Irrespective of whether the Japanese, the Germans or the French have the best sub designs, and irrespective of whether we build subs in SA or offshore, I'm not convinced the discussion you have before you issue a tender for subs has been had? What is the future likelihood for subs in oceans with relatively cheap, mobile, stealthy 'drones' / mines / torpedos (or whatever they should be named)? How prevalent are such devices likely to become during a future sub build phase of, what 10 years, 15 years?
There's not much point in having bunch of subs that can be tracked and intercepted so readily. Are we continuing to use 20th century thinking in addressing 21st century threat assessments?
