PARIS — Germany will buy four more submarines from ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems to increase the number of boats to six, part of a joint purchase with Norway that may also see the Nordic country increase its order, according to the German defense ministry.
Norway plans to buy an additional two submarines on top of four already ordered, the Bundeswehr procurement office said in a statement on Thursday. The two countries in 2021 had announced plans to jointly buy six 212 Common Design submarines from ThyssenKrupp in a deal worth about €5.5 billion (US$5.7 billion).
Germany announced the submarine contract extension as part of €21 billion in defense spending approved by the Bundestag, the country’s parliament, on Wednesday. Other approvals including the go-ahead for the F127 anti-air warfare frigate, Elbit Systems’ PULS rocket artillery, missiles for the Patriot air-defense system, reactive armor for the Puma infantry fighting vehicle and the development of sea-to-air missiles.
“The cooperation with our Norwegian partner will provide our two armed forces with new opportunities for deployment in the context of national and alliance defense, particularly on NATO’s northern flank,” Annette Lehnigk-Emden, the head of the Bundeswehr procurement office, said in the statement.
The 212CD submarines for Germany and Norway are on schedule, ThyssenKrupp said in a separate statement. The yard started production in September 2023, and the six vessels for the German Navy will be delivered starting in 2032, with one boat every year through 2037. The Norwegian Navy is scheduled to receive its first submarine in the new class as early as 2029.
The 212CD submarine will have a length of about 74 meters and a beam of 10 meters, and displace around 2,500 tons when surfaced. The vessel is based on the 212A submarine in service with the German Navy, which has a length of around 58 meters and a displacement of 1,500 tons.
Advance payments related to the order expansion will have a positive impact on cash flow in the current financial year, ThyssenKrupp said.
The company says it invested more than €250 million at its location in Kiel, Germany, to add production capacity for the submarine program with the construction of a new shipbuilding hall. ThyssenKrupp also acquired additional shipyard capacity at the former site of MV Werften in Wismar to build submarines and surface vessels.
“With the expansion of the 212CD order, other countries could join this project in the near future,” ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems CEO Oliver Burkhard said in a statement. “Our strong position has now become even stronger.”
The close cooperation with Norway will allow for synergy in operations, logistics and maintenance, which should boost operational availability and reduce costs, according to the defense ministry’s procurement office.
ThyssenKrupp had offered an expeditionary variant of the 212CD, with an increased length of more than 80 meters and displacement of more than 3,000 tons, as its candidate for a submarine tender by the Netherlands. The Dutch in March awarded the contract to France’s Naval Group, which was offering a smaller, conventionally-powered version of its Barracuda submarine, with a surface displacement of 3,300 tons and a length of 82 meters.
As part of the spending approved by the Bundestag, Rheinmetall together with partner blackned GmbH won an order for IT-system integration worth about €1.2 billion over 10 years, the company said in a separate statement. The order is part of a Bundeswehr program to digitalize land-based operations, with Rheinmetall accounting for around €730 million of the contract volume, and the remaining €470 million for blackned.
As part of the same program, a project company set up by Rheinmetall and KNDS Deutschland won a six-year contract worth roughly €2 billion to equip around 10,000 Bundeswehr vehicles with digital radio equipment. Each company will account for half of the order value, with the work to start in mid-2025 and the equipment conversion complete by the end of 2030, KNDS said in a statement.
“The new technology will increase the command-and-control capability of the army units fundamentally, and improve the interoperability within the Bundeswehr and with NATO allies,” Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said in the statement.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
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