Нидерландтық теңіз күшінің «Walrus» кластық су асты қайығы

Attack submarine class of the Royal Netherlands Navy

The Walrus class submarine is the only submarine class currently in operation in the Royal Netherlands Navy. The boats have been in service since 1990 and are all named after sea mammals.

In 1974, the Royal Netherlands Navy announced, through the Ministry of Defence's 10 year plan Defensienota 1974 [nl], that it wanted to replace its aging s. Since the 1960s, the Royal Netherlands Navy had been conducting studies and research into a suitable replacement attack submarine. This research initiative concluded that the Netherlands should build conventional diesel electric submarines, as nuclear submarines were costly and could only be constructed, crewed, and maintained by countries with major navies such as the United States, France and the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, even with the diesel electric submarine, the Dutch government sought to work together with international allies to reduce construction costs. For example, a special kind of French produced steel was used to construct the hull of the Walrus class submarines; this steel proved to be more elastic, allowing submarines of the class to dive deeper than previous submarines. Furthermore, there was a focus on automation which was aimed at decreasing the manpower required to operate the submarines, while also making them more effective against threats. On 19 June 1979, Minister of Defense Willem Scholten signed a contract worth 425 million guilders with the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM) to build two submarines to replace the Dolfijn class submarines, with the construction of the second boat to commence the following year. Soon, RDM noticed that the new submarines could not be built the same way as the s; it had to use new techniques to build the submarines. This was problematic because the construction of the Walrus class submarines was far from completion. To ensure construction of the submarines continued, RDM was re established as an independent company. New problems arose on 14 August 1986, when the command centre of Walrus caught fire, while it was still on a scaffold in the shipyard. The fire lasted about five hours, and resulted in immense damage to the submarine; the command center was completely burned out. While some equipment could be rescued, most had to be replaced. The exact location, origin and cause of the fire was never established. Presumably, the fire was caused in the vicinity of the corporals and men's washroom by a defect in the electrical work lighting. Repairs were reported as complete in 1987, This tail configuration was first tested in 1960 on the United States Navy's Albacore, and has since been used by the Walrus class, all Swedish Navy submarines since the , the Royal Australian Navy's , the German Navy Type 212A and the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force's The X configuration is a complex system and therefore not implemented by many other navies around the world. This makes the boats very suitable for combating surface vessels and submarines, protecting friendly units, gathering information, providing early warning detection, and supporting special operations. The submarines can also be used to enforce international sanctions, as they did during the Yugoslav Wars. The Walrus class submarines were specifically designed for hunting Russian submarines during the Cold War.

After the Cold War, the submarines have been tasked with many highly confidential intelligence gathering operations, many of which are still classified. They have operated in the Northern Atlantic, Mediterranean Yugoslavian region, the Persian Gulf at Iran and Iraq, and the Caribbean, often upon the request of allies, including the United States. In June 2010, the Netherlands agreed to deploy one submarine to help combat piracy off the coast of Somalia. In November 2016, the Russian Navy claimed to have chased off a Walrus class vessel from a battle group that included the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov.

The Walrus class submarines are used for the Submarine Command Course (SMCC) for both national and international candidates (including the UK, Australia and Canada), selecting and training future commanders of conventional submarines. They are highly rated, with an exceptional reputation. The Royal Netherlands Navy began this course after the British Royal Navy phased out their conventional submarines.

In November 2014, the Dutch Minister of Defence announced plans to replace the Walrus class submarines in 2025. By 2017, there was still no political agreement on the quantity or type of new submarines to be ordered, nor the tasks they were expected to perform. However, it seems certain that they will be replaced, since the alleged Russian threat was regarded an incentive to invest in a new class. The Minister of Defence, however, delayed the replacement by two years, until 2027. Roughly, there are two groups in the Dutch parliament – one in favor of replacing the Walrus class by an equally capable class of large, expeditionary, diesel electric submarine, and the other in favor of choosing a cheaper solution of smaller diesel electrics, similar to Swedish and German submarines. It is unknown where the new boats will be built; since the Dutch RDM shipyard (the only Dutch yard capable of building submarines) is no longer in operation. The Defensienota (Defense policy for the coming years) of March 2018 revealed that the Dutch government is still planning to replace the Walrus class submarines, with an allocated budget of more than 2.5 billion euros for the new submarines. Additional information on how to proceed with the replacement was expected at the end of 2018, when the Dutch Minister of Defence, Ank Bijleveld, was to send a so called B letter to the Dutch parliament. In mid 2021 it was indicated that a revised plan envisaged taking a replacement decision in 2022 and to have the first vessel in service by 2028, with the first two boats to be in service by 2031. However, in October 2021 it was reported that this timeline was no longer feasible. Instead, the Dutch Ministry of Defence signalled that the envisaged dates would have to be "substantially adjusted", possibly incorporating a life extension refit for the existing Walrus class boats. In April 2022 it was announced that two of the Walrus class boats would be extended in service until the mid 2030s and that in order to do so safely a different maintenance approach would have to be adopted for the entire fleet with one of the four existing boats to be decommissioned in the short term, followed by a second boat later. On 16 November 2022 it was revealed that Walrus would be the first boat to be decommissioned sometime in 2023. Walrus was decommissioned in October 2023. The revised schedule for the construction of the new replacement boats would likely see the first two vessels entering service in the 2034 to 2037 timeframe.