Thread by @AlexLuck9

Thankfully the actual report by the German audit office is free to read, so I just looked at that instead. Link can be found here (pdf). Bullet points follow, as a comedy in eight acts: 1/
bundesrechnungshof.de/SharedDocs/Dow…

https://twitter.com/AlexLuck9/status/1732769420475347409

Effort to replace MCM capability by 2027 dates back to 2014. A standing commitment to NATO is to provide 11 boats with improved capability by 2031. Navy estimated original funding requirement at 2.7 bln Euros. 2/

For that cost Navy wanted 11 new, boats capable of long range deployments (current boats designed for Baltic/North Sea), improved C2 for multinational ops, wider USV/UUV integration. Despite all this obviously requiring larger boats, Nayv claimed it did not. 3/

Planning department of MinDef by 2017 estimated Navy requirement to cost 4.4 bln EUR. recommended to outsource C2 requirement to (also planned) new MCM tenders. A decision over this change was still pending by May 2023.

Meanwhile MinDef set budget of 3.5 bln EUR for effort. 4/

Notably MinDef did not tell Navy what requirements to cut to meet budget. To the surprise of exactly no one Navy kept insisting on all requirements. Planning by 2018 estimated cost for full requirements at 6 bln EUR. It took another two years to call for review to meet budget. 5/

To meet cost, planning suggested points MinDef should challenge Navy on. MinDef decided not to, instead asking to cut number from 11 to 5 boats & keep 6 old boats to still meet NATO obligation.
Alternatively a life extension of all existing boats for ten years was considered. 6/

Unsurprisingly, said life extension, at cost of 1.3 bln Euros, was also considered highly undesirable. Yet by 11/2022 MinDef nevertheless decided said life extension until 2040 (!) is only way forward. New planning for a successor to commence by 2025. 7/

Let it be noted here while this charade went on, Belgium & Netherlands are introducing a modern MCM system (dubbed rMCM) at cost of ca 2-2.2 bln Euros (estimate) for 12 large vessels & modern mine warfare kit. France recently decided to join the effort.

The world wonders. 8/end