Italian Armed Forces

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Kraff
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Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

Thread for news about the Italian Armed Forces and anything Italian related.

Let's start with some good news.

The frigate “Carabiniere” was delivered today (the 28th) at the Muggiano (La Spezia) shipyard. It is the fourth vessel of the FREMM program – Multi Mission European Frigates - commissioned to Fincantieri within the international Italian-French program, coordinated by OCCAR (the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation). Orizzonte Sistemi Navali (51% Fincantieri and 49% Finmeccanica) is the prime contractor for Italy in the FREMM program, which envisions the building of 10 units, all already ordered.
T

Full article: http://www.navyrecognition.com/index.ph ... ew&id=2659

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

The great D-Mitch posted an article about the old Vittorio Veneto helicopter cruiser, a baby of 9500 tons and 8 (eight) 76/62 naval guns! How crazy is that?
I hope we find the money to turn her into a museum...

Image

Link to article: http://navalanalyses.blogspot.it/2015/0 ... eneto.html

seaspear
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by seaspear »

The successful Fremm class has two users who have developed their vessels so differently with additions of different sensors and weapon systems and in the case of the Italian navies Fremm class added speed, opening debate as to which is the superior ship ,this may also entail if potential type 26 customers opt for high end or budget fit outs for their needs .

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

The Multipurpose Combat Ship Programme PPA (Pattugliatori Polivalenti d’Altura) and the Logistic Support Ship Programme LSS (Logistic Support Ship) have been formally integrated into OCCAR on 4 May 2015 with the confirmation of the PPA and LSS Programme Decisions and the respective contracts by the Italian authorities.

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The Pattugliatori Polivalenti d’Altura - PPA vessels represent the best example of a “one-size-fits-all warship” designed to perform a wide spectrum of missions, thanks to their remarkable capabilities in terms of modularity and flexibility.
The ships will replace patrol ships, corvettes and frigates and will initially be delivered in a full and a light configuration.

The Programme includes Development and Production of six ships (five in light and one in full configuration; with an option for another four ships) and the In Service Support for ten years.
The delivery of the First of Class is planned in 2020 for the light configuration (FOC L) and 2023 for the full configuration (FOC F).

Image
The Logistic Support Ship - LSS will be capable of supporting a naval Joint Task Force, to support disaster relief operations, to provide medical support (NATO Role 2 LM) and to transport naval and aviation fuel, fresh water, ammunitions, lubricating oil, food, spare parts and 20 ft ISO containers.

The LSS Programme includes Development and Production of one ship and the In Service Support for ten years.
The delivery of the LSS is planned for 2019.
Full news: http://www.occar.int/354

More info:
PPA
Overall length 124 m
Width 16 m
Displacement 4500 tonnes
Maximum speed > 32 knots
Autonomy 6000 NM at 15 knots
Crew 90 people
Accommodation up to 200 people
http://www.occar.int/327

LSS
Overall length 165 m
Width 24 m
Displacement 23000 tonnes
Maximum speed 20 knots
Crew 167 people
Accommodation 200 people
Range 7000 NM
http://www.occar.int/323

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

D-Mitch made another great infographic of an old italian glory, the Giuseppe Garibaldi cruiser, both missile and gun! She was the first missile cruise in Europe, and was flagship of the navy from 1961 to 1971, when the Vittorio Veneto missile cruise (see 3 posts ago) replaced her.

Image

Full article: http://navalanalyses.blogspot.it/2015/0 ... baldi.html

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

Tomorrow at 10:30 UTC+2, the corvettes Minerva and Sibilla (in reserve since 2012) will be formally decommissioned. Minerva (commissioned in 1987) and Sibilla (commissioned in 1991) are the first and last of the Minerva class of corvettes. A collission in 1997 shortened Sibilla's life by several years, enough to go out of service together with the first ship in the class. The class is made of 2 batches of 4 ships each. A third batch was cancelled when the Italian Navy had to take the Iraq's never-delivered 4 Soldati class frigates, but that's another story.

