The Italian Navy’s Bergamini-class frigate ITS Carabiniere left the Italian port of La Spezia for an ‘Italian industry showcase’ deployment to Australia and Southeast Asia.
ITS Carabiniere is a FREMM frigate built for the Italian Navy by Fincantieri within the framework of an Italo-French cooperation program under the coordination of OCCAR (Organisation Conjointe de Cooperation sur l’Armement, the international organization for cooperation on arms).
Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri is currently bidding to design and build nine, new frigates for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). The company was short-listed by the Australian government together with British BAE Systems with its Type 26 frigate design and the Spanish Navantia which is to upgrade its F100 frigate design.
ITS Caribiniere sailed out of La Spezia on December 20 to start the promotional tour financed by Fincantieri.
Apart from Fincantieri, Leonardo MBDA and Telespazio are some of the Italian companies taking part in this promotion of the Italian industry.
The ship will enter more than ten ports on its deployment and take part in exercises with different regional navies in the following months.