Abstract : Australia has committed itself to acquiring 12 new submarines to replace the Collins vessels, all of which face retirement by the mid- to late 2030s unless they undergo life extension programs. As detailed by the Australian Government in its Defence White Paper 2009, this replacement submarine--known as the Future Submarine--will be designed to travel farther, stay on patrol longer, support more missions, and provide more capabilities than the Collins vessels. Acquiring these new submarines will be the largest and most complex defence procurement in Australia's history, and the Australian Government is considering an option of designing domestically and building in South Australia. However, because Australia has not designed a submarine in the modern era, the AUS DoD sought outside help to assess the domestic engineering and design skills that industry and Government will need to design the vessels, the skills that they currently possess, and ways to fill any gaps between the two. In November 2009, the AUS DoD engaged RAND to conduct such an evaluation of Australia's capabilities and capacities to design conventional submarines. RAND conducted this analysis between November 2009 and February 2010. RAND's goal was to provide an independent, objective, and quantitative analysis that (1) describes the process of designing a modern, conventional powered submarine; (2) describes existing design resources in Australia that could support a future submarine design programme; (3) identifies and analyses gaps between design resources that Australia currently possesses and those that would be required by a new submarine design programme; and (4) identifies and evaluates options whereby Australian industry could achieve the desired submarine design capabilities.