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“No amount of automation can override the need for manual backup. Which is why the Royal Navy and USN still have close to or over 100 men on their subs.”

The answer is KISS. The US and the still United Kingdom operate submarines with nuclear propulsion and ballistic missiles. Therefore they need more crew men.

The crew size was reduced from Type 209 with a crew of 36 or 33 for Chang Bogo-class to 27 for Type 212/214. The smaller Ula-class or Type 210mod just have a crew of 15 men on a two watch system or 21 for a 3 watch system. The Israeli Dolphin-II-class (Type 214+...) operates with 35. I guess about 8 more than Type 214 according to special weapons...

The planed Type 216 for Australia has a minimum crew requirement of 34 (2-watch) with the capability for additional 29 crew men (3-watch, special ops, intelligence gathering...) .

The ROKS Type 214 with “up to 40 men”. Seems to be the standard complement of 27 + 12 mission specialist for e.g. intelligence gathering in a 3-watch system with 4 specialist per watch.

“The Soryus have an optimum balance of range and endurance”

Do you have something official about Soryus’ endurance and range?

The endurance of a Type 214 is 84 days. The AIP fuel is not the main fuel for long transit. The German U 32 (Type 212) made it in 2013 from the English channel to Mayport (about 3,500 nm) in 18 days submerged.

“The Israelis say their Dolphins were funded by the Germans-so whom do we believe?”

The German government has a special relation to Israel and pays a lot to support Israel in many ways. Even parts of the Israeli nuclear program were paid by Germany. My point is Germany did nothing special to provide Israel submarines at a discount prices because Germany always did support Israel.

One third of price (~ €330 million) of the first two AIP Dolphin submarines were paid by Germany and also €135 million for the third Dolphin submarine. So the price for each submarine is about €500 million for such a submarine for nuclear deterrence (price without nukes!).

Australia expected to pay A$36 billion for just 12 sons of Collins-class or could buy for the same amount of money 48 Dolphin-class submarines.

Something about AIPs:
The French MESMA is the least efficient system.
The Swedish Sterling engine far more efficient.
The fuel cells by TKMS are the most efficient AIP system with just a very few moving parts: the fuel pumps.

The point about any heat engine is the optimal work load. Operating the engine with more or less power will reduce efficiency.

A submarine idle on the ground will run on battery power and start the heat engine to reload the batteries. Fuel cells can provide the exact amount of of energy without using the batteries and related losses.

It is possible that TKMS holds several patents on the Sterling engine used on the Soryus because TKMS was the owner of Kockums during the period the Soryus were build. Sweden holds several patents on the basic Sterling engine used on submarines but any improvement made in between is owned by TKMS.

Do Kawasaki or Mitsubishi have the rights to export submarines with Sterling engines? Will Sweden grant the rights while Kockums won’t build the submarines? Will TKMS grant the additional rights after all what has happened in Sweden?

Umm, Nuclear roles does not mean More Men. Check the number of personnel of Russian nuclear subs: they have far smaller crews. Does that mean their technology and automation is superior to the West? Hell, no. In other other words, companies can brag about numbers. You are assuming that the complement on the Korean boats are intelligence personnel.

While, I’d agree that the fuel cell AIP is the most efficient system there is, what exactly will the speed of the submarine when its endurance is listed as 84 days? And what will its endurance be when it has to do high speed transit? Which will be expected for the Australian navy.

About Patents: You are again assuming that TKMS would be owning patents to improvements to the Stirling. For one, there is little or know evidence of transfer of patents in that period? If there was, Saab would not have been able to acquire Kockums in the manner it did. Additionally, Saab/Kockums is hardly in a position to win the Australian deal given the mismatch in their capabilities and customer requirements. If they had no problem exporting to the Japanese, they would not mind exporting the Stirling to Australia.

And for all the advantages of the Siemens fuel cell, the Stirling has one advantage: logistics. You don’t need to build storage tanks on the sub and shore facilities to store liquid hydrogen.