TinWing said:
and I somehow doubt that the Germans were anxious to see Argentina re-exporting German submarines to embargoed third party countries. It also gives rise to the issue of competition with IKL/HDW. In the end, $57 million for the plans of the Type 209 is not an inconsiderable sum, as it amounted to pure profit.
From the two books I had a look through this weekend, Armscor by James P McWilliams, and Those Who had the Power by Badenhorst and Victor, some interesting points emerge.
South Africa was close to directly purchasing actual Type 209's in the early 1980's from HDW but the final purchase was scuttled due to the foreign minister Hans Dietrich Genscher requesting that the various departments and manufacturers adhere to the arms embargo. On his June 1984 visit to the FRG, President PW Botha apparently requested Helmet Kohl to approve the sale of submarine plans to South Africa.
Of the money paid by South Africa, HDW in Kiel returned R21 Million, whilst IKL in Lubeck retained R10,5 million. The second book speculated that South Africa's submarine programme "might" have been called "Project Thoroughbred". The variant the South Africans were interested in was a Type 209 class "1650", based apparently on the Type 209 1500 SSK's built for India.
When the blueprint sale broke in Germany, it caused a political furore which implicated HDW, IKL, Helmut Kohl, as well as Franz Josef Struass, who had previously attempted to get HDW to build up to 8 SSK's for diect sale to South Africa.
In November 1987, South Africa's Defence Minister Magnus Malan indicated that a project was already underway to build submarines locally, with 4 boats to be built by Sandock Austral for delivery from/or by 1992. Clearly this was in the early phases and was probably cancelled along with many other programmes in the dramatic 1989 slashing of the defence budget.
Regarding the Argentina subs, the second book only states that apparently, a West German intermediary offered brand new submarines built for/or by Argentina, but which it no longer wanted. These boats and components would be delivered as is to Durban or Cape Town for fitting out. Defence Minister Malan turned this down as he found certain conditions unnacceptable, much to President PW Botha's dismay when he found out later. These can only be the incompleted TR1700's IMHO.