Thales to deliver sonar suite for future Dutch submarine fleet

PARIS — French defense-electronics maker Thales won a contract to supply the entire sonar and acoustics suite for the Royal Netherlands Navy Orka-class submarine fleet to be built by Naval Group, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

The submarine sonar contract is the first in 15 years for Thales outside its core underwater markets of France, the U.K., the U.S. and Australia, said Emmanuel Michaud, vice president for submarines and surface vessels at Thales. The sensor suite for the four Dutch submarines will form the basis for Thales’s export offer for other upcoming submarine programs, he said.

The contract “is our stepping stone to a new generation of export-contract submarine systems,” Michaud said. “That’s why this contract is absolutely key for us, because that’s the first one of hopefully a long series of contracts. The market is pretty active now in the submarines.”

Thales signed an agreement with Naval Group to supply the four sonar suites, with a contract value somewhere between €100 million ($109 million) and €1 billion, according to Michaud, who declined to give an exact price. “Let say that we are extremely happy with this contract.” Thales won a contract from BAE Systems in 2020 to provide the sonar system for the U.K.’s four Dreadnought nuclear submarines with a value of £330 million ($428 million).

The sensor suite will be “heavily derived” from the system equipping the French Suffren-class nuclear attack submarines, according to Michaud. The same Thales team working on delivering the last three of the six submarines in the Suffren class will work on the Dutch contract, he said.

The Netherlands a year ago picked Naval Group to build four conventionally-powered attack submarines in a project worth as much as €5.65 billion to replace the country’s aging Walrus-class subs. The Dutch boats will be based on the same Barracuda program from Naval Group that produced the Suffren class.

“We had Barracude, we invested a lot thanks to the French MoD and French Navy, and this gives us a competitive edge,” Michaud said. “We keep improving our product with this export-contract submarine with very, very tough requirements from the Dutch Navy.”

Most of the products included in the sonar suite for the Dutch submarines already exist, and are being progressively improved with regards to hardware and software, he said.

The first two submarines in the Dutch contract are scheduled to be delivered by 2034, and “we are working full speed already to be on time for the delivery of the first submarine,” Michaud said. He said that given the complexity of everything that needs to be assembled, “I will be happy in 2034 when everything is delivered.”

Thales says it’s the world leader in sonar, equipping around 50 submarines and with a share of around 50% of the accessible market. Customers include the French, British and Austalian navies, as well as Singapore, Chile and Malaysia.

Thales will delivery “the full array of what can be installed on a submarine as far as acoustics are concerned” for the Dutch boats, including main antennas such as the bow-mounted cylindrical array and the flank array sonar, according to Michaud. Other equipment will include an intercept array on the top of the submarine and a mine and obstacle-avoidance sonar that can also do seabed mapping

The French company is working with Dutch company Optical11 to develop a towed linear antenna using optical technology that would be included in the Thales sonar suite. The Amsterdam-based firm says it’s the world leader in fiber optic sensing technology for ultra-sensitive early warning systems.

The technology readiness level for the optical array “is not yet at a stage that would allow us to go full production from day one,” Michaud said. Thales and Optical11 agreed on a feasibility study in November that will last most of 2025, with the goal of including the technology on the Dutch submarines. “It’s a very challenging technology, but very promising.”

“If this is successful, and we are working hard to make it successful, we will definitely adopt this technology or this product for our export-country contracts,” Michaud said. He said that France’s defense ministry is also developing a optical towed array, however this is proprietary “and we will never be able to export this.”

The Dutch submarines will be fitted with a double row of flank array sonar as a cost-effective way to increase the sensor surface and improve detection, as developing a new array would have been “extremely expensive” and would have taken too long, Michaud said.

Regarding a plan by Poland to buy submarines, Michaud said Thales doesn’t comment on market opportunities led by Naval Group. He said the Thales strategy is to offer a “very versatile” sonar suite that can fulfill the requirements of many customers, and avoid additional development that would increase cost, time and risk.

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.

