A new commander at a pivotal moment: what the Orka programme means for Poland's submarine force

The Submarine Squadron has a new commander. Commander Łukasz Rumkowski received his letter of appointment from Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. He takes over at a remarkable moment: Poland's submarine force, reduced for years to a single ageing boat, is entering its biggest transformation since the Cold War. After almost three decades of announcements, the Orka programme has finally become reality, and with it the Polish Navy is regaining one of the most strategic capabilities in modern naval warfare.

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02 july 2026   |   12:17   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Krzysztof Niedziela / MON

A squadron with great tradition and a difficult present

The Submarine Squadron, part of the 3rd Ship Flotilla at Gdynia-Oksywie, is one of the oldest-established units in the Polish fleet. Its traditions reach back to the pre-war squadron and the legendary submarines ORP Orzeł and ORP Sęp, and the patron of the 3rd Ship Flotilla remains Bolesław Romanowski, one of Poland's most celebrated submariners and a former commander of the squadron.

The present, however, is far harder than the history. After the withdrawal of the Kobben-class boats donated by Norway, only a single submarine remains in the squadron: ORP Orzeł, a Project 877E boat (NATO: Kilo class) whose ensign was first raised back in 1986. It is a vessel at the end of its service life, yet one that has single-handedly sustained the continuity of Poland's submarine service, its training and its presence at allied exercises. The new commander therefore inherits the unit at the lowest point of its potential in decades, but also at the moment when its rebuilding is coming into view.

Why the submarine is an exceptional weapon

A submarine is a weapon whose significance goes far beyond the number of hulls. Its greatest asset is stealth: the ability to maintain an invisible, prolonged and continuous presence beneath the surface that neither a surface ship nor maritime aviation can provide. As a result, even a small submarine force acts as a force multiplier, forcing a potential adversary into caution and tying up considerable resources in anti-submarine defence.

The roles of such boats are broad: reconnaissance, strike and reconnaissance-strike missions, breaking and imposing naval blockades, and screening a navy's own surface groups. In the conditions of the Baltic, a further task has moved to the fore in recent years: the protection of underwater critical infrastructure. The Baltic Pipe gas pipeline, the planned Harmony Link power cable linking Poland with Lithuania, and the LNG terminal at Świnoujście are assets that cannot be effectively protected from the air or from a frigate's deck. A series of acts of sabotage against undersea cables in the Baltic region has shown that modern hybrid warfare is also being waged underwater, beyond the reach of conventional surface forces. This is a domain in which having one's own submarines carries strategic weight.

Orka: the end of a nearly thirty-year saga

For well over a decade, Orka was a textbook example of a project that keeps coming back like a boomerang and never quite ends in a purchase. Written into successive technical modernisation plans, it remained for years stuck in analysis and declarations. That has now changed: the Ministry of National Defence has signed a contract with Saab for three modern A26 submarines (designated the Blekinge class in Sweden), worth more than 18 billion zloty and ranking among the largest arms contracts in Polish history. The Swedish bid was selected in the autumn of 2025, after a competition in which offers from France (Naval Group), Germany (ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems), Italy (Fincantieri), Spain (Navantia) and South Korea (Hanwha) were rejected.

The new boats have air-independent propulsion (AIP) and are optimised for operations in the shallow, acoustically difficult Baltic. Because their deliveries are spread over time, with the first boat due to reach Poland in the first half of the 2030s and full restoration of the underwater capability planned for 2038, the interim gap will be filled by an older A17-type submarine leased from Sweden. Training of Polish crews is to begin earlier, at Swedish facilities.

Just as important as the boats themselves is the industrial dimension of the contract. The Polish Armaments Group (PGZ) and Saab have announced a joint venture to handle the servicing, repair and modernisation of the new submarines, together with a transfer of technology intended to give domestic industry independence in maintaining the boats throughout their life cycle. Other projects are linked to the programme, including the construction of the Ratownik submarine rescue vessel.

The choice is not without controversy, which is worth noting fairly. Critics point out that the requirements dropped the originally key ability to strike land targets with long-range cruise missiles, and thus the boats' "offensive teeth." Questions are also raised about schedule risk, since the A26 has not yet entered service with any navy and the Swedish programme has recorded delays, as well as about the through-life costs of a short production run. Supporters counter that the boats are tailored to the realities of a Baltic now treated as a NATO internal sea, and that a common platform with Sweden increases interoperability and the security of cooperation on the eastern flank.

Where this will place Poland once the boats enter service

Once the A26 boats enter the line, Poland will move from being a state with a fading underwater capability to a full participant in an allied "shield" beneath the Baltic. This matters all the more because the entire region is arming underwater. Sweden is ultimately to operate four A26 boats, Norway is introducing four Type 212CD submarines built jointly with Germany, Germany itself is expanding its own 212CD fleet, and Finland and Denmark are weighing the rebuilding of their submarine components. As a result, in the coming decade a dozen or more modern allied boats could be operating in the Baltic basin, against a far more modest and largely ageing submarine element of Russia's Baltic Fleet, based at Baltiysk and Kronstadt.

For Poland this means several things at once. It regains a credible tool of deterrence and reconnaissance in its own sea. It gains a real ability to protect the undersea energy and telecommunications infrastructure on which the country's security depends. And, thanks to a common platform and a domestic servicing base, it becomes a lasting element of an interoperable, multinational undersea defence of the region, rather than merely a passive beneficiary of it.

The greatest challenge: people

Equipment, however, is only part of the equation. Crewing three modern submarines will require a far larger and highly specialised corps of submariners than the Polish Navy has today, after years of operating a single boat. Rebuilding and training that corps, using the bridging boat and training alongside allies, will be one of the key tasks of the coming years.

And here the circle closes. The new commander of the Submarine Squadron takes over the unit precisely when it must be carried through its hardest period: sustaining the continuity of tradition and training during the equipment gap, in order to lead Poland's submariners into the era of the A26. For that journey, Commander Łukasz Rumkowski deserves nothing less than fair winds.

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