Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigate HMS Sutherland will be joining sister ship HMS Argyll as it deploys to the Asia Pacific region next year. This was announced by the new UK defense secretary Gavin Williamson who addressed the crew of HMS Sutherland Friday morning during a visit to HM Naval Base Devonport
Ships and personnel from a number of NATO and ally navies are participating in the Greek-hosted maritime exercise Niriis 2017. Taking place off the coast of Crete in the southern Aegean Sea, the drill kicked off November 17 and is set to conclude on Saturday, November 25. The exercise is joined by S
A new £18 million contract for work on the Royal Navy’s Long Range Radar (LRR) was announced by UK defense minister Harriett Baldwin as she visited BAE Systems’ Great Baddow site on November 23. The contract will ensure the continued availability of Long Range Radar (LRR) equipment on the UK’s six T
Royal Navy destroyer HMS Diamond is returning home early from a deployment to the Persian Gulf after experiencing propeller problems. The Type 45 destroyer was forced to leave the gulf despite sailors’ efforts to repair the ship at sea, a Times report on November 23 said. The problems are reportedly
US shipbuilder General Dynamics Bath Iron Works has teamed up with Spanish Navantia to compete for a contract to build the US Navy’s FFG(X) frigate. Announced by Navantia on Thursday, the agreement will see the two companies work together on evolved designs of Navantia’s AEGIS frigate family. Norweg
When Royal Navy aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth got underway from Rosyth in June this year, the ship sailed with a specialized night vision goggle (NVG) lighting suite developed by UK-based lighting specialist Consolite. As the company explained, the aircraft carrier’s original design did not incor
A French Navy amphibious task group got underway from the Toulon naval base on Wednesday, November 21, for a deployment to the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. Composed of Mistral-class amphibious assault ship LHD FS Tonnerre and the Horizon-class air defense destroyer FS Chevalier Paul, the task
The French Navy has received a new visual defense simulator (Simdav) at its base in Brest, the system manufacturer Naval Group announced on November 22. Brest is the second base to receive the Simdav after Toulon received one at the end of 2016. Both deliveries are part of a 5-year modernisation and
Royal Navy frigate HMS Somerset scrambled recently to shadow a Russian naval destroyer as it transited the Moray Firth, returning home from the Mediterranean Sea. It was not the Kulakov’s first visit to UK waters as the destroyer was also shadowed by HMS Somerset from the same position in the Moray
The Polish Navy’s first Kormorant II-class minehunter ORP ‘Kormoran’ has passed all state and builder’s trials and was officially transferred to the navy on November 17. According to a navy announcement, the minehunter is now set to be commissioned in Gdynia on November 28, on the day of the Polish
The crew of the Italian Navy frigate ITS Virginio Fasan has arrested six pirates and seized their vessels after a chase in the Southern Somali Basin over the weekend. The suspected pirates were apprehended after they attacked a 52,000 tonne container ship and a fishing vessel on November 17 and 18.
A team of Royal Navy divers was called upon to destroy a 500lb wartime bomb which was first dredged up and then dropped dangerously close to a major North Sea gas pipeline. The divers embarked aboard minehunter HMS Cattistock racing to the location 50 miles off the coast of Norfolk after a Dutch tra
Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth is to be commissioned by the Queen in a ceremony on December 7, the UK defense ministry announced. UK’s new defense secretary Gavin Williams made the announcement as he visited the carrier on Thursday, while at sea, sailing on trials around the s
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
