Posted on 11/03/2013 11:40:37 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Saudi Arabia 'plans to buy German submarines'
A German newspaper has reported that Saudi Arabia plans to buy submarines from Germany. The news could intensify discussion on weapons exports during the current coalition negotiations in Berlin.
The German weekly Bild am Sonntag said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia wanted to purchase five German Type 209 submarines for 12 billion euros ($16.5 billion). The paper said that in the long term, the kingdom was interested in buying altogether 25 of the vessels.
The newspaper said it had information that the German chancellery had in the summer already signaled a willingness to examine such requests from Saudi Arabia "favorably" as soon as a new government was in place.
The submarines would be constructed by the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) and the Nordseewerke Emden, both shipbuilding companies located in the north of Germany, according to the report.
Disputed issue
The report could fuel controversy during coalition negotiations between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the Social Democrats, as weapons exports to crisis regions are a disputed issue between the parties.
The Social Democrats would like to see stricter regulations, while the conservatives consider thepresent rules on exports to be adequate. Currently, the Federal Security Council, made up of the chancellor and eight ministers, has to approve any arms export.
Some lawmakers in Germany see Saudi Arabia as an inappropriate recipient for arms, saying that human rights are not sufficiently respected in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia also sent tanks and troops to help put down recent protests in Bahrain in 2011
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.de ...
Germany’s ThyssenKrupp denies report on submarine sales to Saudi Arabia
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/03/uk-thyssenkrupp-submarines-idUKBRE9A209520131103
If it happens, I wonder if they’ll be skippered and crewed by Germans or Saudis?
More interestingly, I wonder what they want them for?
Business tip.
Germans do build good U-Boats. But what does the arabs plan to use them for?
Having lived in that sh*thole, I can tell you that the Saudis don’t do anything on their own, they hire foreign labor. Who, then, will command their subs?
They should just borrow Obamatollah’s magic carpet.
They should just borrow Obamatollah’s magic carpet. And Scotchguard it.
What worries me is who will our subs be skippered and crewed by? Queers, faggots and lesbians who are all socialist commies? America is falling faster than a toilet flush in a 100 story apartment building.
“More interestingly, I wonder what they want them for?”
Once Iran goes nuclear Saudi Arabia will need mutual assured destruction. They also need plausible deniability. They have probably already bought old Soviet nukes and cruise missiles. The Soviets did not serialize their nukes and can’t even tell you how many they made. So, they’re out there. I’ve read we started buying them off the black market back in the Clinton days. Did we get them all? Probably not.
The Arabs will use nuclear weapons on each other long before they use them against Israel. They’re truly scared of each other. The Israelis? Not so much.
It all sounds like some bad movie.
I walked into a bad movie in 2009...I can’t find the door to leave!
They will become artificial reefs under Saudi Command.
Soviet suitcase nukes were on sale in 1990.
TRUE suitcase nukes, in a large attache case.
“Soviet suitcase nukes were on sale in 1990. TRUE suitcase nukes, in a large attaché case.”
General Lebed, who was in charge of the Russian nuclear bomb program said (when he ran for Putin’s job), “We manufactured 100 suitcase nukes for the KGB. When the Soviet Union fell I went to them to get them back and they said, ‘we don’t have any nukes.’” The KGB fractured into numerous Mafia operations. So, those nukes are probably for sale. The astonishing thing is, they haven’t been used yet.
Give a 100 year window, it’s impossible that a nuclear weapon will not be detonated in a city.
With their money I think I would go for those spiffy, undetectable ones the Swiss are making.
So these are different from the 40 known “suitcase” nukes we know are out there, and which ere basically demolition nukes and more “man-portable” than suitcases.
The upside is that all of them required a very rigid maintenance regime, and many of them would probably be dead withouth extensive and competent refurbishing by now.
Krupp. Read a book about the family, interesting history.
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