Both corvettes will be given to Fincantieri for modernization and then sold to Bangladesh in 2016. Another pair of corvettes will follow, to be sold in 2017.

Minerva (with the other '551' ship, big sister Giuseppe Garibaldi carrier):
Image

Sibilla:
Image

Source: http://www.marina.difesa.it/Notiziario- ... billa.aspx

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xav
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by xav »

At IDEF 2015 WASS Showcased the Black Scorpion and Black Arrow torpedoes
Image
Italian company WASS (member of Finmeccanica) was showcasing two of its latest toperdo systems during IDEF 2015 (the International Defence Industry Fair currently held in Istanbul, Turkey). The Black Scorpion mini torpedo designed to support the contact classification process and the Black Arrow new generation lightweight torpedo.

Talking to Navy Recognition during IDEF 2015, a WASS representative explained that the Black Scorpion was designed to be launched from sonobuoy tubes found on board ASW helicopters and Maritime Patrol Aircraft. The mini torpedo is intended to be used when the submarine contact is not accurate. The Black Scorpion "pings" in the water which either locates the target or forces the target to move. Black Scorpion retains the abillity to hit the target and induce damage with its small warhead.

[...]

Also on display on WASS stand during IDEF 2015 was the Black Arrow torpedo. The WASS representative explained that this new generation lightweight torpedo is an evolution of the MU90 and A244 and its main strength is its reduced life cycle cost.
http://www.navyrecognition.com/index.ph ... ew&id=2711

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WhitestElephant
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by WhitestElephant »

@kraff,

Is it Garibaldi being replaced by the new LHD?
Though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are. - Lord Tennyson (Ulysses)

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

No, Garibaldi will stay for some more time as a Cavour backup. The LHD will replace San Giorgio and San Marco. In the future, Garibaldi and San Giusto will be replaced by an LHA, probably a derived design. A second LHD or LHA might be built if there are funds, but it's way too early to know.

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

THE ITALIAN AIR FORCE HAS UNVEILED A NEW INDIGENOUS TRAINER: THE T-344 V.E.S.P.A.

The Italian Air Force has identified the new trainer that will replace the SF-260EA in the role of initial flight screener of its student pilots.

The mock-up of the new indigenous project, dubbed T-344 V.E.S.P.A. (Very Efficient Smart Power Aircraft) was unveiled during a press event organised at Cameri airbase, as a side event of the EURAC (European Air Chiefs’ Conference), on May 7.

The T-344 is based on the Caproni C-22J, a light jet-powered aircraft developed in the 1980s: it features a side-by-side digital cockpit, two 170 kg of thrust engines, retractable tricycle undercarriage, maximum speed of Mach 0.48 and service ceiling of 25,000 feet.
http://theaviationist.com/2015/05/13/it ... 4-trainer/

IrishT
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by IrishT »

Kraff wrote:No, Garibaldi will stay for some more time as a Cavour backup. The LHD will replace San Giorgio and San Marco. In the future, Garibaldi and San Giusto will be replaced by an LHA, probably a derived design. A second LHD or LHA might be built if there are funds, but it's way too early to know.
Are those LHDs/LHAs going to be operating F35Bs, or are the Italians buying F35As?

Also, you don't happen to know the operating cost and capital cost of the Garibaldi, do you?

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

Italy should get 15 F-35Bs (maybe more, but don't bet on it) to operate on the Cavour carrier. I doubt the LHD will be able to, doesn't even have a skijump from renders. The LHA? Maybe. It's a replacement for Garibaldi after all, but we don't know anything yet.

About the costs, I don't know much. I think I heard something like day costs of 135000€ for Garibaldi and 200000€ for Cavour, but take that with a grain of salta.

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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

Image
French Aquitaine visiting La Spezi, surrounded by Italian Navy ships.
I never realized the difference between French and Italian FREMM was this big. Quite impressive.