巴黎——法国国防电子制造商泰雷兹公司周三在一份声明中表示，该公司赢得了一份合同，将为荷兰皇家海军“奥尔卡”级潜艇舰队提供整套声呐和声学设备，该潜艇舰队将由法国海军集团建造。

泰雷兹公司潜艇和水面舰艇副总裁埃马纽埃尔·米肖表示，这份潜艇声呐合同是泰雷兹15年来首次在法国、英国、美国和澳大利亚等核心水下市场之外签订的合同。他还表示，为这四艘荷兰潜艇提供的传感器套件将成为泰雷兹未来其他潜艇项目出口方案的基础。

米肖表示，这份合同“是我们迈向新一代出口型潜艇系统的垫脚石”。“因此，这份合同对我们至关重要，因为我们希望这只是众多合同中的第一个。目前潜艇市场非常活跃。”

泰雷兹公司与法国海军集团签署了一项协议，为其提供四套声呐系统。据米肖透露，合同金额在1亿欧元（1.09亿美元）至10亿欧元之间，但他拒绝透露具体价格。“可以说，我们对这份合同非常满意。” 泰雷兹公司于2020年从英国航空航天系统公司（BAE Systems）获得一份价值3.3亿英镑（4.28亿美元）的合同，为英国的四艘“无畏”级核潜艇提供声呐系统。

米肖表示，这套传感器套件将“大量借鉴”法国“絮弗伦”级核动力攻击潜艇的系统。他还说，负责交付“絮弗伦”级六艘潜艇中最后三艘的泰雷兹团队也将负责荷兰的这份合同。

一年前，荷兰选择法国海军集团建造四艘常规动力攻击潜艇，该项目价值高达56.5亿欧元，旨在替换该国老旧的“海象”级潜艇。这些荷兰潜艇将基于法国海军集团的“梭鱼”级潜艇项目，该项目也曾用于建造“苏弗伦”级潜艇。

“我们拥有‘梭鱼’级潜艇，这得益于法国国防部和法国海军的大力支持，也让我们拥有了竞争优势，”米肖说道。“我们不断改进产品，这艘出口合同潜艇满足了荷兰海军非常非常严格的要求。”

他说，荷兰潜艇声呐套件中包含的大部分产品已经存在，并且在硬件和软件方面正在逐步改进。

根据荷兰的合同，前两艘潜艇计划于2034年交付。米肖表示：“我们正在全力以赴，确保第一艘潜艇按时交付。” 他还说，考虑到所有组装工作的复杂性，“如果一切在2034年顺利交付，我会非常高兴。”

泰雷兹公司称其是声呐领域的全球领导者，为约50艘潜艇提供声呐设备，并占据约50%的市场份额。其客户包括法国、英国和澳大利亚海军，以及新加坡、智利和马来西亚海军。

据米肖德称，泰雷兹公司将为荷兰潜艇提供“潜艇声学领域可安装的全套设备”，包括主天线，例如艇艏圆柱阵列声呐和舷侧阵列声呐。其他设备还包括安装在潜艇顶部的拦截阵列声呐和可进行水雷和障碍物规避的声呐，后者还能进行海底测绘。

这家法国公司正与荷兰公司Optical11合作，开发一种采用光学技术的拖曳式线性天线，该天线将被集成到泰雷兹公司的声呐系统中。这家总部位于阿姆斯特丹的公司声称，它是超灵敏预警系统光纤传感技术领域的全球领导者。

米肖表示，光学阵列的技术成熟度“尚未达到能够让我们从一开始就全面投产的阶段”。泰雷兹和Optical11公司于去年11月达成协议，将开展一项可行性研究，该研究将持续到2025年大部分时间，目标是将这项技术应用于荷兰潜艇。“这是一项极具挑战性但前景广阔的技术。”

米肖表示：“如果这项技术或产品成功，而我们正在努力使其成功，我们一定会将其应用于我们的出口国合同中。” 他还提到，法国国防部也在研发一种光拖曳阵列，但这属于专有技术，“我们永远无法出口”。

米肖表示，荷兰潜艇将配备双排舷侧阵列声呐，这是一种经济有效的增加传感器面积和提高探测能力的方法，因为开发新的阵列“极其昂贵”且耗时太长。

关于波兰购买潜艇的计划，米肖表示，泰雷兹公司不对法国海军集团主导的市场机遇发表评论。他指出，泰雷兹的战略是提供一套“用途广泛”的声呐系统，以满足众多客户的需求，并避免进行会增加成本、时间和风险的额外研发。

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。