Despite Corona’s travel restrictions, this week Dr. Rolf Wurz, CEO of the German marine systems division Tinscrop, landed in Israel to sign the purchase agreement for the Navy’s three new submarines, for a record sum of three billion euros.
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For ThyssenKrupp this is a significant deal. According to the company’s announcement, already in 2019 it invested 250 million euros in preparations for the construction of the three submarines, and six submarines similar to the German and Norwegian fleets, which will be built in parallel. The investment funded a new structure for submarine construction, and their propulsion systems. The first submarine to Israel will be ready in 2030, a year after the completion of the first submarine to Norway, and two years before the delivery of the first submarine to the German navy.
According to shipyard publications, Israeli submarines will be more expensive than German-Norwegian submarines, which will cost 5.5 billion euros, slightly more than 900 million euros per submarine, compared to one billion euros for each of the three new submarines, already named the Decker series, after a submarine. The sea that sank in the Mediterranean in January 1968 on 69 crew members.
A first image of the new submarines unveiled yesterday by Tinscrop, reveals that a longer-than-usual bridge will be installed in them. A bridge is the top of a submarine, usually used to carry communications and intelligence equipment, and to make observations by crew. However, the long bridge is reminiscent of North Korea’s Rome submarines, which are also equipped with a relatively long bridge, which allows ballistic missiles to be launched from them.
However, according to reports in Germany, the new submarines will install a new component originally developed for submarines ordered from ThyssenKrupp South Korea, VLS, which allows vertical missiles to be launched from the submarine body. According to foreign publications, all dolphin submarines have the ability to launch Raphael-made cruise missiles, which carry nuclear warheads, even from their torpedo-launch tubes, in a balanced manner.
Extra weight for the installation of weapon systems
According to reports in Germany the new submarines will be the largest ever built at the shipyard. ThyssenKrupp has already revealed that the six submarines to be built for Germany and Norway will be 73 meters long, and at a displacement (the weight of the liquid repressed by a body) of 2,500 tons. According to the publications, the new Israeli submarines will be longer, with a capacity of 3,000 tons. For comparison, the three original dolphin submarines that Israel purchased after the Gulf War, and which are intended to be replaced by the new submarines, have a displacement of 2,400 tons and a length of only 59 meters.
The extra weight is intended according to foreign publications to allow the installation of additional weapons and intelligence systems, and an improved propulsion system. Since the purchase of the first three submarines, Israel has purchased three more, one of which is still under construction in Germany, and all of them are equipped alongside diesel engines in a range-based, hydrogen-based system. Fuel cell technology makes it possible to generate electricity from hydrogen, so that submarines can stay underwater longer than regular diesel submarines. The new decker submarines will have a similar but improved propulsion system.
According to the Ministry of Defense, 850 million euros of the deal will be used by ThyssenKrupp for reciprocal purchases in Israel, including from the defense industries. Raphael, for example, manufactures a torpedo interception system, known as a turbester, and states that it is already in operational service. The company, like Elbit’s Elisra division, also manufactures electronic warfare systems. Elbit also manufactures sonar systems for vessels.
How expensive are the Israeli submarines? They will be more expensive as mentioned in about 10% of the submarines that ThyssenKrupp will build at the same time for Germany and Norway. South Korea is currently building the third submarine in the series, which is based on ThyssenKrupp’s design, and was commissioned in 2012, for $ 2.7 billion. That same year, Israel paid $ 500 million for the sixth dolphin submarine, which is still under construction in Germany, with an unusual delay in the order date. The design of the submarine, which will be named Dragon Dragon, has undergone changes since the order. It will be larger than the original design, and will also serve as a prototype for the stabbing submarines.
Submarines equipped with nuclear propulsion are significantly expensive. The smallest American submarines today from the Virginia series cost three billion dollars each, and the United States plans to build 66 of them. With a delay of 10,000 tons, they will be three times larger than the new Israeli submarines. Nuclear propulsion allows submarines to stay underwater and sail Without refueling, but they are much larger and more expensive than the diesel submarines that Israel buys, and the United States, like other countries that produce nuclear submarines, does not sell them to other countries. Australia alone last year received an exceptional approval to purchase 8 nuclear submarines from the US, for which it canceled a huge deal to purchase 12 diesel submarines from France, worth $ 90 billion.