I honestly find strange all this bad reputation of the U214 type
I mean, a SNAFU could always happen in a design or project but HDW has always been renown for its business integrity.
For example, with the first 209/1500 for India a new welding process was used. Later in the trials, it was discovered that this technique was not up to standards and might have lead to cracks or defects. HDW then decided to scrap and rebuild sections of the ship at its own expense.
If anything, I would have though that the most critical part of the submarine would have been the fuel cells, not the general design layout, which has been proven before with the similar type 212A (Germany and Italy have built 3 submarines of this design each). Not to mention that South Korea, the biggest type 214 customer so far, has not found any major problem with the three already operational boats
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