The French Navy has officially commissioned its newest ice-breaking and polar patrol vessel L’Astrolabe, nine months after receiving it and eight months after sending it on an astral summer mission to Antarctica. As explained, the French Navy puts it newbuilds through two phases of testing. The firs
The US State Department has approved a potential sale of five Aegis shipsets for the Spanish Navy’s new F-110 frigates. A contract for the construction of five frigates is expected to be awarded this year and Navantia is already working on some elements of the ships’ systems and design. The potentia
The Russian Navy has commissioned Ivan Khurs, the navy’s second Project 18280 intelligence-gathering ship. The commissioning ceremony for the newbuilding was held at St. Petersburg’s Severnaya Verft shipyard on June 25, 2018. The vessel, designed to provide signals intelligence (SIGINT), electronic
Royal Navy’s Type 23 HMS Montrose escorted two Russian warships through the English Channel as they transited towards the Mediterranean Sea. The Plymouth-based frigate sailed up the Channel to meet with corvettes RFS Boikiy and Stoikiy as the Russian vessels sortied from their base in the Baltic and
The Italian Navy’s LSS logistic support ship Vulcano was launched in a June 22 ceremony at Fincantieri’s Muggiano (La Spezia) shipyard. The ceremony was attended by Italian Minister of Defence, Elisabetta Trenta, the Chief of Defense, General Claudio Graziano, and the Chief of the Navy, Admiral Valt
Warships from Italy, France, Portugal, Spain and Great Britain gathered in the Portuguese port of Lisbon on June 18 for the activation of the European Maritime Force (EUROMARFOR). The non-standing force was activated after a meeting of the political-military working group of EUROMARFOR concluded in
US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class USS Farragut (DDG 99) was underway as part of the Harry S. Truman carrier strike group when a cooling fan failure forced the US Navy to carry out underway repairs on the destroyer in Norway. USS Farragut was scheduled to take part in an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exer
Royal Navy’s International Maritime Training Team visited Vietnam recently to help train Vietnam Coast Guard personnel. As part of a program to support and enhance the ability of the Vietnam Coast Guard to monitor and police Vietnam’s internationally-recognized Exclusive Economic Zone, instructors f
Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has recently completed her first ever operational refueling at sea. After a dry run earlier in the year, HMS Queen Elizabeth now successfully took on fuel from RFA Tidespring, another brand new ship purposely built to support the two new aircraft carri
German maritime technology firm Atlas Elektronik and Thales Deutschland have been contracted to deliver combat systems for the five new K130 corvettes that are to be built for the German Navy. In addition to combat systems, the contract will see the two companies set up and deliver a test and traini
Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace AS has been awarded a 220 million NOK (approx. US$26.8m) contract to deliver its Naval Strike Missile (NSM) to the navies of Germany and Norway. The contract was awarded to Kongsberg by the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency following a February 2017 agreement between No
Italian Navy’s second-generation Type 212A submarines will be fielding an upgraded version of the Black Shark heavy torpedo, the company in charge of delivering the torpedoes to the navy has announced. Defense contractor Leonardo said it has received a contract to deliver the Black Shark Advanced (B
French Navy frigate FS Nivôse has seized over 250 kilograms from a suspected vessel in her first month of operations as part of the Combined Task Force 150 (CTF150). The narcotics were seized in a June 8 operation in which the crew of Nivôse boarded and inspected a dhow off the coast of Somalia. The
Type 23 frigate HMS Argyll became the third Royal Navy ship to deploy to Asia as she got underway from her Devonport Naval base on June 18. The frigate will be spending the next nine-months in Asia, sailing as far as Japan as part of a national push to strengthen military and diplomatic ties in [&he
