According to information published by the French Ministry of Armed Forces on June 3, 2022, Sebastien Lecornu said that the French Suffren-class nuclear attack submarine Suffren fully operational.
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Suffren class (or Barracuda class) nuclear attack submarine Suffren (Picture source: Safran)
Suffren (Q284) is a French nuclear attack submarine. It is the lead ship of the Suffren class, stemming from the Barracuda program. The vessel was laid down on 19 December 2007 and launched on 1 August 2019 at Cherbourg.
The mission of the submarines will include anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, land attack, intelligence gathering, crisis management, and special operations.
This class reportedly produces approximately 1/1,000 of the detectable noise of the Redoutable-class submarines (it will equal de noise made by shrimps), and they are ten times more sensitive in detecting other submarines.
In support of special operations missions, Barracudas may also accommodate up to 12 commandos whose equipment will be stored in a mobile pod; for this type of mission, they benefit from a deck hangar, accessible from an airlock, which will allow the combat divers to rally a 3rd-generation underwater propulsor (a kind of pocket submarine), a capacity that until now only Americans and the British had.
Unlike previous French submarines, Suffren is not equipped with a periscope, but rather an optronic mast, which allows for much longer range and outside visible spectrum detection of targets.
With their new equipment, the Barracuda will now be able to launch naval cruise missiles with a range of about 1,000 km. The SSN will be fitted with torpedo-tube-launched cruise missiles MDCN SCALP Naval for long-range (well above 1,000 km, 620 mi) strikes against strategic ground targets.
