On 15 March, Defence Secretary Christophe van der Maat announced the government's preliminary choice of submarines from French company Naval Group. In a few months, the Lower House will make a final decision on the plans.
The "Politics and Technology" working group of the Defence and Security Department analyses current political developments in the defence sector. It provides independent facts and interpretation from engineers' technological knowledge and experience. The working group has comments and suggested questions on the DMP-D for the replacement of the Walrus-class submarines, which State Secretary Christophe van der Maat presented to the House of Representatives on 15 March 2024.
Our working group notes that the selection process so far has been the "Race to the bottom" we warned about in 2020. Based on our knowledge and experience, the rest of our predictions are also likely to come true. We state this not from an interest in any of the parties, but through an objective consideration of technological aspects, the procedure followed and its outcome.
The risks in terms of money, time and product seem high when awarding the contract to the chosen yard. While past experience is no guarantee for the future, the experience of Australia, among others, in ordering almost the same type of submarine indicates that vigilance is important. However, vigilance may not be enough to manage the risks.
Technically, Naval Group is certainly capable of building an excellent submarine, but based on public information, the armament and command and control systems, among others, do not seem to match other Royal Navy systems. This hinders the exchange of personnel, parts and ammunition within the organisation. Moreover, it makes training more expensive. If this standardisation with other Dutch systems was offered, an extremely complex and costly adaptation process would be necessary. Unique to the Netherlands, with all the technical, cost and planning risks involved.
In addition, according to the State Secretary's expressions, industrial participation seems to be mainly focused on platform systems. A technology area in which Royal IHC undoubtedly excels. However, it is not the technology area where the unique submarine knowledge of the Dutch naval construction cluster lies. Those are weapon system and integration technology, in which much has also been invested in recent years during the mid-life upgrade of the Walrus class.
Finally, the working group wonders whether the huge geopolitical changes since the Future Vision for the Submarine Service and the 2016 DMP-A and 2020 DMP-B should not affect, for example, the number of submarines and the number of submarine yards in Europe.
The working group therefore has a multitude of questions about the capabilities, mentioned or not, of the selected submarines, the actual engagement of the Netherlands Defence Technical and Industrial Base (NLDTIB) in areas that matter, and the risks that arise for Defence as a client during development and construction.
Download our 22 questions via this link.
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The Hague, 22 March 2024
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Illustration: Naval Group
