Is the German Navy making a comeback?
Their new stealth submarine is a gamechanger.
Key Point: Germany’s new submarine is as stealthy as any nuclear-powered sub.
The German Navy was a pioneer in large-scale submarine warfare, its U-boats able to contest the United Kingdom’s superior navy in ways that German surface warships could not. While modern-day Germany no longer has the ocean-spanning naval ambitions of its predecessors, it has become a global leader in designing small, stealthy submarines that can effectively patrol littoral waters at a fraction of the cost of nuclear-powered submarines. The secret sauce in the new generation of German submarines is the use of hydrogen fuel cells for power, which allows submarines to operate nearly silently for weeks at a time without using expensive nuclear reactors.