Last month's "convergence" of Thales' French-based naval business with French naval shipbuilder DCN (which since calls itself DCNS) does not mean that all of Thales' naval activities are now part of DCNS... as I found out when talking to two senior executives in Thales Naval. Both were keen to point out that major parts of Thales' naval business, both domestically within France and internationally, stay outside of the deal.
Jan-Erik Rottinghuis, Vice President Above Water Systems for Thales Naval, says that "we are clearly independent from any shipyard -- this has always been one of our main strengths. The DCN/Thales convergence does not change this in any way."
Guy Baruchel, Vice President Under Water Systems for Thales Naval, says that the DCN/Thales convergence has "no impact whatsoever" on the operations of his business line.
Rottinghuis: "Now that part of Thales Naval France has gone to DCNS, our strength as Thales Above Water Systems is to a great extent based on our know-how of U.S.-supplied missile technology and how to integrate that in our combat systems. We are in the process of expanding that know-how in our plant in the Netherlands. We are also internationalizing by further integrating our business with Thales operations in countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, South Africa, South Korea, the U.S. and elsewhere."
According to Rottinghuis, Thales' approach in offering above-water combat systems for surface ships will often depend on whether the customer navy decides to select French- or U.S.-supplied missile systems, typically either MBDA's Aster 15/30 family or Raytheon's Evolved SeaSparrow and Standard Missile family.
"As an example, if we look at Greece, one option is that there may be a government-to-government deal with France based on DCNS's Fremm frigate and MBDA's Aster missiles. In that case Thales would act as a (radar) equipment supplier to DCNS. Another option is that Greece prefers to continue operating Raytheon missiles integrated in an anti-air warfare system featuring radars and command & control systems provided by Thales companies outside France. In which case Thales would play the role of major systems integrator."
Rottinghuis says that he expects to be competing head on against DCNS in a number of export markets, examples being Australia's helicopter carrier program and Saudi Arabia's high-speed surface combatant program.
"In Australia we are teamed with Northrop Grumman to offer our Integrated Combat Management System, competing against DCNS as well as against Saab. For the Saudi program, our products are in fact on the Fastwind corvette proposed by DCNS but also on General Dynamics' Littoral Combat Ship-derivative."
Baruchel: "Thales Under Water Systems, which has major activities in France but also in the U.K. and Australia, is also kept out of the Convergence deal with DCNS. We are involved in projects for DCNS, but we also work with many other shipbuilders around the world. The moment we would be considered a DCNS company, our business position would be damaged."
"We will continue to be a supplier of sonar systems to DCNS but within a normal customer-supplier relationship. But our focus in the coming years will be to address export markets outside our domestic countries -- France, the U.K. and Australia. It so happens that in terms of order intake we expect our three home countries to enter into a down-cycle for the next decade, following the up-cycle that we've enjoyed in the past ten years," says Baruchel.
"We will have to grow elsewhere which is why we have recently put a lot of emphasis on technology innovation, aimed at penetrating and opening new markets with new products such as the Captas Nano active low frequency towed array sonar that can be installed on small, corvette-size warships."
-- Joris Janssen Lok
Photo: Thales-supplied APARradars on LCF-type air defense and command frigates of the Royal Netherlands Navy. Photo: Joris Janssen Lok
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