A final blow to German hopes occurred on
September 10, 2024 when Naval Group and Dirk Beljaarts, Minister of Economic
Affairs of The Netherlands, signed an industrial cooperation agreement related to the contract for the Orka Program. Orka is more formally known as
the Replacement Netherlands Submarine Capability (RNSC) program.
I'm publishing news about subs and other issues at a slower tempo. Unlike more advanced countries Australian submarine changes are slow: first LOTE by 2030? 1 used Virginia by 2036 or later? But missiles and novel warheads always tempt. My 3 contributors are free to publish Completed articles on SubMatts. Cheers Pete
September 12, 2024
Netherlands Orka Program. TKMS Sad, Naval Group Joy
On July 24, 2024 TKMS' legal objections to the Netherland's Ministry of Defense's March 2024 selection of Naval Group to build the Orka-class replacements of the Walrus-class submarines were dismissed by the District Court of the Hague.
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4 comments:
Next big Euro contest is the Polish Orka contest, where Hanwha Ocean's KSS-III Batch II was criticized in the Polish media for being too big for the shallow Baltic. My own opinion is that the KSS-III will allow the Poles to send their boats to the North Sea and Atlantic, and can carry UUVs configured for littoral conditions.
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/09/south-koreas-hanwha-ocean-dismisses-size-criticisms-over-polish-orka-submarine-offer/
Thanks Shawn for your 9/13/2024 7:50 PM comment.
Yes the likely 1,000+ km range of cruise and ballistic missiles from future Polish KSS-lll SSBs could hit Belarus or Russia from the North Sea and Russia from the Arctic Ocean.
Also I suspect Germany, Poland, Sweden and the US have sown sufficient Baltic seafloor sensors for decades. These act as a substitute for the sensor missions of short mission SSKs. For example see my article https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2015/01/second-swedish-sighting-of-russian-mini.html about Sweden's Malsten seafloor sensor array - which is indicative of the effort Sweden (now in NATO) goes to. One may expect HQ Stockholm and Sweden's Gotland island are nerve centres for many undersea acoustic, magnetic anomaly and other arrays.
Once detected by seafloor sensors Russian subs and ships in the Baltic could be hit by conventional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RUM-139_VL-ASROC and land or aircraft launched missiles.
Regards Pete
With Sweden and Finland now both in NATO bringing more submarines, mines and island bases, the Baltic is indeed sewn up for NATO. Poland would then be far more interested in establishing its own independent deterrent vs Russia in case countries further west got cold feet about Article V. This would make a missile armed KSS-III a vewry logical choice IMO.
Hi Scott
I agree with you. Poland cannot guarantee what nearby NATO countries will do in a regional confrontation with Russia and Belarus. So Poland is spending 3.8% of its GDP on defence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures#Highest_military_expenditure,_total
Regards Pete
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