INFOGRAPHICS #39: The major surface combatants of the most powerful European Navies in 2035

Written by D-Mitch

European frigates, ESPS Blas de Lezo (F103), FGS Sachsen (F219)
and TCG Saligreis (F246), in close formation.

In this short article, similar to a complete analysis I did in the past on The major surface combatants of the most powerful European Navies in 2035, I illustrate the six most powerful surface combatant fleets in Europe by 2035 in a single graph, based on the shipbuilding programs that have announced and only. Russian Navy, as a naval superpower, is excluded from the graph. This time, the new graph, does not include only those countries that are located wholly or predominantly in Europe but also countries that exist partially within geographical Europe. Thus Turkish Navy is included as well. In this post, I will mention briefly some additions and changes regarding the previous article but I will not analyze more the developments and the designs, because I believe the before mentioned article covered the topic to a large extent.

PHOTO GALLERY #23: Álvaro de Bazán, frigate of the Spanish Navy

Álvaro de Bazán, frigate of the Spanish Navy

This is the sixth photo gallery (see previous posts) from my visit to Kiel, on the first weekend of the 136th Kiel Week. The Kiel Week (German: Kieler Woche) or Kiel Regatta is an annual sailing event in Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The first weekend of the Kiel Week, the famous Naval Base of Kiel, opens its gates for just four hours per day, for thousands of tourists who are eager to visit the German Navy warships and dozens of foreign warships which visit the city of Kiel, to honor the Kiel Week. Τhe Spanish Navy was represented by the F101 Álvaro de Bazán, the lead ship of the Álvaro de Bazán class frigates, which was commissioned in September of 2002. The Álvaro de Bazán class (also known as the F100 class of frigates) is a modern class of Aegis combat system-equipped air defence frigates that entered service with the Spanish Navy the period 2002-2012. They were built in the Spanish factory of Navantia in Ferrol and are named after famous Admiral Álvaro de Bazán. The F100 design is the basis for the new Hobart-class destroyers of the Royal Australian Navy of which the two of the three ordered, are already in service with the Navy. Furthermore, in February of 2018, it was announced that a design based the class was selected as one of five finalists for the U.S. Navy’s FFG(X) program. The ships of the class thanks to their Aegis naval weapons system can track hundreds of airborne targets simultaneously and subsequently to guide dozens of anti-aircraft missiles they carry. Τhe usual load of anti-aircraft missiles is 32 SM-2MR and 64 ESSM in 48-cell Mk41 VLS. The rest of the armament consists of a 5-inch/54 Mk45 Mod 2 gun, two quadruple Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers, four 324 mm Mk32 Mod 9 twin torpedo launchers, two 20mm guns (additionally two Mk38 25mm guns on the last ship of the class), a variety of machine guns, while there is provision for one Meroka CIWS. Enjoy my photos from my visit aboard the mighty and state-of-the-art ESPS Álvaro de Bazán, the pride of the Spanish Navy!

FLEETS #17: Spanish Navy, Polish Navy and Irish Naval Service 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.

The major surface combatants of the most powerful European Navies in 2030 - An analysis of the future developments

Written by D-Mitch

In this article, I will describe briefly the future developments in the major surface combatant fleet of the five most powerful in Europe, the five navies that historically maintain and develop a strong naval fleet of very advanced warships. But what do we mean when we talk about surface combatant? According to the Office of Naval Research of the United States Navy, "..surface combatants (or surface ships or surface vessels) are a subset of naval warships which are designed for warfare on the surface of the water, with their own weapons. They are generally ships built to fight other ships, submarines or aircraft, and can carry out several other missions including counter-narcotics operations and maritime interdiction. Their primary purpose is to engage space, air, surface, and submerged targets with weapons deployed from the ship itself, rather than by manned carried craft.". The term is primarily used to mean any modern vessel type that is not a submarine; although a "surface ship" may range in size from a small cutter to a large cruiser, the largest surface combatant today in any Navy.

HISTORY #4: Age of Sail largest warships

Compiled information from Wikipedia articles by D-Mitch

In the previous post I included a number of infographics of various types of warships from the Age of Sail, the period lasting from the 16th to the mid-19th century where naval warfare was dominated by sailing ships armed with cannons. In this post I will describe briefly some of the the largest, most powerful and advanced warships of that era.

HMS Victoria the largest wooden warship which ever entered service

HMS Victoria was the last British wooden first-rate three-decked ship of the line commissioned for sea service. With a displacement of 6,959 tons, she was the largest wooden battleship which ever entered service. She was also the world's largest warship until the completion of HMS Warrior, Britain's first ironclad battleship, in 1861. Victoria´s hull was 79.2 metres (260 ft) long and 18.3 metres (60 ft) wide. She had a medium draught of 8.4 metres (27.5 ft). Her hull was heavily strapped with diagonal iron riders for extra stability. Victoria was the first British battleship with two funnels. She was armed with a total of 121 guns (32 8-inch smooth-bore muzzle-loading guns on the lower gun deck, 30 8-inch (200 mm) guns on the central gun deck, 32 32-pounders on the upper gun deck, 26 32-pounders and one 68-pounder on the upper deck). Victoria was ordered on 6 January 1855, laid down on 1 April 1856 at Portsmouth, and launched on 12 November 1859. She cost a total of £150,578 (2010: £11,764,000) and had a complement of 1,000. During trials in Stokes Bay on 5 July 1860 Victoria reached a top speed of 11.797 knots (21.848 km/h), making her the fastest three decker worldwide, along with the French Bretagne. 

NAVAL FORCES #5: Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) collection ships of European Navies

Dupuy de Lôme, the most advanced SIGINT ship in any
European Navy today (2015)

Signals intelligence (often abbreviated as SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people (communications intelligence - abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (electronic intelligence - abbreviated to ELINT). The data gathered are typically pertinent to the electronics of an opponent's defense network, especially the electronic parts such as radars, surface-to-air missile systems, aircraft, etc. ELINT can be used to detect ships and aircraft by their radar and other electromagnetic radiation; commanders have to make choices between not using radar, intermittently using it, or using it and expecting to avoid defenses. COMINT, as it was mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is a sub-category of signals intelligence that engages in dealing with messages or voice information derived from the interception of foreign communications. Modern navies use naval vessels with sophisticated equipment for this purpose, the so-called spy ships.

Meteoro class offshore patrol vessels of the Spanish Navy

Written by D-Mitch

Meteoro, lead ship of the class. Photo: www.armada.mde.es

The Meteoro class BAM (Buque de Acción Marítima) are four multi-purpose offshore patrol vessels in service with Spanish Navy (Armada Española). The designation is Avante 3000 Patrol. The ships are the newest patrol vessles operated by Spanish Navy; they were built by Navantia at San Fernando / Puerto Real Shipyards and they were delivered to the Navy in 2009-2010. The home port of the ships is Las Palmas Naval Station (Canary Islands). The design is modular and thus the configuration depends on the mission. According to Navantia, the class is specially designed for the following missions: control of activities maritime areas, protection of merchant shipping, maritime search and rescue operations (SAR), surveillance and control of environmental legislation and pollution, surveillance and control of fishing, logistic and medical support to smaller ships, humanitarian relief operations, intelligence gathering, operations against the traffic of people and drug smuggling, control and neutralization of terrorist actions and pirate activities, inward and outward transport of Special Forces and naval presence.