from JDW 30 Nov 2005

Spain orders DM2A4 heavyweight torpedoes
Richard Scott Jane’s Naval Consultant
London
Spain’s Ministry of Defence has placed an order with BAE Systems’ up-for-sale German subsidiary Atlas Elektronik for the supply of DM2A4 heavyweight torpedoes to equip the Spanish Navy’s four new S-80A submarines.
Originally developed for the German Navy’s new U-212A submarines, the DM2A4 is itself an evolution of the earlier DM2A3 weapon, featuring a high-energy electrical propulsion system, an upgraded guidance system (using fibre-optic rather than copper wire to provide for the weapon’s extended range) and improved navigation (replacing mechanical gyroscopes with strapdown fibre-optic gyros).
Other changes comprise a wake sensor – an upward-looking high-frequency sonar – and an electronics upgrade (notably the conversion of the analogue processing in the acoustic homing head to digital signal processing). Elsewhere, existing DM2A3 subsystems are retained, including the conformal acoustic sensor array.
Warshot battery technology for the DM2A4 is based on Friemann & Wolf zinc silver oxide technology. Atlas has adapted a modular battery concept that enables torpedoes to be configured with between one and four ‘energy packages’ depending on user requirements.
Spain, the second overseas customer for the DM2A4 after Turkey, originally signed a government-to-government agreement for the acquisition of the DM2A4 with Germany in November 2004 following a favourable technical evaluation.
According to Atlas Elektronik, Spanish industry “will be involved in the production of the torpedoes to a significant extent”.
The first S-80A submarine is scheduled to enter service in 2011, with further boats following at yearly intervals thereafter.