Bob Hawke liked parking them in Chinese harbours and having them listen in. Good boats for that kind of work.

@@peterides9568 Well that explains the Hoodoo Gurus soundtrack I heard that one time off Taiwan!

I serveed on Onandaga in the late 70’s. Yup, the lads could certainly throw a good bash. Luv’d Roosy, Moose Milk in the mess! Dolphin: 47!

IIRC, the RN did this too.

Any other nation...I would call possible BS! ...but Canadians - yup!!, 100% believe this 😂 (Ya gotta luv em!...Beer storage-check!...torps...meh!!*🤣) _*the way they fight...I dont think they really need them anyway!_ Thanks for sharing 😊

Releasing a load of beer at an enemy sub would result in some potentially useful confusion 🤣

@@stupidburp ...I know it would certainly stop us Kiwis in our tracks! ("Fire up the BBQ and hail that obviously friendly sub!"😂) Hmmm, now I think about it...I suppose this is why they stopped giving us warships! 🤣

Yeah its a cool storage for beer but its really not uncommon on cramped submarines to use the torpedo tubes for extra storage space such as inflatable boats, trash, or extra food for a long trip.

Back in the early 90’s the usaf squadrons had a fridge with beer in the offices, those days are looonnng gone 😔

Canada 2/3 preserved ... one is in Port Rowan on Lake Erie and the other is in Rimouski Quebec near the mouth of the St. Lawrence.

Sleeping in a torpedo tube, very cool.

A good design feature. I think the British have the right idea that if a man is responsible enough to be at sea, he is grown up enough to have a beer now and then as long as he didn't over do it.

A good design feature. I think the British have the right idea that if a man is responsible enough to be at sea, he is grown up enough to have a beer now and then as long as he didn't over do it.

Melbourne was paid off from RAN service in 1982. A proposal to convert her for use as a floating casino failed, and a 1984 sale was cancelled, before she was sold for scrap in 1985 and towed to China for breaking. The scrapping was delayed so Melbourne could be studied by the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as part of a secret project to develop a Chinese aircraft carrier and used to train PLAN aviators in carrier flight operations.

@@theNoNNo She broke tow on the way north too, IIRC.

I remember a RAN buddy telling me about that in the 80's. The carrier group knew that there was an 'oboe' working against them, but never located them. Apparently it got inside and sat under the carrier. Whoops, that wasn't supposed to happen!

@@ayecaranya Indeed. I know the story. There is even a photo through the periscope.

When we were off Bermuda during Caribops as orange force(enemy), exercising with the JFK carrier group, we spotted JFK and closed stealthly to approx 1200 yds and simulated firing a spread, complete with torpedo tracking parameters. We played the theme from Jaws over the underwater telephone to freak out their sonarmen.

@@TeuchterScot That’s awesome

I don’t think the Australian supply chain would have been up to the task. Yes, there was a shared naval base, but it would have to been supplied by and with Australian assets. Even now, I don’t think our supply chain is capable of supplying an offshore Australian basing.

The 'Kiwi Club' was still in Samba Wang in the eighties.

They STANK of diesel. You could always spot a submariner who had just returned on a dock. Greasy from head to toe and filthy overalls.

I've been on the one docked up in Sydney. I was amazed how cramped it was lol

Port Burwell.

HMAS AE2 was the first allied vessel to enter the Dardanelles in WW2.

Yes, I remember queuing up for hours as a kid to go on board. Was worth the wait though.

I remember being talked hoarse by visitor's questions. Pulling duty on open days was never dull.

Welcome! Very generous of you, Dennis. Thank you.

The RN does mothball ships properly. But the Upholders were never mothballed. When they were retired due to post Cold War cuts the UK MoD looked for buyers. No-one was interested as everyone was cutting like crazy. Canada showed some interest but then went cold. The MoD told them that the ships were going to be tied up with no maintenance done and would be scrapped in the future, and that if they were interested they would need to pay for regular maintenance because the RN wasn't going to pay for it from their own budget. They never came back on the offer. Whereupon the RN tied them up to the dock and walked away throwing the keys behind them. Years later when the Canadians had followed their own interminable process and politics they came back....How they were then surprised that the boats were in poor material condition is anyones guess....what followed (and what preceded) is a near textbook example of what not to do...They got them at a knockdown price, cut the original builders out of the equation, were then surprised that the original builders had no real interest in helping them, replaced a near brand new combat system with a system for which the boat wasn't designed, again installed by new builders, then ran one of them in a storm with the hatches open... If they'd just paid the tiny sums of money asked for maintenance and left a very good combat system in place (that was installed in the Trafalgar Class SSN's), kept the original builders involved on a reasonable consultancy basis it could have all been avoided...

@@dogsnads5634 wow. Thank you for this elaborate response. It definitely clarifies a few things. Wish KZfaq would tell us when someone replies to our posts.

@@FromGamingwithLove0456 My pleasure. I'm afraid you have to rely on the Bell icon in the top right for notifications.

Is HMAS Ovens at Holbrook?

@@montys420- HMAS Ovens is a permanent exhibit at the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle. she rests on the WWII submarine bases slipway which is now the main the maritime museum building, on the slipway they also have the front nose section of an Oberon that's been cut open and displayed next to Ovens, if i remember correctly its just before the pressure hull so you can see the sonar array and the external torpedo tube doors with a deactivated torpedo halfway through the cutout as it had just been fired y know. if you are ever in western Australia I'd highly recommend you visit the maritime museum and its various sub complexes dotted around fremantle and rottnest island. where ovens is housed is actually the World War II vintage allied submarine base, which was the largest submarine base in the southern hemisphere, with 170 submarines of the British, Dutch and US navies conducting patrols from there during WW2 right at the mouth of the port of Fremantle. it's really fascinating stuff. they also have the reconstructed remains of the Batavia in a nearby adjacent complex as a part of the museum complex and is generally recognized as the foremost maritime archaeology and shipwreck conservation museum in the southern hemisphere.

@@Claire-xk5bb I'm wondering which 1 of them is concrete into the park at Holbrook

@@montys420- i live in Fremantle so its close

@@CyBerCat6410 that would be awesome.

Town is called Holbrook.

Glad you enjoyed it

@@SubBrief Thanks

Just picture 4 subs tied to the dock, then removed and put into drydock one at a time, then tied to the dock again, you there have the history od the Cupholders in Canadian service

As designed they were actually pretty decent boats. For a time they were the most advanced conventional submarine in the world. We put a lot of blame for them on Brits, but a lot is unjustified. Our Government hemmed and hawed for YEARS over whether or not they were going to purchase them, then when we did, we cheeped out exceedingly by not buying any of the support material (engineering information and simulator equipment), and THEN we executed one of the most colossally stupid refit programs in worldwide Naval history. We have nobody but ourselves to blame for the state those boats are in.