Granted that the Rubis is 30+ years old however we have boats in the UK of similar vintage and the US has older boats, to date I’ve been on 4 688’s 2 trafalgars 1 Rubis and many others around our NATO countries.
I was an observer to a logistics exercise on the Rubis back in 2017 she did not perform as expected but there was admittedly several reasons for that which was beyond her crews control, however that aside she still failed to meet NATO standard.
A good friend of mine who worked for over 22 years on submarines undertook a FOST on-board the Perle he was a sonar and acoustic specialist, he noted the submarines capability left a lot to be desired
The Scorpene submarines are a good boat and the reason they are an export success is due in part to the price tag and it was simply pretty much for this reason the Australian government signed up theirs own press now states the government regrets that decision.
The new suffren which is being tested has a big gap in its capabilities something the USN and UK explored back in the 80’s that’s non acoustic detection the French opted out of a collaboration with the RN and USN and thus lacks that technology
Suffren also lacks long range land attack capability and focuses more on close encounters using Exocet and torpedos.
While Exocet is a good missile in today’s theatres it is vulnerable and now easily intercept able
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