Barracuda.

This is coolbert:

Hey, I thought this was done deal. But evidently NOT. The Australians had been leaning to purchase a number of Sōryū-class submarines to replace the currently existing Aussie underwater fleet. Rather the French have gotten the contract so it seems!!

"French Barracuda submarine: the most complex artefact in Australia"

Barracuda as manufactured by the French for their own navy a NUCLEAR BOAT. The Australian version will be diesel/electric. A version referred to as Shortfin!

 A $50 billion submarine contract!

"Over a series of meetings in Paris, L’Orient, Cherbourg and Adelaide, engineers from the French naval shipbuilder DCNS [French naval manufacturing firm] shared with Australian naval officers secret data on their submarine’s acoustic signature."

"the data showed that when the Barracuda accelerated, as any submarine must do when pursuing an enemy or evading an attacker, the French design was significantly quieter than rivals."

Quiet to the degree remarkably so when compared to other boats:

"This class [Barracuda] reportedly produces approximately 1/1000 of the detectable noise of the Redoutable-class boats (submarines), and they are ten times more sensitive in detecting other submarines"

"The French declared that they were willing to share all of their cutting-edge technology and they felt then that they had surprised and impressed the Australians."

"DCNS submitted a conventionally powered diesel-electric variation to the design – named the Shortfin Barracuda Block 1A – to the competitive evaluation process (CEP) phase of Australia's Collins-class submarine replacement.. . . DCNS was chosen by the Australian Government on 26 April 2016 to build 12 of the Shortfin Barracuda Block 1A variant at a projected AUD$50 billion."

That is almost $5 billion AUD [Australian dollar] per copy. NOBODY ever said warfare was cheap!

coolbert.