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The real joke is that Navantia which is building this submarine actually stole the intellectual property from their French counterpart during a previous joint v
by brmgb 7y ago
The real joke is that Navantia which is building this submarine actually stole the intellectual property from their French counterpart during a previous joint venture [0] and then managed to fail building a submarine with it.
Having worked in the field, the idea that someone can just misplace a decimal point is laughable. It highlights a complete lack of quality control and engineering know-how from Naventia.
The issue here is not the calculation. Mistakes happen. The issue is procedural. You can't hope to build submarines if you have no process in place to systematically catch this kind of error. That's true at every level from conception to manufacturing.
That they ended up having to go see the Americans because the French wouldn't help them say a lot about European defense integration however.
[0] https://globalarbitrationreview.com/article/1029783/submarine-dispute-runs-aground https://globalarbitrationreview.com/article/1029783/submarin...
- Glawen 7y agoWow, saucy, i did know about scorpene, but i did not know that the french accuse the spanish of stealing french technology
- Retric 7y agoI read that as an accusation between companies not countries.
- liotier 7y agoWhen building such strategic naval assets, company independence from the host country is fictive - national interest drives them.
- jacobush 7y agoTrue. The Swedish military recently (a couple of years ago) raided the offices of Kockums at dawn to acquire prototypes and plans for its submarines.
- Glawen 7y agoDcns (now naval group) is owned by the french state, it's technology is french property. All the french navy is built by this company, so it accumulates a lot of know how. Navantia is also a state owned company
- iagovar 7y agoIDK why this keeps coming again and again. I'm sadly in my phone but this is actually false. The client asked for changes mid construction phase so they had to redesign it. S81 and following ones already include this changes. I'm not able to read your link but it's probably part of this FUD that comes over and over. Navantia and DCNS had a joint venture, but the requirements of the French and Spanish clients diverged so Navantia decided to go its own way. What you can find is that DCNS tried to sue Navantia back in 09, but AFAIK nothing came out of it (at least yet). Navantia didn't have experience designing submarines from scratch but they have plenty with civil and military ships. The fact that such "laughable" mistake was apparently just made in this project is interesting to say the least. Not to mention that it's not the first time that Navantia faces accusations without proof. IMO this looks like DCNS trying to block their competitor, that not only got its new founded expertise in submarines from you but also knows your commercial channels, relationships etc.
- brmgb 7y ago> French and Spanish clients diverged There are no French or Spanish clients. The Scorpene submarines were built strictly to be exported by the joint venture. Spain was expected to buy some, France wasn't. As far as I know, France only uses nuclear propulsion for its submarine and doesn't export the submarines used by its navy. > AFAIK nothing came out of it (at least yet) It was settled. Navantia entirely gave up the export rights of the Scorpene. For a submarine built to be exported, that seems pretty damning to me. > Navantia didn't have experience designing submarines from scratch but they have plenty with civil and military ships. Submarines are a lot more complicated to build. Most of the Scorpene engineering came from France. Navantia clearly wasn't ready to be left on its own.
- iagovar 7y ago> There are no French or Spanish clients. The Scorpene submarines were built strictly to be exported by the joint venture. Spain was expected to buy some, France wasn't. Not french and spanish clients for Scorpene, but a Spanish client for Navantia is the Spanish Navy for example, and DCNS had their own. > It was settled. Navantia entirely gave up the export rights of the Scorpene. For a submarine built to be exported, that seems pretty damning to me. Hmm, do you have any source, I've tried but didn't find anything. > Submarines are a lot more complicated to build. > Most of the Scorpene engineering came from France. Navantia clearly wasn't ready to be left on its own. That's true, although my point is that they are not some bunch of amateurs that misplaced a decimal. They've been designing ships for a long time, and building submarines at least from the 60s, so the decimal displacing is probably FUD, specially when the client changed requirements mid-construction phase, and the source of such mistake is Rafael Bardaji, who seems that has never been a Spanish Official but conservative and later far-right advisor, and honestly, is quite a fishy source.
- apricot 7y agoWell, you don't call the company whose software you pirated and ask them for tech support...