JANE'S NAVY INTERNATIONAL
Date Posted: 01-Nov-2006
Competing designs threaten DCN, Navantia submarine pact
Richad Scott
* DCN and Navantia are at odds over the marketing of their respective Marlin and S-80 submarines.
* The two companies have collaborated successfully on the Scorpene export design.
The partnership forged by French naval shipbuilding and systems group DCN and its Spanish counterpart Navantia in the conventional submarine export market looks set to break apart as the two companies look to further their rival international ambitions.
Despite securing 10 orders for variants of their jointly developed Scorpene design over the past nine years, a growing schism has emerged at corporate level as the two partners seek to bring their respective Marlin and S-80A designs to the market.
DCN and Navantia (then Empresa Nacional Bazan) signed a co-operation agreement in the early 1990s to jointly design, develop, market and build the Scorpene family of diesel-electric submarines. To date, orders have been secured from Chile (for two boats, commissioned in 2005 and 2006 respectively), Malaysia (two boats for delivery from 2009) and India (six submarines to be delivered between 2012 and 2017).
For both the Chilean order (contracted through DCN International) and the Malaysian deal (primed by Armaris), DCN and Navantia have shared construction activities under an industrial workshare agreement. DCN builds the pressure hulls and forward sections at its Cherbourg shipyard, Navantia completes the aft sections at its Cartagena yard, with each partner taking responsibility for consolidation, integration, trials and acceptance of one submarine from each order. The Scorpene programme achieved its most notable success to date in October 2005 when India signed a EUR2 billion (USD2.5 billion) deal for six boats to be delivered under the prime contractorship of Armaris. All six submarines will be built locally by Mazagon Dock Limited with assistance from DCN and Navantia.
However, the future of the relationship built up around Scorpene is now in question as both DCN and Navantia seek to promote new, similarly sized air-independent propulsion (AIP) submarine designs on the international stage.
Earlier this year DCN unveiled a new non-nuclear submarine concept, known as Marlin, which it says will supersede Scorpene on the export market. DCN is currently offering Marlin to Pakistan, which has a requirement for three boats, to be built locally, to replace its ageing Agosta 70 submarines.
According to Pierre Quinchon, DCN's head of Warships and Systems, Marlin "will build on Scorpene experience but also incorporate lessons learned from the design and development of the French Navy's new Barracuda nuclear-powered attack submarine".
He added: "Marlin will be slightly larger than Scorpene, and while it inherits combat system and diesel-electric propulsion systems from Scorpene, it will feature a number of differences. These include the Mesma AIP system for extended submerged endurance, and 'X' form aft control surfaces for improved manoeuvrability."
Navantia meanwhile is marketing variants of the new S-80A design developed for the Spanish Navy. Four boats are on order, to enter service from 2011, with the production of the first boat under way in Cartagena.
Unlike Scorpene and Marlin, which are marketed in close conjunction with the UDS International SUBTICS combat system, the S-80A submarines for the Spanish Navy will have a new combat system developed by Navantia FABA in partnership with Lockheed Martin. In addition, the S-80A will be equipped with a new 400 kW ethanol reformer fuel-cell AIP system.
A Navantia spokesman told Jane's: "[The S-80] is a larger and more capable submarine with better performance than Scorpene and Navantia will actively market this new product in the world.
"France does not operate conventional submarines while Spain does and this is why we think that the S-80 will have the full backing and experience of the Spanish Navy behind it and thus have better export possibilities."
Despite their seemingly intractable positions, both companies insist that they are keeping the door ajar in an effort to resolve their differences. Speaking to Jane's at the recent Euronaval show, Jean-Marie Poimboeuf, chairman and chief executive officer of DCN, said that discussions continued with Navantia "to see if we can still co-operate... and find a good position for both DCN and Navantia".
However, he acknowledged that Spain's decision to develop the S-80A alone presented a problem for DCN. "The world is not fixed," he said. "Everyone follows an evolution, and so Navantia works on S-80 and we are developing Marlin."
A spokesman for Navantia told Jane's: "No party is allowed to market Scorpene on its own, and Navantia is willing to keep on marketing Scorpene to the export market together with DCN. In any case, the decision to end the relationship has to be taken by mutual agreement of the parties."
But he added: "With the Marlin it looks like DCN is no longer willing to explore collaboration possibilities in S-80 and that they want to compete against S-80 rather than join forces and cover the full range of submarines."
Marlin; S-80
Length 76 m; 71 m
Hull Diameter c6.2 m; 7.3 m
Displacement c1,800-2,000 tons; 2,345 tons
AIP system MESMA; Fuel Cell
