U-boats for Poland?

[Markus Becker]

Poland is said to talk with Airbus about A330 MRTT tankers and A400 transports and with TKMS about U-boats. 

In German, so I recommend using the Chrome browser. 

https://t.co/jCUQFjuwQ7

 

Can the German defense industry again "get into the Polish purse"? With the new government it might. 

 

 

[urbanoid]

Probably worth posting the translation:

Quote

Airbus holds talks with Poland about aircraft and tkMS about submarines

The Polish armed forces intend to acquire new transport, tanker, and combat aircraft in the future. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius first stated in this country during his visit to Airbus in Bremen at the end of January that Poland had "concrete interest" in acquiring the A400M transport aircraft. Insiders estimate the need for fewer than ten aircraft. Since then, media have reported that Poland is also interested in acquiring two to four A330 MRTT tanker aircraft.  

According to Michael Schöllhorn, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, his company is currently in talks with Poland. The company is interested in contributing to equipping the Polish armed forces, he said on Tuesday on the sidelines of a DWT event in Berlin. He did not provide further details.

If Poland does indeed choose the A400M, this would somewhat alleviate the pressure stemming from the French and Spanish armed forces' planned order cancellations for the aircraft. The announced cancellations by both countries could lead to the closure of the production line in just a few years.

However, production could be extended if the Federal Ministry of Defence makes an important decision. According to well-informed sources, a decision is imminent as to which aircraft the Bundeswehr will use for the development of a so-called stand-off jammer as part of the LuWES (Airborne Effects in the Electromagnetic Spectrum) project. In addition to a business jet and an Airbus passenger aircraft, the A400M is also on the shortlist. Experts consider the A400M to be the best option, as it offers several advantages and the conversion work is likely to be less than for a passenger aircraft. If this model is indeed awarded the contract, it is possible that a larger number of units will be required than Poland's requirements.

However, other competitors besides Airbus are likely to be potential suppliers for Poland's air transport and refueling procurement projects. Boeing, for example, is also interested in signing a contract for its KC-46 tanker aircraft.

Earlier this week, Francisco Gomes Neto, CEO of Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer, met with the Polish Ministry of Defense. The company intends to deploy its KC-390 tactical transport aircraft, which has already been sold to several armed forces in Europe, in Poland. Gomes Neto then made concrete proposals for industrial cooperation.

As Embraer wrote in a press release, the company is seeking partners for parts production and a potential final assembly line for the KC-390. Embraer sees Poland as the right strategic partner to join forces, build state-of-the-art, next-generation military equipment, and create high-value jobs, the Brazilian company writes. Embraer estimates that aircraft assembly and the associated aftermarket ecosystem—including maintenance and training—could generate nearly $1 billion in added value and create 600 jobs in Poland.

Eurofighter in the race

The Polish Air Force is interested not only in tankers and transporters, but also in combat aircraft and apparently requires an additional 32 aircraft. Reportedly, they are looking for aircraft ideally in a twin-engine configuration. Discussions with at least three suppliers have been ongoing for some time. Boeing is offering the F-15 EX, Lockheed Martin additional F-35As, and the Italian defense company Leonardo is offering the Eurofighter.

If the Eurofighter is indeed selected, Airbus Defence and other German suppliers would also benefit. The engine, for example, is made in Germany. Reportedly, only discussions with the suppliers have been held so far. A request for proposals does not appear to have been issued yet.

In contrast to the F-35 order placed a few years ago, the Polish side is demanding that a potential supplier involve Polish industry more closely in the value creation process this time. Leonardo already has a footprint in Poland and plans to assemble the AW149 helicopter for the Polish armed forces locally. This could make it easier for the company to develop proposals for industrial cooperation.

Poland's Deputy Minister informs himself about submarines

Another area of potential cooperation between Polish and German industry could be the naval sector. Poland plans to procure several submarines as part of the Orka project. Polish media are speculating about three to four submarines. The Polish Ministry of Defense has reportedly received a total of seven offers from around the world and is currently evaluating them. One of the suppliers is thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (tkMS), headquartered in Kiel.

Earlier this week, Poland's Deputy Minister of National Defence, Paweł Bejda, visited Germany, where he took part in a series of meetings and study visits in the field of military-technical and industrial defence cooperation.

According to the Polish Ministry of Defense, the minister's visit began with a visit to the submarine training center in Eckernförde. During the visit, Bejda, together with German State Secretary for Defense, Benedikt Zimmer, familiarized himself with the Navy's training process, simulators, and training support technologies. The meeting also presented the principles of logistical support systems and ship maintenance.

