SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - French Navy’s New Suffren Class Attack Submarine

To be honest the french pour more money into their SSBN's than they do their SSN's having been on the preceeding Rubis class boats i was left very under whelmed by them.

The Suffren is a new kettle of fish

Size is irrelevent its what you do with it that counts (no pun intended), the Suffren is a major step up from the Rubis but i do think it will fall far short against the Astutes and Virginias (both share the same BAe made propulsion units), i also think it will come up short against the newest Russian boats as well.

While the principle weapon the F21 torpedo has a lot of hype it will have to prove itself in tests (war games and simulations) against the much venerable Spearfish and MK48 ADCAP's and here i think the F21 will actually hold its own, it seems from the brief a balanced torpedo with a lot of capability.

Another note is the Exocet, while probably one of the most battle tested and effective antiship missiles going, it has short comings namely range, generally you would have to be as close as 20nm to fire the thing at target well up against a trained OPFOR ASW unit you would be dead some time before you ever got to the firing point anyway.
What we can deduce is the Russians certainly have the lead in this field with supersonic and now hypersonic long range anti ship missiles and they currently arm their SSN's and SSGN's with.

One area left out in the Suffren, and i think this is crucial in todays age is Land attack; now the RN and USN have long range land attack capability with SSN's (USN also has 4 SSGN's) the latter USN having more capability than the RN as given by the additional VLS installments in the 688i and virginias.
Also the Russians have land attack capability in thier SSN's and we know of atleast one Project 949AM Oscar II SSGN (K266 Orel) that has been converted to carry 72 P800 Oniks missiles (capable of Anti ship and land attack)

Over all though in the grand picture the Suffren is a major step up but measuring up against the major powers it has some way to go before it would be comparable, and of course France has a different doctrine and foreign policy to the US and UK, but this submarine i believe is in keeping with the current policy of France.