Welcome to the new virtual Australian National Submarine Museum.

Through this site you will be connected to the fascinating story of submarines in Australia and their significance and importance to Australian’s continuing and evolving understanding of their past, present and future.

The story of submarines in Australia and the development of an Australian submarine capability reflects the national story: its colonial and young-nation dependence on Britain and the Royal Navy, its growth to maturity and independence through two World Wars and the Cold War, its emergence at the end of the 20th Century as a truly distinctive, innovative and highly effective and respected nation.  So it is with our submarine capability.

Now at the start of the 21st Century, our submarines, submariners, and we are beginning a new and exciting journey into a challenging, but fascinating future.  A time of dedicated female as well as male submariners.  A time of accelerated technological advance with AI and autonomous, operational, submarine prototypes already probing the shape of future underwater warfare. 

But our site is not just about the physical objects.  It is about people, actions, places and imagination—for whether through text, film, art, or play, submarines have a place in our imagination. Who does not have some image of a submarine, however diverse, derived from a film, a book, a photograph, a painting? From Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October, to the film Das Boot, submarines are deep in our imagination and our history.

Please explore the objects, collections, stories and interviews which we hope will bring a new insight into our unique Australian world of submarines.  And help make our history.