Another item on the agenda was a visit to the tkMS shipyard in Kiel. According to the press release, the Polish delegation had the opportunity to inspect the production process and discuss the possibilities for potential future collaboration. Reportedly, tkMS offers its most modern design with the Class 212 CD. This submarine class, developed jointly with Norway, is significantly larger than the U 212 A used by the German Navy, but is nevertheless suitable for operations in the Baltic Sea. Thanks to its design, the U 212 CD can navigate the Kadetrinne submerged, a shallow water area south of the Danish island of Falster that is considered particularly challenging.

According to the Polish Ministry of Defense, the minister's visit concluded with a bilateral meeting between delegations from the two defense ministries. The meeting discussed prospects for the development of military-technical cooperation between Poland and Germany.

A330 MRTT is a must IMHO, it's a great multiplier for the air force. 

A400M? Not sure if we need them in the first place, IIRC they're also ridiculously expensive, but MoD apparently decided that we need 'strategic' transports. What the Brazilians offer, C-390, is in another class and they'd be great replacements for our ooooold C-130s.

I'd love at least two squadrons (32 aircraft) of Eurofighters.

Subs? At this point three offers seem to remain on the table - TKMS with U212CD, Fincantieri with U212NFS and Saab with A26. Honestly I just want something chosen and I want it to end, the program to acquire subs is 27 years old at this point, 12 years old under current name. 

 

Edited March 13 by urbanoid

[Stuart Galbraith]

Get some Nucs. Poland can into Pacific.

[urbanoid]

9 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Get some Nucs. Poland can into Pacific.

Can we please move the whole country there? Maybe somewhere between Straya and South America?

[Stuart Galbraith]

Be warmer. Yeah, maybe we will join you.

[Markus Becker]

On 3/13/2025 at 8:17 PM, Stuart Galbraith said:

Get some Nucs. Poland can into Pacific.

Doesn't Poland want subs for out of area operations? Nuclear would fit that requirement.

[urbanoid]

1 minute ago, Markus Becker said:

Doesn't Poland want subs for out of area operations? Nuclear would fit that requirement.

No, those were never under any consideration, at least a serious one. We're neither "that global" nor can we afford to waste money like that.

[urbanoid]

Well, there's one country we should not order submarines from, a history of a complete clusterfuck.

https://x.com/noclador/status/1904228695549554701

 

[Tim Sielbeck]

21 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Well, there's one country we should not order submarines from, a history of a complete clusterfuck.

https://x.com/noclador/status/1904228695549554701

 

It said the page doesn't exist.

[urbanoid]

Just now, Tim Sielbeck said:

It said the page doesn't exist.

Works for me.

https://x.com/noclador/status/1904228695549554701

[Tim Sielbeck]

3 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Works for me.

https://x.com/noclador/status/1904228695549554701

It might be one of those "you must have an account to see this" pages.

[urbanoid]

Not sure, maybe you can go the tweet after clicking his profile

https://x.com/noclador

[R011]

27 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Not sure, maybe you can go the tweet after clicking his profile

https://x.com/noclador

Perhaps you could summarize?

[urbanoid]

22 minutes ago, R011 said:

Perhaps you could summarize?

Quote

I am sorry Sweden, but I must talk about the Blekinge-class submarine procurement disaster. Because it exemplifies what happens, when a nation guts its defence budget AND nonetheless demands from its defence industry to deliver cutting edge systems. This never works!

Sweden built its first submarine HM Hajen (pic) in 1904. Since then Sweden continuously built submarines at Kockums' shipyard in Malmö and at the state owned Karlskrona shipyard. Between December 1954 and December 1988 (34 years) the two yards launched 24 newly built and 6 upgraded submarines (The latter, the Jaktubåtarna boats, were extensively reconstructed WWII era coastal submarines). From 1960 to 1979 Swedish defence spending was always above 3%... in 1980 the decline began, but when the last Västergötland-class submarine was launched on 9 December 1988 Swedish defence spending was still at 2.59% of GDP. And then it declined and declined and declined...

In 1989 the Swedish Navy fielded 12 submarines (5× Sjöormen, 3× Näcken, 4× Västergötland). Between 1992 and 1996 Kockum's yard in Malmö built 3 Gotland-class submarines to replace the 5 Sjöormen boats, which were sold to Singapore in 1997. The same year Sweden's defence budget fell below 2% for the first time. Still, the Gotland-class (pic) was the best submarine class when the boats entered service. With their Stirling cycle engines the Gotland class could stay underwater for 2 weeks and the boats were quieter than any other conventional submarine. But already in 1998 the first Näcken class submarines, were retired and Sweden decided against replacing them...

