Singapore’s Navy Inducts 1st German-made Type 218SG Submarine

The Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) inducted the first of four ordered Type 218SG diesel-electric submarines based on the German 214 design.

An official ceremony was performed at Changi base on July 20 to induct the ‘Impeccable.’ Launched in December 2022, it is the second submarine of this project built for Singapore. The first one, Invincible, completed factory sea trials in Kiel in August 2020, but it stayed in Germany for crew training for all four submarines that Singapore had bought.

Singapore bought two non-nuclear submarines from ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) in December 2013 to replace RSN’s Challenger-class submarines (Sjoormen). Four years later, it added two more subs to its order. While the value of the contract has not been made public, German news outlets speculated it to cost around €3 billion.

Project/Type 218SG submarine is larger than the German export variant having a full displacement of 2,000 tons when operating at the surface. Its full displacement when submerged is 2,200 tons.

The submarine has ten torpedo tubes measuring 533mm and two measuring 650mm for special weaponry and equipment. It uses the same air-independent propulsion (AIP) system as the Project 214 submarines, which means that two HDW/Siemens electrochemical generators power it, each with a power output of 120 kW. The sophisticated Combat Management System (CMS) used by the Project 218SG submarines was co-created by the German company Atlas Elektronik and Singapore Technologies Electronics. This CMS was installed on the submarines as standard equipment. There are only 28 personnel on board as part of the crew.