On Wednesday 13, 2024 Anonymous commented:
“It looks increasingly likely that Naval has
indeed won this contract. Multiple Dutch news services announced it overnight
Australian time.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/03/netherlands-to-order-four-new-submarines-from-french-shipbuilder/
The official announcement is stated to occur
this Friday [March 15, which will be Saturday, March 16 in Australia, but
evidently losing tenderers are informally notified in advance.”
ARTICLE
That excellent Dutch News article of March 12,
2024 reports: lhttps://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/03/netherlands-to-order-four-new-submarines-from-french-shipbuilder/
“Netherlands to order four new submarines from
French shipbuilder”
The Dutch government is expected to announce an order this week for four submarines from French shipbuilder Naval Group, sources have told RTL News.
[Naval Group] The Paris-based company, which is 62.5% owned
by the French state, saw off competition from Swedish firm Saab and Germany’s
TKMS to build the vessels at a total cost of around €4 billion.
They will replace the Walrus-class submarines
which have been in service since 1990. As much as 40% of the work will be
carried out in the Netherlands, RTL reported.
The order is politically sensitive because
Saab, one of the losing bidders, has a partnership with Dutch shipyard Damen.
Parliament is due to debate the deal next Monday, once the council of ministers
has signed it off on Friday.
Two weeks ago the cabinet ordered four new frigates from Damen under a contract worth at least €2.5 billion. Arming the vessels will cost
another €2.5 billion, making it the biggest maritime order ever placed with a
Dutch manufacturer.
PETE COMMENT
Anonymous on March 11, 2024 provided estimated specs of the possible winning French submarine: “…it was mentioned that the French submarine for The Netherlands submarine replacement will have a displacement of 3,000 tonnes [surfaced?], a length of 80 meters and a smaller diameter (8 meters?)...”
Naval Group (NG) not having sea proven AIP (since MESMA days) might not be disadvantaged compared to AIP specialists Saab and TKMS. This is because the Walrus and Replacements have very long range mission profiles (all the way to the Dutch Caribbean and return). For such long missions carrying AIP (especially the super-cooled liquid oxygen LOX) is a heavy, space-taking, burden, of marginal utility, rather than an asset.
In any case NG's Walrus Replacement may well have longer full submergence Lithium-ion Batteries, probably from French company Saft.
If Naval Group won, this is bad news for Saab, long expected to be the winner. Saab has desperately needed foreign orders since Saab lost Singapore’s Invincible-class tender to TKMS in 2013.
2 comments:
HI Pete
We will wait the final decision,but it looks real
Close to 2 + billions USD has been spent by the Australian Gov. on the detailed, engineering , facilities,tooling , recruiting and training during the course of the "Australian Saga"up to the point where the go ahead for cutting steel was reached.CAD /CAM files, numerical model ect are done and could be altered with a few mouse click
The whole supply chain, PM motors , inverter, Diessel Engine , sonars, console , optronics ..and their respective suppliers were, designed qualified and invested
Naval Group for this job has at leat a 2/3year head start (and more than 1B USD for sure) and probablty is hihly "competitive" (cheaper in everyday parlance)
NG is partially owned by Thales and the Fr Gov..however it is quite profitable (6 to 7 % NPAT)and tough negociations with the Unions in Brest , Lorient .. resulted in a 4.7 % pay raise on average last week
Higly subsidized, probably, but ..not by the Fr tax payer
*
Thanks (likely French) Anonymous at 3/14/2024 6:50 PM
You have presented some good reasons why and how Naval Group had a head start on the Saab and TKMS opposition
and could undercut them on price
because NG had longer experience working out its modified Shortfin design solution.
Perhaps only about 48 hours until we know who won!
Cheers Pete
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