Wheather Merlin would be superior or inferior to Scorpene will not be a criticall issue , In littoral warfare and in noisy water as Jonesy has correctly put it the better trained crew will win.

Instead of spending another $ 1.5 Billion in a spanky new design perceived to be technologically better than Scorpene . I would rather think that they should build more subs of Agosta 90B class , Its really a nice sub , proven & robust design and if it is available in numbers , It could tie up significant assets of the opposing force.

Maybe, but it is apparent to all that India is pushing for a sea based Nuclear detterant in the form of submarine and surface ship based IRBM’s and LACM’s. Such vessels would have to lurk in the Indian Ocean and Arabian sea, the only way pakistan could attempt to counter this is with long range SSK’s operating far from shore, in such a scenario the better boat pakistan can get the better.

Huntinghawk, this has previously been mentioned in the UK publication Warships International Fleet Review, it seems as if the PN is very interested. This should be no more risky for the French than the Type-214 was for the Germans.