The German-made DM2A4 "Sea Cod" heavy torpedo is powerful. In a recent sinking exercise, it accurately hit and sank the retired patrol ship "Princess Elena" that served as the target ship with one shot.
[Reporter Luo Tianbin/Taipei Report] The US military has long dominated the underwater MK-48 torpedo, but now it has a strong opponent! In the "Sinking Exercise 26" in early November 2026, the Spanish Navy dispatched the latest S-80 Plus class submarine "Isaac Peral" (S-81). The ship fired the German-made DM2A4 "Sea Cod" heavy-duty torpedo for the first time in the waters of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. This expensive, top-of-the-line torpedo accurately hit and sank the retired patrol ship "Princess Elena" that served as the target ship with one shot. Its extremely devastating power shocked the military world and also announced that the Spanish Navy officially possesses a new generation of underwater strikes and death-like deterrent capabilities.
The German-made DM2A4 heavy-duty torpedo that made a great contribution this time is an ace weapon developed by Atlas Electronics of Germany. Compared with the extremely fast but noisy Otto II chemical-thermal power engine of the US military MK-48 torpedo, the Germans went in the opposite direction and insisted on using extremely silent electric propulsion. It uses a high-energy-density zinc-silver oxide battery, which not only makes very little noise when racing at full speed in the deep sea, but its extended-range version even set an astonishing range record of 144 kilometers in a test launch. The most powerful thing is that it is the world's first torpedo that officially uses optical fiber wire guidance technology. It can instantly transmit underwater images back to the submarine, allowing the guidance personnel to accurately correct the trajectory as if watching a live broadcast, directly asserting the dominance of the US military.
The decommissioned patrol ship "Princess Elena" that served as the target ship was hit by a torpedo, its hull was broken, and the ship sank into the sea with its bow upside down.
In addition to being silent and smart, DM2A4 also has a flexible modular design like "Transformers". It can freely add or remove 1 to 4 battery modules according to the mission or submarine space. The standard configuration is 6.62 meters long, weighs about 1,500 kilograms, and can reach a speed of 50 knots. Its warhead carries up to 260 kilograms of high-performance plastic explosives, with an explosive power equivalent to 460 kilograms of traditional TNT explosives. This kind of torpedo is specially designed to sneak under the keel of an enemy ship and detonate, using the physical effects of water pressure and bubble bursting to directly break the 10,000-ton warship in half. This terrifying power of killing with one strike is also the key secret why the Spanish Navy can use "one torpedo" to sink the decommissioned patrol ship to the bottom of the sea instantly.
With the first ship S-81 completing live-fire verification, Spain's S-80 Plus class submarine construction project with a total budget of 4 billion euros (equivalent to approximately NT$140 billion) is also on track. The No. 2 ship "Monturiol" (S-82) is currently undergoing intensive sea trials and is expected to be officially commissioned before the end of 2026; the No. 3 ship "Cosme Garcia" (S-83) and the No. 4 ship (S-84) are being accelerated. In particular, starting from the No. 3 ship, the innovative fuel cell (AIP) dead-gas propulsion system will be directly integrated, so that the submarine does not need to frequently surface for recharging, and the underwater submersible time can be extended to more than 3 weeks in one go.
Seeing that this "overweight tonnage" submarine has completely shaken off the haze of early design errors and demonstrated extremely powerful combat capabilities, the Spanish government has listed the purchase of additional submarines as the first priority in the latest "Fleet 2050" army building plan. The Spanish government expects to spend its budget to purchase two more improved "S-80 Block 2" diesel-electric submarines starting in 2029, and plans to expand the size of its underwater fleet from four to six. This batch of imported German-made DM2A4 heavy-duty torpedoes, each of which is worth a fortune, will also be fully deployed on the new submarines of the Spanish Navy in the future, becoming the most feared underwater stealth assassins in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
