Australia is expected to buy up to five Virginia-class nuclear submarines from the United States under the AUKUS pact, defying repeated warnings that US shipyards were stretched to full capacity and could not sell any boats to Australia. “The beauty in my mind with the American model, of the Virginia class, was that it was a proven design, it gave us interoperability with the Americans, and there will be more American subs in the Indo-Pacific than there will be British submarines,” Dutton said. \\u201CThe beauty in my mind with the American model, of the Virginia class, was that it was a proven design, it gave us interoperability with the Americans, and there will be more American subs in the Indo-Pacific than there will be British submarines,\\u201D Dutton said