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Tiny Toy
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Tiny Toy »

Kraff wrote:I never realized the difference between French and Italian FREMM was this big. Quite impressive.
Les bleus will be regretting the choice of Herakles radar sitting next to that fine Italian EMPAR. I think this is the one Achilles heel in the otherwise excellent FREMM concept, that you need something like EMPAR for air defence but not for ASW - France chose to fit its FREMM in two roles and saved money by using Herakles on the ASW role. However to be truly flexible it should be possible to repurpose for the other role in a short time, which is clearly not the case if you have the Herakles. Putting EMPAR on all of them would have solved this but then it would be much more expensive which is also against the FREMM brief.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

not sure I can follow? Hence, the two specialised AAW ships? Or, the other way round...
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Tiny Toy
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Tiny Toy »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:not sure I can follow? Hence, the two specialised AAW ships? Or, the other way round...
They don't have Herakles, they will have (probably, although not set in stone yet) Thales Sea Fire 500. The Herakles is very capable for general purpose but you want very high performance for anti-air. All I'm saying is that to be properly multi-mission (FREMM concept) you should be able to swap modules in and out and reconfigure for a different role in a short time. That's not possible for the ASW French FREMMs (although it will be for the AAW ones). It's at least theoretically possible for the Italian ones with EMPAR.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Thanks, now I can follow. If you look at the unit costs, it will become evident why the French went with a hi-lo FREMM mix with only two instances of "hi"... as they have one carrier, one of those two should always be available.

The interesting question becomes to be: how does the unit cost of the Italian version relate to the other two. I don't know, but I have always been impressed by the Italian design. If we look at Horizon (prgrm) as a kind of Olympics, they clearly took the gold medal.
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

Actually, the Italian FREMMs don't have EMPAR. They have MFRA (AESA), derived from EMPAR (PESA). EMPAR is on the Horizon destroyers and the Cavour carrier.

And a thing I haven't noticed before: the Italian ASW has two 76/62 guns with the Strales system (so they are able to use the Dart guided ammunition), the French only has a standard 76/62 with stealth cover.

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Tiny Toy
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Tiny Toy »

Kraff wrote:Actually, the Italian FREMMs don't have EMPAR. They have MFRA (AESA), derived from EMPAR (PESA).
That's still designated EMPAR (Selex ES SPY-790) though, just the active version (c'è "l'evoluzione tecnologica" ;)). Should be "EMPAR MFRA" if we were being super pernickety.

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

Image

3 Horizons out of 4 in the same place!

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Tiny Toy
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Tiny Toy »

Kraff wrote:3 Horizons out of 4 in the same place!
Was there a lot of work needed to provide the facilities for them? For the French FREMM they had to do a great deal of dredging and port facility updates to the Toulon harbour.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Kraff wrote:Image

3 Horizons out of 4 in the same place!
At first I thought I was seeing double, with those turrets on both sides, below the bridge...
- more seriously, leaving NGS aside, it is probably the most efficient arrangement
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

Tiny Toy wrote:
Kraff wrote:3 Horizons out of 4 in the same place!
Was there a lot of work needed to provide the facilities for them? For the French FREMM they had to do a great deal of dredging and port facility updates to the Toulon harbour.
I am sorry, but I don't know. I got interested about the Italian Navy way after the Horizons and the first FREMMs entered service, and italians are usually shy on giving such details.

Anyway, the source of the image is a site dedicated to ships of any kind, and there's a few users that upload a lot of pictures of harbours and shipyards (I hope the guy that takes pics of FREMM construction will also follow the LHD, it will be a wet dream).

This is the site, though it seems it's down right now: http://www.naviearmatori.net/ita/index.html

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »

Pic from today showing progress of Luigi Rizzo, sixth FREMM and second in GP configuration.

Image

Launch is scheduled for February 2016, and should be commissioned in February 2017.

Kraff
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Re: Italian Armed Forces

Post by Kraff »



Latest render for the PPA. Design is not set on stone yet.

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