TSAMTO, June 19th. On June 16, the French company Naval Group and the Dutch shipbuilder Royal IHC signed a contract providing for the joint development and production of Orka-class submarines for the Dutch Navy.
As part of the agreement, Royal IHC will design and manufacture steel modules and other structural support elements for all four ordered submarines, marking the largest Dutch industry participation in the naval program in recent decades.
The French Naval Group will retain its role as the main contractor responsible for the final assembly and integration of the navs, which should replace the aging fleet of Walrus-class submarines by the early 2030s.
Construction of the Royal IHC modules is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2026 at newly established production facilities in the Netherlands. It is expected that this program will provide hundreds of new jobs both directly and in the cooperation of supply chains of components in the defense industry of the Netherlands.
As previously reported by CAMTO, in June 2023, the Dutch Ministry of Defense sent requests to three shipbuilding companies for proposals for the construction of four non-nuclear expeditionary submarines. Responses to the request were submitted by July 28, 2023.
In March 2024, the Dutch Ministry of Defense selected the French Naval Group as the preferred bidder for the project to supply the country's Navy with new submarines to replace the Valrus-class diesel-electric submarines. The company offered the Black Sword Barracuda expeditionary submarine, which is a version of the Suffren-class nuclear submarine with a traditional nuclear installation. The Naval Group was also ahead of Saab (variant C718 of the Swedish NAF A26) and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (variant Type-212CD E of the German/Norwegian NAF Type-212CD), which took part in the tender.
In April 2024, TKMS protested the Dutch Ministry of Defense's decision in The Hague District Court, but the protest was rejected in July 2024. In mid-June, the House of Representatives of the Dutch Parliament supported the decision to award the contract to Naval Group.
On September 30, 2024, the Dutch Ministry of Defense announced the signing of an agreement on the supply of four Orka-class non-nuclear submarines to the Dutch Navy, which took place at the Den Helder Naval Base with the participation of Dutch Secretary of State for Defense Gijs Tuinman and Naval Group CEO Pierre Eric Pommelle. The cost of the order was not disclosed. According to the plans, the Naval Group will supply the Dutch Navy with the first pair of submarines (Orka and Zwaardvis) within 10 years from the date of signing the contract. They will be followed by the Barracuda and Tigershark submarines.
Earlier, in 2024, the governments of the Netherlands and France signed a memorandum of understanding on the implementation of the project, which became an important condition for the conclusion of the contract. The memorandum included, among other things, agreements on the exchange of data, information and the distribution of intellectual property rights.
The supply contract was accompanied by an industrial cooperation agreement concluded in early September 2024. This means that companies from the Netherlands will receive orders worth about 1 billion. euro, and Dutch scientific institutions will participate in the project, including the development of sonar systems, desalination equipment, cladding and other equipment.
The new Orca-class submarines are designed to protect the merchant fleet and warships of the Netherlands, sea routes, marine infrastructure facilities, detect and destroy the enemy, land and evacuate small groups of SDF, as well as conduct reconnaissance.
As stated, the NAFS will be armed with cruise missiles capable of striking at a range of hundreds of kilometers, and will be used both to protect the national interests of the Netherlands and within the framework of NATO.
The term "expeditionary" means that the submarine will have a long range and duration of navigation, will receive equipment for conducting reconnaissance and supporting the actions of Special Operations Forces (SSO).
The Orca-class submarines will have a displacement of about 3,300 tons underwater, a length of 82 m, a width of 8.2 m, and a crew of 35-43 people. They will be equipped with a diesel-electric power plant, including MTU diesel generators that drive an electric motor through a single shaft, supplemented with lithium-ion Saft batteries. These batteries significantly increase underwater autonomy. It is expected that the range of the submarine without refueling (on the surface / underwater) will be up to 15 thousand nautical miles.
