The German Navy has no military submarines ready to fight, the US Popular Mechanics reported on Wednesday.
“The German Navy currently has six diesel-electric submarines in its pipeline (212A),” US Popular Mechanics said. “For various reasons, it is not possible to go on missions at sea if necessary.”
“The U-31 and U-32 submarines, built in 2005, are currently being re-equipped, while the U-33 is undergoing routine maintenance,” the newspaper said.
With regard to the German submarine “U-35”, the newspaper said that, “suffer from damage in its horizontal direction, and did not specify the date of its validity to sail.
The submarine “U-36”, nicknamed the “donor organ” in the German Navy, the newspaper that “has been dismantled repeatedly to replace spare parts, and is not ready to serve now.”
“Such a situation is the first in the history of the country since the postwar war in Germany,” the newspaper quoted a German Bundestag source as saying.
“One of the most important reasons why our entire fleet is out of service is the lack of spare parts, as the suppliers of spare parts prefer to produce the parts needed for submarines only when needed and do not make stock of them.”
Three or four German submarines are expected to be back in service next year 2018. But even so, the fleet still faces another equally important problem. Fleet leadership currently has only three crews qualified to command its six submarines.
