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The French are pretty desperate for submarine orders it seems. You will recall the disaster with the Aussies who cancelled on them.

Rumor has it that got settled for 3/4 billion Euro’s.

About half a year ago the Dutch navy/government after a long procurement processes decided on our new subs as well. The French won that one. And their price was 3/4 of billion less compared to the other bidders.

So, the Dutch are going to have French submarines. Quite a departure from not so long ago. The Dutch submarine industry was considered highly innovative and high tech. We killed it by restricting our technology to be exported to Taiwan.

To be fair to the frogged, there will still be a lot of Dutch stuff going into this boat made by Dutch suppliers. Almost 50% apparently. Whether that is by value, volume, size, number of parts nobody seems to know.

But at least the minister can claim he helped the Dutch industry.

I have nothing against the French or France. But I was never that keen on working with them. The French have a unique culture, very different from the Dutch

Jeroen

Would you know which type/class of submarine the Dutch are buying from France? I wonder why the Dutch Govt is not asking Damen or RDM to design and build an indigenous class.

The Naval Group offered its Barracuda class submarine. The shortfin diesel variant.

RDM is no longer in operation. Damen teamed up with Saab and their offer was based on a derivative of the A26. But there bid was unsuccessful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orka-class_submarine

Jeroen

I hope this piece finds its place in the thread suitably. I don't have access to books now to post the source.

Naval prowess is not always a result of the tech capability of the nation. There are numerous factors involved in sourcing a warship/submarine. Some come to light only after a substantial historical period has passed.

During 1905-1910, Russia was desperate to enhance its naval supremacy. A "deal of the century" was floated making Germany and Britain the two top contenders for supplying Russia with the latest and best of the best naval assets.

Sidney Riley, a British, was at the helm of affairs in Russia, secretly working for Britain. Riley was a top spy, later becoming inspiration for the fabled James Bond. Britain was supposed to get the contract beating Germany, given Riley was working on it.

The British bureaucracy and naval folks were astute and confident of getting the Russian deal. However, the deal went to Germany against all odds. Riley was termed a traitor by Britain. It was a shameful time for the British and a triumph for Germany.

The backstory, however, was under the garb of getting the deal to Germany, Riley was able to access the design and relevant data of the naval assets of Germany. He passed all that info to his boss in the agency at Britain. Unknown to anyone else. This later proved extremely useful to Britain in the later decade.

Riley was ultimately shot in Russia. He had a lot of enemies anyways thanks to his immaculate career. To the common folks, he was not even close to being a patriot. The world would know his exploits only half a century later.

The development and deals of the nature of a submarine or a warship, should be taken with a pinch of salt. We never know what is and who is serving the interests of the nation when common sense takes a backseat for the greater good. Even in the modern times with social media, there are people working in the dark in thankless jobs.

If the Dutch are getting French subs, who can confidently guess what's behind the deal. ;) The world is strange. It could be technological edge, kickbacks or who knows, another Riley at play.

On mobile but came across this tweet by Gokul Sahni that seems to suggest that the French will offer two big ticket items in the upcoming talks: collaboration on an SSN and full ToT on an aircraft engine.

https://x.com/Gokul_Sahni/status/183...OTKO_ihig&s=19

Now we've heard similar such claims before so I'm going to read it with a healthy pinch of salt.

The SSN collaboration offer is certainly of interest though getting full ToT on a Safran power plant is probably worth more to the entire spectrum of services given how little progress India has made indigenously in this regard.

Guess we'll find out soon enough if there's smoke without fire in this case.

China’s newest Zhou class nuclear-powered submarine sank earlier this year

A Chinese nuclear powered submarine that was being fitted out had sunk earlier this year according to the Americans and the Chinese offcourse tried to conceal this.

Excerpt from the CNN:

Worryingly, the nuclear submarine might’ve been carrying nuclear fuel when it sank though the Chinese apparently didn’t sample the nearby waters probably to avoid the data leaking to the West and casualties were likely. It’s also an open question on how good the Chinese salvage capability is, India had the luxury of bringing in professional foreign salvage contractors, something the Chinese just can’t do.

