arrive in Australia later next year.

For Canberra, the big gain is the experience it will acquire before its own boats arrive. “SRF-West will accelerate Australia’s readiness to possess, operate, maintain and regulate a sovereign, conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability, while also supporting submarine deployments, broadening maintenance options and support infrastructure in the region for AUKUS partners,” the statement says.

The groundwork is already laid

In June the US Navy reactivated Submarine Squadron 3 to support the rotations and established in Western Australia Naval Support Activity Stirling, which provides services to military and civilian personnel, contractors and their families. In the summer the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility also set up a maintenance and logistics detachment in Western Australia, which will carry out intermediate-level maintenance of the US submarines of SRF-West. Which boats will complete the squadron has not yet been made known.

Colorado is the 15th Virginia-class submarine and entered service in March 2018. It is 377 feet (about 115 metres) long with a crew of 130. Since April 2024 its homeport has been Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where it relocated from Connecticut, and this summer it completed a two-year major overhaul at the Pearl Harbor shipyard. It belongs to Submarine Squadron 7 and can undertake anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, strike missions, support to special forces, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

Australia plans to acquire three second-hand Virginia-class submarines, in a fleet that will reach 14 boats of three types by the 2040s, based on a plan Defence Minister Richard Marles presented in June, Stars and Stripes writes. The rotations fit the US strategy of deploying more forces, ships, aircraft and logistics assets in the Pacific, to deter adversaries such as China and Russia. In parallel, Canberra is investing in autonomous undersea vehicles such as Ghost Shark, while in October the US approved the sale of Tomahawk mission planning centres to Australia.