The Norwegian Defense Minister said that the Netherlands would be welcome to join the Type212 NG submarine program, resulting from the partnership between Germany and Norway. The Netherlands Navy is currently in the process of preparing for the launch of a tender to replace its Walrus-class submarines dating from the 80s.
As a reminder, Norway has ended the call for tenders between the Scorpene of DCNS and the U212 of TKMS, to accept the offer of a strategic partnership from Germany in order to jointly design and build a version. improved from the Type212 submarine, the German Navy committing to command 2 submarines of this class, and to share equally the development costs of this new class.
The appeal launched by the Norwegian minister is part of a rapprochement orchestrated by Germany with the Dutch Damen shipyards. Following elimination of TKMS construction sites. of the call for tenders for the construction of the new MKS180 frigate intended to equip the German Navy, the Damen shipyards proposed an offer allowing the construction of the ships to be located in Germany. Such a merger could lay the foundations for the emergence of a European champion in military shipbuilding, with a complete catalog ranging from LHD assault ships to AIP submarines, and which would be a serious competitor for the group. Franco-Italian under construction, resulting from a merger between the French Naval Group and the Italian Fincantieri, which has often been presented in the press as an “Airbus Naval”.
However, following the results of the Italian elections of March 2018, this process is for the moment, if not at a standstill, in any case significantly slowed down. Furthermore, there is nothing to know whether the future Italian government will be favorable to this rapprochement, especially since the Leonardo group, very politically influential in Italy, seems to have reservations about the proposed terms.
In fact, the German and Norwegian offer could well not only be favored by the Dutch authorities, but also beat Naval Group and Fincantieri for the title of “European naval Airbus”. Finally, and this is certainly not neutral, this would allow TKMS to not have to face Naval Group again. Since the Australian contract for 12 Shortfin Barracudas designed by Naval Group, relations between French and Germans in terms of shipbuilding are far from being peaceful, and TKMS is trying by all means to avoid finding itself facing the French, including the submarines show very high performance, and a more than competitive price. Thus, the current competition in Poland shows that anything is now allowed between the two European groups. TKMS included in its presentation to the Polish authorities the submarine-launched naval cruise missile MdCN designed and manufactured by the French MBDA, knowing full well that Paris would not give an export agreement for this missile outside of a order attached with the Scorpene.
It should be noted that, when it comes to conventional submarines, the German TKMS group has a significant advantage over Naval Group: domestic orders. Indeed, the French Navy has chosen to only equip itself with nuclear-powered submarines, which are more efficient, but whose export is very difficult (and has never been achieved). However, the use of a class of ship by the building country is, very often, the essential prerequisite to be seriously studied by a foreign navy. As such, orders for Scorpène submarines (14 units in India, Chile, Malaysia and Brazil), like that of the Gowind2500 corvettes (12 units in Egypt, Malaysia and UAE), while these units are not in service in the French Navy, attest to the high quality of Naval Group’s buildings.