Poland Orders Three Saab A26 Submarines

Poland is about to do something it has failed to do for roughly 30 years: buy new submarines. On 29 June, Warsaw will sign for three Saab A26 diesel-electric boats, built in Sweden for the shallow, noisy waters of the Baltic Sea (Defence24, Euronews).

The purchase is not just a matter of replacing old metal. Poland is trying to save a military skill before it disappears: the crews, engineers, maintenance routines and supply chains that keep submarines usable rather than merely owned.

What Poland Is Actually Buying

The A26 is a 66-metre submarine with air-independent propulsion, meaning it can stay underwater for weeks without surfacing to recharge batteries. It has torpedo tubes and a modular bay that can carry special forces or unmanned underwater vehicles (Marine Poland).

Saab designed the boat for the kind of sea Poland actually has to operate in: shallow water, heavy commercial traffic, coastal noise and short distances between NATO and Russian naval space (Saab). That matters. A submarine built for the open Atlantic is not automatically the right instrument for the Baltic.

The contract is also meant to build capacity inside Poland. It includes crew training and investment in Polish shipyards, so Warsaw can eventually maintain and repair the submarines at home rather than depending on Swedish facilities in wartime (Defence24).

The immediate problem is time. Poland’s submarine force has been reduced to a single vessel, ORP Orzeł, commissioned in 1985 (Fakt). The first A26 is expected only between 2030 and 2032 (Rzeczpospolita).

That is why the bridge lease of an older Swedish Södermanland-class boat may prove as important as the new submarines themselves. Without a gap-filler, Poland risks losing its last trained submarine crews before the new fleet arrives.

A NATO Sea That Still Lacks NATO Submarines

The Baltic changed once Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024. Every coastal state on the sea, apart from Russia, is now inside the alliance (Puolustusvoimat).

But alliance membership does not magically create deterrence. NATO can provide command structures, planning frameworks and collective defence commitments. It does not buy submarines, train crews or run maintenance yards on behalf of national governments.

Poland is filling a national gap inside a wider Nordic-Baltic underwater system where Sweden already has decades of experience (Marine Poland). A quiet A26 does not need to fire a shot to matter. Its value lies partly in forcing an adversary to assume that a NATO submarine may be watching chokepoints, port approaches or naval movements (BAE Systems).

There was industrial politics in the choice too. German-language coverage treated the decision as a defeat for Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, which had also competed for the order (Euronews DE).

No public scoring has set out why Sweden won. The practical explanation is probably simpler: Saab offered a Baltic-specific design, an interim boat to keep Polish crews alive as a capability, and a route towards sovereign repair capacity (Rzeczpospolita).

The Cable Question Submarines Cannot Answer Alone

The submarine deal comes as the Baltic is dealing with a different kind of undersea anxiety: grey-zone threats to cables, power links and pipelines, including anchor-dragging and suspected sabotage (FIIA).

For Irish readers, that part of the story will sound familiar enough. A modern economy can look digital and weightless from the surface, but it still depends on physical routes under the sea. The Baltic is now one of the places where Europe is learning how exposed those routes can be.

Submarines can help, but only indirectly. A26 boats add covert surveillance and make hostile planning less certain. They are not, by themselves, a cable-protection system.

Actual cable defence needs persistent sensing, coast guards, drones, attribution tools and repair ships (War on the Rocks). Finland has already tested one practical method: using distributed acoustic sensing on existing cables to detect anchor threats before damage is done (Elisa).

The EU is adding its own layer. On 23 June, the European Commission funded the first two Regional Cable Hubs, including €2.5 million for a Baltic hub and a separate €40 million call for rapid submarine-cable repair capacity (European Commission, 2EU Brussels).

Finland is coordinating the Baltic hub with Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Latvia and Sweden. Poland is not among the participants. It is buying undersea military capability through a bilateral Swedish track while the EU’s first cable-security coordination is being built through a different group.

The signing closes a procurement failure that lasted a generation. The harder question is whether Poland’s three boats will be connected to the wider system of sensors, patrols, repair teams and NATO command before the next cable incident supplies the test.