We should really be proud that the Indian Navy is much more accountable, a by-product of India being an ‘open country’ though we’ve had accidents due to lapses.

If I may quote from the series Chernobyl - “Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid.”

Links

CNN

TWZ

The Print

Interesting that the DoD has come out and said as much. I remember a passing story at the time that the Zhou was having difficulty pierside and nothing came of it thereafter. Losing an SSN is a big one, even for the PLAN. I know it's standard fare for airport paperback thrillers but you have to hope there are some environmental control contingencies in place by the PLAN. If that thing is sitting on the mud fully fuelled up, even without knowing what caused it to sink, at some point the CCP has to mitigate for that fuel.

Good luck getting them to admit to anything though, especially now the Pentagon has thrown the ball in their court and shone the spotlight on it. Gonna be a while before the media scrutiny moves on and they can get on with whatever it is they plan to do to mitigate this. I for one can't wait to see how they explain what happened to their shiny new SSN.

Wonder if the USS Jimmy Carter is going to/has already been snooping around the area. Can't imagine it wouldn't be in the USN's interest to do so especially if there's a static hull just sitting on the seabed. Just don't expect any Project Azorian shenanigans.

It's such a shame right? When you think about the sailors and their families - they're not afforded the dignity of their remains being returned via international expertise if needed due to the pigheadedness of top brass and political apparatchiks.

Didn't the IN acquire some of it's own salvage kit too for emergencies?

Stumbled across a thread discussing the alleged sinking
https://x.com/AlexLuck9/status/1839478223354388873

What's interesting is the details about this yard. They've traditionally produced SSKs here, never nuclear boats, at least not till now. In fact this yard recently launched the PN's new Hangor class boat.

It then goes on to suggest there were rumblings about this boat allegedly being some kind of hybrid SSKN - where the nuclear component was there to replace the AIP Stirling engine. Not sure how any of that works, or if I've ever heard of anything of the sort before. Still, interesting goings on nonetheless.

They probably never will. Infact, I’d bet that many of the Chinese top brass learnt about this only from Western media reports, such being the level of secrecy in a state like China. Excessive secrecy always leads to a downfall whether it’s in a country, in a company or life in general.

Can an American SSN venture that far without being detected? I assume these would be relatively shallow waters right?

Very much so. I can’t help but think about the families who have to live in denial. Same is the case with the Galwan clash where initially they didn’t acknowledge casualties and then only acknowledged 4-5 officers who died. However, most Indian, American and even Russian sources claim 35-40 deaths.

This has always been common place in the Soviet/Russian/Chinese systems as if it’s clear to the people that they are incompetent, they just can’t justify a system with close to nil freedoms. The secrecy is to protect themselves against their own populations than any foreign power.

Quite similar (but opposite) to the French Barracuda class which Jeroen was talking about - basically an SSN converted to function as an SSK.

I guess that's truly something we're unlikely to know in the public domain.

Correct, this is where I'm less sure how close in the Jimmy Carter can get but that boat is pretty much widely accepted to be the premier US subsea espionage platform. This is where conventional boats are useful, particularly in littoral environments. The USNs all nuclear philosophy does handicap them in that regard as far as I can tell, that is unless they have some off the books capability that isn't in the public domain. There's always the Japanese and Koreans though. They have capable modern boats that I reckon could get reasonably close - though I doubt anyone is getting right up into a shipping yard though, that does seem a bit fanciful.

Aye, I remember the Barracuda basically being a nuke boat but with an AIP powerplant instead. Was reading more reports about the sunk Chinese boat and it's interesting this hybrid nuclear, conventional concept. Impressively the Soviets had a go at this yonks ago, running a small reactor as a generator for their batteries. Given the resurgence in funding for SMRs, I wouldn't be surprised if marine reactors for use in the undersea domain get some of that development boost too beyond the usual trend.

