2024-02-13T15:48:53+00:00
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/ The Israeli military magazine “Israel Defense”, issued by the Israeli army, shed light on a deal for highly advanced submarines that Egypt intends to acquire from Spain.
The Israeli military magazine said that Egypt continues to build its naval power with giant steps, until the Egyptian Navy became the sixth largest naval force in the world, and is growing stronger day after day.
The report of the magazine, which is affiliated with the Israeli army, indicated that since the beginning of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Egyptian Navy has realized its operational gap under water, and prepared a force-building program that is impressive in terms of scope, as the Egyptian Navy began to build its underwater force, including updating submarine detection ships and updating its four Chinese “Romeo” submarines.
She continued: The modernization plans were implemented using US aid money, and the Egyptian ships were equipped with advanced US systems, including sonar and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
The military magazine added that Egypt realized that in order to confront the capabilities of the Israeli and Iranian navies (its archrivals), it had to develop a larger submarine fleet. Starting in 2005, Egypt began testing various submarines, including Swedish submarines made by Saab, advanced Chinese and Russian Clio-class submarines, and even German U-209 Dolphin submarines, which are similar to the submarines of the Israeli Navy.
The military magazine continued: There was nothing to stop Egypt’s purchasing ambitions to develop a large strategic underwater force.
She added: During 2011, Egypt signed an agreement to purchase four U-209 submarines with the German shipyard HDW, and this is the worst agreement for Israel, to say the least (in terms of the submarines’ capabilities and the Israelis’ intimate knowledge of their capabilities).
Under the agreement, Egypt was left with room to purchase two more submarines, as the refurbished Chinese Romeo submarines operated by the navy are expected to be decommissioned in the coming years, despite Egypt’s extensive renovation with American technology.
During the period 2022-2023, senior Egyptian naval officials held meetings with various shipyards around the world, with the aim of finding a replacement for the four Chinese submarines that reached the end of their service life several years ago, and not necessarily additional German submarines, with the aim of diversifying the types of platforms they operate on.
Israel Defense noted that since the temporary sanctions imposed by former US President Barack Obama on Egypt, the Egyptian procurement concept for force building is that Cairo should not rely on a single supplier (or single supplier country) and should rely on a wide range of sources, even if this means doubling the training and maintenance infrastructure as well as coordination and interoperability issues between different exporting countries.
Thus, for example, we can see in the Egyptian Navy and Air Force multiple command and control systems that do not communicate with each other, which creates a command and control problem for the Egyptian forces, she said.
She continued: Another essential thing in the Egyptian procurement concept is the transfer of the largest possible number of technologies to Egypt, which will allow it independence in developing, building and maintaining military platforms, weapons and central combat systems.
The magazine’s report added: “Since 2022, Egypt has begun holding talks with various companies, the most important of which is the French company Naval Group, which offered Egypt its Scorpion 2000 submarine. It is a diesel-powered submarine, which does not exist in reality, but is derived from the French nuclear submarine.”
“Even for Egypt, it seems that the negotiations to purchase French submarines, which have been its favorites until now, are not going according to Egypt’s plans. In recent days, it was reported on the Tactical Report website that at the same time as the talks with France, the Navy began negotiations with the Spanish company Navantia on the purchase of S-80 diesel submarines, including the transfer of technologies to Egypt,” she continued.
The Israeli military magazine said at the end of its report: “The Egyptian ambition to build a large underwater force does not stop, and it is expected that the Egyptian Navy will be equipped with additional non-German submarines during the next decade.”
Source: Israel Defense – RT