Limited AAW capability for Franco-Italian "Eurofrigate"

Sea Power, Aug 1999

In the search for a program to replace the aborted "Horizon" trinational anti-air warfare (AAW) frigate, the French and Italian navies have been looking at designs for a smaller ship. Both partners seem prepared to accept a considerably reduced AAW capability to save on cost, the bone of contention that finally drove the U.K. Royal Navy to pull out of the Horizon program.

Immediately after the breakup of the trinational consortium on 2 May the French Defense Ministry announced that it would build a new "Eurofrigate" in collaboration with its Italian partner, with a planned in-service date of 2004. That announcement raised some eyebrows, particularly in view of the fact that the Royal Navy does not expect to see its first new AAW ship until 2007. The mystery has now been solved: The design of the new Eurofrigate will be based on that of the F 3000S frigates already being built in France for Saudi Arabia.

Like the Saudi frigates, the new Eurofrigate will be armed with the Aster-15 missile system, rather than the Aster30, which forms the basis of the Principal Anti-Air Warfare Missile System (PMS) that will arm the new Royal Navy ships. By U.S. Navy or Royal Navy standards the Aster-15 is closer to a point-defense system than it is to a long-range area-defense weapon. The Italian workshare will include the Alenia Empar passive phased-array radar and the Otobreda 76mm U62 Super Rapid gun-and, probably, the displays for a French combat management system, but detailed information is lacking at the moment.

The decision to use the F 3000S as the baseline has the considerable attraction to both the Italians and the French of being in service in a relatively short time; in addition, by extending the production run at the DCN Lorient shipyard it will save money for the French Navy. Transferring technology to Fincantieri in Italy may prove more expensive to the Italian Navy, however; it also would be another blow to Fincantieri's warship design capability.

Footnote: It was reported in this column in the May issue of Sea Power that DCN International had been awarded a contract estimated at $818 million to overhaul the U.S. Sixth Fleet flagship USS La Salle. That report, the origin of which is shrouded in confusion, was erroneous. U.S. Navy officials say that the arrangement with DCNI is somewhat "complicated," but that the total value of the contract is $69.9 million and that only $23.9 million of the total would be paid to DCNI, with almost all of the remainder going to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.

Foch Adriatic Problems Cast Long Shadow

The French Navy's 30,000-ton aircraft carrier Foch was forced to withdraw in early June from the Adriatic, where she had been supporting NATO's Operation Allied Force against the Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia.

The Foch, which had been at sea for four months-her longest deployment in 36 years of service-underwent an eight-week overhaul at Toulon to repair problems in her catapult system and other breakdowns, but the French government immediately offered to replace her 16 Super Etendard strike aircraft and Etendard reconnaissance aircraft with 16 replacement aircraft to be stationed in Italy.

Although it had no effect on the success of the U.S./NATO air campaign against Slobodan Milosevic, the incident demonstrates the risks faced by the French Navy in relying on only one carrier. The Foch is scheduled to be decommissioned and sold for scrap when the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle becomes fully operational next year. This has pushed the subject of a second carrier into the public arena, and there is now talk of "hard choices" having to be made between a second new carrier and other programs.

The excessive cost of and the time it has taken to build the Charles de Gaulle make it virtually certain that a second carrier, if it is funded, will not be nuclear-powered. French officials have publicly admitted interest in pooling resources with the British to build a third carrier to the CV(F) design in a French shipyard, but the Horizon frigate fiasco will make the Royal Navy extremely wary of being trapped in another bureaucratic swamp.

Another obvious stumbling block will be the almost inevitable French attempt to insist on a common (i.e., French) combat-management system, and yet another is the type of aircraft to be embarked. The British are committed to the short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), whereas the French have always turned their backs on STOVL, preferring to use the Dassault company's conventional designs, currently the Rafale-M fighter. Any Anglo-French carrier deal, it is obvious, would have to solve numerous complex political as well as operational problems.

Related Note: Capt. Patrick Herbrard, staff project officer for the carrier aviation element of France's Marine Nationale, has provided details on the modifications to be made to the flight deck of the CVN Charles de Gaulle, the present maneuvering area of which is regarded as insufficient if an E-2C Hawkeye were to land a few degrees off-axis at the same time that failures occurred in the primary and secondary damping of the third arrestor wire. If a pilot has any doubt about the safety of the third wire, Herbrard pointed out, he will be tempted to catch either the first or second wire, and in the Charles de Gaulle this would bring him in dangerously low onto a short foredeck. For that reason, according to Herbrard, the design bureau's project director, Frederick Rouge, has approved the 28-ton deck extension that will add 4.4 meters (14 ft. 3 inches) to the length of the carrier's angled deck.