UPDATE: Brazil's Coming Used Submarine Sale

BACKGROUND (from August 28, 2009)

Brazil intended to build five submarines by 2021 with France (Scorpene class subs), of which one would be nuclear. Construction was slated to commence in 2016.

The original $160M estimate (for the n-sub) to $9.5 billion U.S. dollars for all, will be paid in 2026, five years after launch. [Former President Luiz Inacio da Silva's government agreed in 2008 to purchase five submarines, including a nuclear-powered one, from France for 6.7 billion euros].

If Hugo Chavez is still in power, Venezueula would like to buy 1 or 2, depending upon condition, and immediately sell the HDW 209 to Iran. Ahmadinejad (if still in power) plans to upgrade the HDW 209 using Russian assistance.

UPDATES

Brazilian police to probe nuclear submarine programme - Folha - Reuters, TodaySAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian federal police are investigating potential irregularities in a military programme that aims to build a nuclear-powered submarine in partnership with France by 2023, newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Wednesday.

The investigation that began in March of 2014 has jailed some of Brazil's most senior engineering executives and caused Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known, to write off more than $2 billion in corruption-related losses. 

Dozens of lawmakers, mostly from President Dilma Rousseff's governing coalition, have also been implicated for allegedly taking bribes in the kickback scheme, which has spiralled into Brazil's largest-ever corruption scandal.

The 7.8 billion reais ($3.95 billion) program will turn out the first conventional submarine in 2015 and the nuclear-powered submarine will be commissioned in 2023 and enter operation in 2025, the Brazilian Navy said. -  Mar 1, 2013    

 [Now, even these June 24th 2015 (last month's) estimates are unlikely]:
The first Scorpene-class vessel is expected to be completed by 2016 and to be commissioned in 2018, while the other three SSKs are scheduled for completion in 2022. The construction of the first SSN is planned to end in 2023 with entry into service slated for 2025.  - June 24, 2015
Hugo Chavez is out of power, and Venezueula can no longer afford to buy 1 or 2 of Brazil's existing sub fleet (four Tupi-class and one HDW Type 209 subs) and immediately sell the HDW 209 to Iran, which probably had planned to upgrade the HDW 209 using Russian assistance. Now, Brazil may have to lease the Type 209 to Kim Jong-un.  [Sure, that is what will happen, NOT!]


Submarines are always silent and strange.

Submarine Mystery Questions 28 July 2015

Submarine Mystery Questions of the Week
The first sub of its class, the SOM, was delivered to Vladivostok for the "Baltic Sea Fleet".
SOM sank during WW1 in a 1916 collision with a Swedish vessel. All 18 of its crew perished.  A vintage submarine recently found in Swedish waters is thought to be the SOM.


 SUBMARINE QUESTIONS of the Week
1.  On what former commissioned U.S. submarine class was the SOM's design?
2.  Did SOM's crew die before, after, or during the Russian revolution?
3.  Name the two primary reasons speculated to have caused SOM's fatal collision. 
4.  With what kind of Swedish vessel did SOM collide (ship's name and type).
5.  Why is national state diplomacy involved in this discovery?
6.  What possible contradiction may be deduced from the following statements?

• From the Ocean X Team, which made the discovery, website: "It is unclear how old the submarine is and for how long it has been at the bottom of the sea. The submarine is completely intact, has no visible damage to the hull, and the hatches are closed. Therefore, we do fear that the crew would not have been able to save themselves when the sub went down."

• From historical record: The captain of the Swedish ship had claimed to have seen "a periscope sticking out of the water" 150m in front of him before it turned towards the ship and collided, the newspaper reported.

ANSWERS: MONDAY,  3 AUGUST

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Update: Crime Worth Mentioning: Enlisted Submarine Nucs

BACKGROUND

ARMED ROBBERY by ex-surface warfare nucs
Why More Sacrifice Matters (from Worth Mentioning: Enlisted Submarine Nucs)
All else being equal, what is the surest way to minimize the criminal element? Answer: require more individual sacrifice.  Criminals like the concept of something for nothing.  The lower they can get the nothing, and the higher the something, the happier they are.  Before leaving the Navy, ET1 Michael J. Burhman, mastermind described below, had completed two deployments on the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74). --- Not on a submarine!

LATEST

ILLEGAL RETENTION OF CLASSIFIED NUCLEAR SYSTEMS PHOTOS ex-USS Alexandria (SSN-757) by nuc Machinest Mate ex-submariner (later a First Class Petty Officer assigned to the Naval Support Activity Base in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.)

The Navy was alerted to the security breach when the town dump foreman in Hampton found a cellular telephone in a Dumpster and decided to keep it to replace his own. When he noticed that the phone contained photographs, he showed them to a retired Navy chief, who called the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

On at least three separate dates in 2009, he allegedly used his cellphone camera to photograph the boat's classified spaces, instruments and equipment, prosecutors said.

Connecticut U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly said Friday that a federal grand jury in Bridgeport indicted Kristian Saucier, 28, of Arlington, Vermont, on charges including unauthorized retention of defense information and obstruction of justice. The two charges combined carry up to 30 years in prison.The two charges combined carry up to 30 years in prison.

The sailor's telephone contained photographs of the ship's reactor, reactor compartment and maneuvering compartment, where the nuclear power, steam and electrical systems of the submarine are operated and monitored through control panels. The investigators said that photographs of the control panels were of such clarity that gauges could easily be read, revealing the Alexandria's position at the time of the photograph, as well as its maximum speed, which is classified. An engineer reading the photos could "determine significant design characteristics of a U.S. nuclear submarine, including its reactor plant," the investigators said.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Leaving "Caliphate Chump Land"

Update # 1 -  Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said Friday that officials are looking into whether Abdulazeez was what some at Intelligence agencies consider among the "losers to lions," meaning a young person who is "looking for a cause greater than himself" and commits a terrorist act in the process.  
Background

• A New York Police Department described a process in which young Muslim immigrants, frustrated with their lives in their adopted country, slowly adopt a philosophy that puts them on the path to jihad. The men meet and share ideas in mosques, in bookstores and over the Internet, it says. The full, half-page article is well worth reading. (The fastest growing segment of Islam in the U.S. is among our prison population. - Bill O'Reilly, The O'Reilly Factor, 08/14/07).

•  According to Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a study of 400 Al Qaeda members found 75% of his sample came from the upper or middle class. the vast majority--90 percent--came from caring, intact families. Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6 percent that's usual for the third world. These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways." They are engineers, architects and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few had any background in religion."

The 20-something year-old "Lone Wolves" are Frustrated Losers 

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more

 Submarines are always silent and strange.