A Table to Describe Soryu to Future Australian Submarine Build

I think it is useful, when considering how the Soryu will (or may) evolve into Australia's future submarine, to illustrate the possibilities in tabular form.

S has been very helpful in the construction of the Table. The "16SS" through to "29SS" sequence appears to be Japanese Ministry of Defence's (JMD/MoD's) terminology for planning and funding submarine authorizations year after year.

16SS can be called the beginning of the sequence of "Soryu Mark 1s" which have diesel engines and Lead Acid Batteries (LABs) as their primary propulsion and Stirling Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) as secondary propulsion. 

For the future Soryus 27SS and 28SS LABs will be replaced by Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). For them and Japanese submarines onwards Stirling AIP will be removed. These changes could justify future  27SS or 28SS being described as the first of the "Soryu Mark 2s". Possibly they will be given another Japanese name instead of Soryu and possibly they may have a fuel cell AIP emergency backup. 

29SS with greater certainty will be a new submarine class (no longer called Soryu). It is likely that Australia's future submarine will be a derivative of 29SS - perhaps 500 tons to 1,000 tons heavier than 29SS to fulfil Australia's submarine content requirements (eg. much more diesel fuel capacity and one or more vertical multi-purpose locks (VMPL)).

When Australia's first new submarine is laid down in Kobe, Japan (perhaps in 2023) major changes to Japan's submarine production/build pattern will occur. KHI/MHI will cease their overall one submarine per year alternating build pattern and will build an average of one Japanese submarine and one Australian submarine per year. This will be the first rapid increase "spike" in submarine production in Japan since WWII.

Anywhere from 6 to 12 Australian submarines will be built. US and Australian technicians will be present in Japan installing and testing the mainly US developed combat system of sensors-database-weapons (perhaps 30% +of a submarine build effort).

SORYU TABLE

In the Soryu Table below:

- LAB means Lead Acid Battery.
- LIB is Lithium-ion Battery,
- AIP is Air Independent Propulsion (Swedish-Kockums designed Stirling)

When Soryu (Blue (or Green) Dragon) (in Japanese そうりゅう ) is translated into English it oftens comes out as "Ssangyong". Obviously a more complex translation process than German or French.