On another note, has anyone caught this barmy claim from Boris Johnson's recent memoir?!
https://theklaxon.com.au/aukus-was-r...rtedly-claims/

Not only did the foppy haired cretin claim to have considered raiding the Netherlands in 2020 with special forces to seize vaccines and bring them back to the UK, he's saying that AUKUS was his way at getting one back at Macron for what Boris perceived to be Emmanuel being difficult over Brexit. As ever it's hard to know how much to believe when it comes from Boris but if there's a kernel of truth to it, it really is alarming if you're an Aussie considering how AUKUS has upended your defence planning, and more widely the subsea picture in the eastern hemisphere.

Surprisingly, along with the MQ-9B drones, India has also fully cleared the procurement of 2 nuclear attack (assumed) submarines. This means, it is not improbable that the Indian Navy will start getting these SSKs before the Project 75 (I) program submarines given the new issues in the RFP :)

Interesting video on the INS Varsha being built along the Bay of Bengal which is supposed to house India's future nuclear submarine fleet. Nothing much else discussed (probably that's all in the public domain) apart from "underground facilities" - whatever that means in a submarine base.

The next big 'Great Game' is in the IOR and India is already making moves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS9M...lStreetJournal

India's submarine building plans stalled after complaints by contractors over sea tests.

Apparently, it is delayed by a year and further delays are expected.

Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems in partnership with India's state shipyard Mazgaon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd. and Spain's Navantia Group with India's private shipbuilder Larsen and Toubro Ltd. are competing for the project.

ET

Good move right move. This was toyed around with as a concept in the 1980s!! But then we did not have either the budgets or the ability.

The masters of underground submarine facilities are the Swedish. Photo below. It is really a cavern cut into a mountain side. Meant to protect against an indirect nuclear blast or maybe a one direct too.

Our nuclear threat from Pakistan and China is very real. Nuclear weapons are virtually the last symbol of status and justification for the Pakistani Army to cling to and its only real weapon against India. Further their politicians and generals have displayed immaturity and lack of ballast far too often. With the Chinese they have shown repeatedly that nothing is sacrosanct and all border and peace agreements can be violated every time Xi Jinping thinks he has an advantage or wishes to prove a point.

Glad to see INS Varsha taking shape.

Mazagon Dock & German maker ThyssenKrupp (TKMS) win tender for supplying P75i submarines for the Indian Navy

According to The Print, the L&T-Navantia (from Spain) consortium's bid was rejected as they did not meet the Navy's requirement to have a sea-proven AIP system in service. There is a 45-day period during which the decision can be challenged before the price bids are opened and negotiation starts.

This is an end to a saga that dates back to at least a decade and started with 5 foreign suppliers with the French, Russians & S. Koreans falling out at various stages. As with Naval contracts these days, this was the end of a high-stakes showdown between the Spanish and German offerings reminiscent of the recent showdown of naval fighters between the French Rafale and the American Super Hornet, the contract for which is expected to be signed next month (thankfully, the Navy can actually conclude a contract even if delayed unlike the Air Force). The Germans currently offer the Type 214s - a model made for exports and currently in service with Greece, Portugal and South Korea with orders from Turkey. The Indian Navy has successfully operated the TKMS Type 209 for decades which is the predecessor of the Type 214s being offered now. Wonder why they didn't offer the more advanced Type 212 CDs - is it a different weight class that won't fit this tender?

This would probably be the last foreign SSK design to be inducted in the Indian Navy as the next Project 76 submarines are expected to be an in-house design.

Type 214 submarine operated by the Korean Navy:



The next pending major foreign procurement for the Indian Navy is the requirement for Landing Platform Docks (LPDs) which should see competition from the French, Spanish and maybe the Italians. Such systems are crucial especially as countries with foresight like Turkey and China utilize such systems as drone carriers while I believe the Spanish and Italian offerings could potentially host F35Bs potentially augmenting and reducing the need for fully-fledged aircaft carriers.