French DCNS Company Interested in Constructing Three Submarines in Poland

Direction des Constructions Navales Services (DCNS), a French defense company, is interested in constructing three submarines, equipped with guided naval cruise missiles (NCMs) in Poland, local media reported Monday.

WARSAW (Sputnik) — According to the Rzeczpospolita newspaper, the DCNS company remains a favorite in a struggle for a tender for the submarines’ construction, which would cost 10 billion zlotys (over $2.5 billion), as it proposes to equip the submarines with anti-ship NCMs with a range of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).

Two other competing companies are the German Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems corporation and Sweden's Saab.

"We are determined to order offensive weapons with real combat value, namely, guided missiles with a range of about 1,000 kilometers," Poland’s Deputy Defense Minister Bartosz Kownacki was quoted as saying by Rzeczpospolita.

The DCNS representative in Poland said the company had been conducting talks with the Polish government on the construction of submarines for many years.

He also noted that the choice of DCNS submarines would guarantee creation of hundreds of jobs, as half of the work would be carried out by local contractors.