Report: German Submarine Deal With Pakistan Goes Quiet
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Dubai’s Khaleej Times relays a Der Spiegel report that Germany has approved a sale to Pakistan of 3 top-of-the-line Type 214 diesel-electric submarines with Air-Independent Propulsion. An export financing credit of EUR 1 billion euros ($1.36 billion equivalent) has reportedly been offered.
The catch? No contract. Contract negotiations were dragging out, and any contract is ultimately dependent on approval from Germany’s national security council, an inner cabinet of ministers with security portfolios. Pakistan’s insurgency has become a civil war, and recent Taliban advances are causing international observers to worry about the Pakistani government’s potential for collapse, or for a Taliban-backed coup led by the likes of Hamid Gul. In Germany, those developments reportedly led Germany’s national security council to take time away from serious matters like government efforts to ban paintball, and adjourn further deliberation on the Pakistani submarine sale until after September 2009.
If Pakistan buys the U-214s, they would join 3 new French Agosta 90B class diesel-electric boats equipped with MESMA AIP systems, and 2 Agosta 70 submarines commissioned in 1979-1980. The U-214s sit alongside the U-212As as the most modern submarines in the U-209 family, the world’s most popular line of diesel-electric submarines. Their Siemens AIP systems allow them to run submerged at reduced speeds for up to 2-3 weeks without surfacing for air, or at full speed for a shorter period of time.
