srai wrote: ↑14 Jul 2024 03:59
^^^
These are new “unproven” designs. No guarantees they work well
There may be lot more work post induction.
If you ask for all bells and whistles (like FCAIP, LIB, VLS etc) all-together, it's bound to be the new (and unproven) designs isn't it - and thus the
risk of years of fixing issues/upgrading, post manufacturing the first boat (during initial operational years), will have to be taken.
Fact is, except for the KSS-III Batch-II,
which anyway was not available for export (DSME-3000 was the export variant,
minus the K-VLS cells), none had all these incorporated in the same platform.
In fact, there also, no KSS-III Batch-II (on which DSME-3000 variant was based) boats are operational, but 2 are currently on order/under construction.
(KSS-III Batch-I boats, 3 (?) of which are operational, doesn't have LIB)
Either way, DSME later withdrew, so these points are moot anyway.
Similarly, Germans have atleast 2 boats (and 4 more for Norway) of 212-CD type, on-order/under construction - that way, it evens out the competition (wrt S-80 operational boats, with all the offered-features incorporated - there are none), I think.
However,
TKMS does have quite a few FCAIP based operational boats in Type-212A, 214, 218SG etc (but none in 212-CD class), which gives it an advantage over the S-80 class, competition - between the
4th Gen FCAIP being offered for P-75I is not available in any of these classes, anyway.
So there again,
the competition evens out, vis-a-vis demonstration via the operational-boat examples, that features these *offered* capabilities.
However, I do suspect/speculate, that TKSS is betting that winning the 75-I order, would open-up for many more such orders with other countries (e.g. like in Su-30MKI or Rafale programs etc.). That is the reason for all of their sudden eagerness wrt P-75I, over last 2 years.
Also, given that the
first of their ordered Type-212CD boats are going to be available by 2029-30 (and 1/year there-after), the 75-I project, gives a nice opportunity
(to the OEM) not only to spread the developmental risks, but also to
incrementally-add any new learnings from P-75I boat manufacturing (the IP will be jointly owned), to their own boats.
Aka we pay they (and rest all) benefit - remember, the original Jaguar DARIN program, anyone?
, but retained all the cutting edge technological aspects of the CD like:
) program ... 