Peter Yule is Research Fellow of the History Department of the University of Melbourne.

List of key people; List of acronyms; Introduction; Part I. You Can't Build Submarines in Australia: 1. 'The one class of vessel that it is impossible to build in Australia': Australia's early submarines; 2. Australia's Oberon class submarines; 3. The submarine weapons update program and the origins of the new submarine project; 4. The new submarine project; 5. 'We can't build submarines, go away' - Eglo Engineering and the submarine project; 6. The acts of the apostles; 7. 'But how will you judge them?' The tender evaluation process 1984-5; 8. Spies, leaks and sackings: from tender evaluation to project definition study; 9. The project definition studies, 1985-6; 10. Debating the laws of physics: picking winners 1987; Part II. The Honeymoon Years 1987-92: 11. 'Keen as mustard to do a good job': setting to work 1987-9; 12. Designing the Collins class; 13. Building the Collins class; 14. The automated integrated vision; 15. Steel, sonars and tiles: early technological support for the submarines; 16. 'On time and on budget'; Part III. 'A Strange Sense of Unease', 1993-8: 17. End of the honeymoon; 18. The trials of Collins; 19. 'They were problems we didn't expect'; 20. The role of Defence Science: noise and diesels; 21. 'A patch on this and chewing gum on that': the combat system 1993-7; Part IV. Resolution: 22. 'Hardly a day went by without the project getting a hammering in the press'; 23. 'Bayoneting the wounded': the Mcintosh-Prescott report; 24. 'That villain Briggs' and the submarine 'get-well' program; 25. Inside the American tent: the saga of the replacement combat system; 26. 'We'll do it and get rid of the buggers': Kockums, ASC and Electric Boat; 27. 'We would find that challenging': comparisons and retrospect; Index.