Greek Frigate Will
Have FREMM Design
The Hellenic Navy will fulfill its
Frigate Program requirements with
the French FREMM (Frégate multimission) design and procure six of
the frigates through a government-to-government deal.
The Greek General Directorate
of Armament, which is responsible
for all new procurements for the
Ministry of Defense, has directed
the Hellenic Navy to stand up a
committee to negotiate with the
French government to agree on
pricing and terms. Sources indicated that the service has allocated
$3.63 billion for the program, or
around $605 million for each of
the six units.
The weaponry aboard the six vessels likely will be similar to the
French FREMMs, including the
Aster 15 anti-air missile system,
Herakles multifunction radar, Exocet
MM40 surface-to-surface missiles
and the OTO Melara 127mm gun.
All six units will be built at Elefsis
Shipyards near Piraeus, Greece, with
French assistance.
A timeline has not been officially established for construction of
the frigates, but a contract likely
will be in place by the end of year,
with construction beginning in
early 2010. Unit one is expected
to be commissioned by 2015, followed by one unit per year
through 2020.
Italy Chooses ATR-72
Maritime Patrol Aircraft
Italy’s Defense Ministry signed a
$563.9 million contract with Alenia
Aeronautica for four ATR-72 maritime patrol aircraft.
The ATR-72s will be operated by
the Italian Air Force and flown with
a mixed crew with the Italian Navy
beginning in 2012.
The ATR-72 is a twin-engine
turboprop aircraft jointly built by
Europe’s EADS and Rome-based
Alenia Aeronautica, a Finmecca-nica company. It has an endurance
of more than seven hours on-station at a range of 250 nautical
miles from base.
The maritime patrol aircraft will
feature a communications suite
that includes secure and unsecure
transmissions, Link 16 for real-time
data transmission, sonobuoys, electronic support measures, chaff and
flare launchers and hard-points
under the wings for the MU-90
anti-submarine torpedo.
The first aircraft will be delivered
in 2012 and all four units are expected to be in service by 2015. ■
AMI International Inc., Bremerton, Wash.,
is an international consulting and naval
intelligence services company located on
the Web at www.amiinter.com.
