Romania Justifies Warship Acquisition Through SAFE Over Damen’s Offer

In a May 12, 2026 press release, the Romanian Ministry of Defense stated that Damen’s proposal did not meet the programme’s technical requirements, responding to recent media comparisons with the SAFE acquisition of two Multipurpose Modular Patrol Vessels  (MMPV 90) from Rheinmetall. The article also outlines the procurement timeline for the Romanian Naval Forces, which shifted from the GOWIND design to OPV 2600, then the Hisar-class OPV, and finally the MMPV 90. My story for Naval News, here.

Romania Advances MMPV 90 Corvette Acquisition with Rheinmetall

Romania is advancing its naval modernization program with the planned acquisition of four new vessels. Two of these will be large multipurpose offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) built to a light corvette standard, similar to Bulgaria’s procurement of the MMPV 90. The remaining two vessels will be dedicated diver support and intervention ships. These projects form part of a broader package of 16 military procurement programs worth €8.3 billion under the EU-backed Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative, according to a parliamentary document. The naval component alone is valued at approximately €920 million, making it the second-largest procurement effort under SAFE. Of this amount, around €836 million is allocated to the two light corvettes. My story for Naval News, here.

FLEETS #19: Royal Netherlands Navy, Turkish Navy, Brazilian Navy and Romanian Navy in WWII

The following images illustrate the most important classes of warships that were in service with the navies of the Netherlands, Turkey, Brazil and Romania during the World War II. All the images are created by www.naval-encyclopedia.com. In that page you can read some excellent naval history articles, to download other graphs or you can purchase the same graphs in high resolution in the online shop! More posts will follow for your collection of current naval fleets but also of fleets from the past.

Royal Netherlands Navy (Koninklijke Marine) in WWII

Click to enlarge and save the image to view the details - Royal Netherlands Navy in WWII. It should be mentioned that the battlecruiser Holland was never completed and remained a project (Design 1047, also known as Project 1047)

INFOGRAPHICS OF COAST GUARD VESSELS #1: Greece, Turkey and Romania

Written by D-Mitch

With this new post I begin a new category of infographics of various coast guard vessels from around the world. These infographics aim to highlight the most important equipment of the vessels; I do not analyze the systems in depth as I do for the warships instead I provide some basic information mainly from Wikipedia (if else I provide the source) about the ships, their history and their capabilities.

1. Dost class offshore patrol vessels of the Turkish Coast Guard

Guven OPV. Photo: Combat Master

The CMS of Guven. Photo: Combat Master

The contract for the construction of four Dost class offshore patrol vessels at RMK Marine Shipyard was signed on 16 January 2007. These large ships were commissioned the period 2013-2014. The design of the these ships are based on the Sirio class offshore patrol vessels produced by Italian Fincantieri. With the commissioning of these ships, the Turkish Coast Guard is able to perform its duties mainly search and rescue in sea state 5 and higher. These ships are the first Turkish Coast Guard vessels that can support helicopter operations. (source: turkishnavy.net)

FLEETS #10: Royal Navy, German Navy and Romanian Navy today

Written by D-Mitch

This is the fifth article about various countries' navies today. In these articles, I briefly describe a country's naval fleet by reporting the ships in each type/category of warships and by providing a nice image where all the types of warships are illustrated and the units of its class are reported. I include the vessels that will enter in service this year and I have excluded those that are about to be decommissioned. I deliberately excluded many classes of auxiliary ships; those that they have "0" defence capacity and those that have secondary roles such as hydrographic survey ships, tugs, depollution vessels and training ships.