'From Berlin with love' - Germany's Federal Security Council has approved the export of a fifth submarine to Israel.

'From Berlin with love' - Germany's Federal Security Council has approved the export of a fifth submarine to Israel. (SP).

It's the penultimate submarine promised to Israel by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and will be handed over by the company Thyssen Krupp.

Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper revealed the approval, citing the Federal Security Council's report to the parliamentary Economics Committee.

Germany's Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) builds the new Air Independent Propulsion Dolphins and the decision to sell them has been criticized for two reasons. One, in that German taxpayers are shouldering a third of the cost.

Secondly, the vessels are reportedly capable of being equipped with nuclear weapons.

Peter Roberts is an expert in sea power and naval weapons systems at the Royal United Services Institute in London and told Sputnik News that Israel will want to produce and develop nuclear capability on the new submarines.

"That's the long term aspiration", says Roberts. "But does it have it right now? No.

"These are new batch of submarines that Israel is receiving which have a markedly increased capability on what they'd had previously in terms of range, covertness and ability to reach different parts of the world then they had previously been able to do."

Roberts adds that the submarines have the capability to become nuclear armed, "but probably not right now." "Several hurdles have to be overcome before it can be armed with a nuclear warhead."

He explains that the key to being able to arm the submarines with nuclear weapons is down to the delivery mechanism.

"The Israelis rely on the fact they could fire the Popeye submarine missile — a system that the Americans successfully launched in 2002. But traditionally the Israelis only keep the Harpoon anti-ship missile."

"These are the first submarines that will be able to fire this missile, the size of the torpedo tubes allow it to be fired, they have a bigger tubes for bigger missiles.

A recent report titled 'German Submarines — Capabilities and Potential', written by Captain Raimund Wallner, and published by the Royal United Services Institute in London, says:

"To sum up, one may say that due to their characteristics of compactness, covertness, sustainability and high combat power, submarines made in Germany are already able to meet the majority of the demands which today's and future scenarios pose to underwater platforms. Hmmm......To boldly go to Iran. Read the full story here.