As a direct consequence Kockums was sold in 1999 to Europe's biggest submarine yard, the German HDW Group. By then Sweden defence budget was at 1.89%... once defence spending falls below 2%, which is the minimum to preserve capabilities, a nation has to start cutting units, programs, etc. Instead of ordering new submarines, Sweden opted in 2003 (1.6% defence spending) to insert a 12 meter section with a Stirling cycle engine behind the sail of the Västergötland boats.

This improved the capability of the two newer Västergötland boats (Södermanland - pic after the insertion, and Östergötland), but the costs lead to Sweden selling the two older boats to Singapore in 2005 (1.41% of defence spending). By this time Sweden had not laid down a new submarine for 11 years... five years later in 2010 the Swedish government decided to order two new submarines (1.19% defence spending). By now Kockums was part of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (former HDW Group), which between 1960 and 2010 (50 years) had built 80 submarines.

Sweden planned to lay down the first of the two A26-class submarines in 2012 and commission it by 2018... an ambitious timeline. Sweden wanted to spend 1.5 billion Swedish Krona (SEK) per boat (a mere €160 million). Soon the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) and TKMS were embroiled in a bitter dispute about the boats' design, price and timeline... TKMS felt the Swedish design/capability demands and price intentions were impossible to reconcile. The dispute dragged on for years and on 8 April 2014 the FMV and Swedish Military police raided TKMS' offices in Malmö. Three months later, on 22 July 2014, TKMS, which had delivered four submarines to other customers in the 4 years of the dispute, sold Kockums to Saab... which had 0 experience building submarines.

On 30 June 2015, FMV and Saab Kockums signed a contract to build and deliver two A26-class submarines... for 3.8 billion SEK per boat (€410 million or €250 million more than Sweden wanted to pay initially). The first boat should be commission in 2022 (in 7 years) which was wildly ambitious. In 2015 Swedish defence spending was at 1.07%... and it would fall even further in the next years... and Sweden had not laid down a new submarine class in 23 years, which meant most engineering knowledge had been lost.

And so, instead of delivering the first submarine in 2022, Saab Kockums laid down the first submarine on 30 June 2022 (!). By then the costs per boat had grown from 3.8 billion SEK to 7 billion SEK per boat (€750 million)... and delivery was promised for 2028 and 2029. This week the Swedish Armed Forces admitted that the two submarines will be delivered even later - sometime between 2031–2035... and they will cost even more. Worst outcome: 20 years from contract signing to delivery. In the same timeframe (2015 to 2035) TKMS will deliver at least 16 submarines. The lesson here is that either a nation continuously orders complex weapon systems from its defence industry to keep the engineering knowledge alive, or if a nation sunsets a capability and 20 years later decides to rebuild this capability, it then licenses the production of an existing design.

In the 1990s Italy, which had just finished building the second batch of Sauro-class submarines, required a new submarine design and instead of designing a new class Italy joined the German U212 program in 1996. The U212 was then adapted to the Italian requirements and by 1998 the first U212A was laid down by HDW in Kiel for the German Navy. In 1999 Italy laid down its first U212A, which was launched in 2003 - just 7 years after Italy entered the program. The first two Italian boats included just some Italian-made combat systems... while the next two boats (built between 2009 and 2015) included more Italian-made systems. When Italy joined the U212A program it insisted that the Italian industry must be allowed to develop U212A variants... and that it did. 

On 11 January 2022, Italy laid down the first of four new U212 NFS... as of today three are under construction and all of them will be launched before the first A26-class (now renamed Blekinge-class) boat will be launched. Sweden, due to having gutted its defence budget, didn't design or build a submarine for more than 2 decades... and instead of licensing a design to rebuild its submarine capability Sweden decided to design an entirely new class without any outside help.

Please never do that again! Either do as Portugal did and order two submarines from TKMS, or license a design, or order CONTINUOUSLY from your industry. You just can't switch on and off such complex industrial capabilities every quarter century. And you don't save any money, as restarting ALWAYS costs more than just continuously ordering.

 

I copied the whole thread, as it's kinda interesting. 

@Tim Sielbeck

[Tim Sielbeck]

@urbanoid

Thank you.  Very interesting.

[R011]

2 hours ago, urbanoid said:

I copied the whole thread, as it's kinda interesting. 

@Tim Sielbeck

Thanks!

[Sherman]

Apparently, Poland is to apply for low interest long-term loans for up to 20 billion €  from the European Defence fund.  A pending order for 2-3 Type 212CD might expedite the paperwork.