French Navy frigate FS Auvergne docked in the Western Australian port of Freemantle on November 15, four months into her maiden operational deployment. Departing her homeport of Toulon with an embarked NH90 helicopter in August, the FREMM frigate spent most of the time in the Indian Ocean, as part o
An AUD $367 million project to upgrade the Royal Australian Navy base HMAS Stirling got underway on November 10 as Australia’s defense minister Marise Payne and Western Australia senator Slade Brockman joined the sod-turning ceremony to mark the ceremonial start of the upgrade. Located on Garden Isl
The Australian government is giving out AUD $500,000 to support an expedition aiming to find HMAS AE1, the first submarine to enter service with the Royal Australian Navy. Defense minister Marise Payne announced the government would match a private investment which would allow Find AE1 Limited to pr
The UK defense ministry is considering the use of an Australian-developed radar on future Royal Navy ships. The announcement was made by UK under secretary of state for defense procurement, Harriet Baldwin during her visit to Adelaide on Friday. Baldwin said the UK would conduct a capability study t
Dutch shipbuilder Damen has contracted Taylor Bros of Tasmania to build two Antarctic landing barges for the RSV Nuyina, Australia’s new icebreaker currently under construction in Galati, Romania. RSV Nuyina was laid down in August this year and is set to be delivered by 2020. The vessel will be ope
Spanish Navy warship ESPS Rayo, currently part of the EU mission in Africa, recently became the first EU NAVFOR ship to visit the Republic of Mauritius as she pulled into Port Louis on November 4. During her time in the Mauritius capital, the offshore patrol vessel hosted Ambassador Marjaana Sall, h
US Navy’s amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland (LSD 48) returned to her forward-deployed base in Sasebo, Japan, November 8, after completing a five-month deployment in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Ashland departed Sasebo, May 26, and during five months at sea, completed multiple exercises, asse
Thailand is set to host the navies of ASEAN countries for the first ever multilateral naval exercise AMNEX 2017 this month. Having earlier been designated as the host of the ASEAN International Fleet Review, Royal Thai Navy will also host the first iteration of AMNEX on and around Sattahip Naval Bas
Royal Australian Navy’s landing helicopter dock HMAS Adelaide wrapped up a visit to Port Moresby where it welcomed Papua New Guinea’s political and defense leaders. Prior to the ship’s departure Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Peter O’Neill visited the ship after arriving by an embarked MRH-90 m
Warships and other assets deployed to the EU NAVFOR operation Atalanta received a new commander during a ceremony held in Brussels, November 7. Major General Rob Magowan CBE handed over command to Major General Charlie Stickland OBE after 17 months in charge. Over the last 17 months Major General Ma
Ships from the navies of the United States, Australia and South Korea met up off the coast of South Korea for a multilateral maritime interdiction operations (MIO) exercise. US Navy destroyer USS Chafee (DDG 90) and Royal Australian Navy frigates HMAS Melbourne (FFG 05) and HMAS Parramatta joined th
Timor Leste has agreed to have two Guardian-class pacific patrol boats (PPBs) built by Australian shipbuilder Austal. This was announced by the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull and Timor-Leste Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, at the Asia Pacific conference in Perth, Australia. Timor Leste i
The Australian government announced AU$200 million in funding for upgrades to the Australian-developed Nulka anti-ship missile decoy in use by the Australian and ally navies. Nulka is a rocket propelled active missile decoy designed to entice hostile radio frequency guided anti-ship missiles away fr
Amid reduced funding for spares across all the UK armed forces, the Royal Navy has increased equipment cannibalization by 49% in the last five years, a report published by the UK National Audit Office says. While equipment cannibalization can be necessary – and authorized by the defense ministry – i
