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WARSAW — The Polish Ministry of Defense has added the acquisition of a new submarine to its list of planned arms purchases of strategic importance, the ministry said in a statement.
The funds for the new submarine program are to be transferred from these earmarked for the Gawron corvette project, which was not included in the recently updated list.
Construction of the corvette, which is based on the Meko A-100-class design, developed by Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, is to be stopped after more than 10 years. Construction works were performed by the state-owned Gdynia naval shipyard.
It is estimated that the decision to scrap the Gawron project will allow the ministry to allocate as much as 1 billion zloty ($316.5 million) for the purchase of a new submarine. To date, Poland has spent about 402 million zloty on the uncompleted corvette, according to Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak.
Presently, the Polish Navy has one Kilo-class submarine and four Kobben-class submarines in its fleet. From 2002 to 2004, Poland acquired five modernized Kobben-class submarines from Norway. The four vessels, which are still in use, are expected to be withdrawn from service by 2015.
