Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri launched the latest ship in the European FREMM frigate program from its facility in Riva Trigoso, south of Genoa, on February 4.
The ship, to become the ITS Antonio Marceglia in Italian Navy service, is the eighth ship of 10 to be delivered to Italy under the Italian-French FREMM program. Four of the ships are being delivered in Anti Submarine Warfare configuration and four, including the Antonio Marceglia, are optimised for General Purpose missions.
According to senior Italian Navy officers, the FREMM construction program is on schedule and on budget to deliver the 10th and last frigate to the Navy in April 2021.
The program is also significant for Australia, because the ASW-optimised version of the ship is one of three competing designs for Navy’s $35 billion Future Frigate program, which will see nine ships built in Adelaide under Sea 5000.
In this regard, Fincantieri is proposing the a version of the FREMM, known within the company as the FREMM-A (Australia) and the Italian shipbuilder is competing against an ASW-optimised evolution of the Hobart class Air Warfare Destroyer from Spanish shipbuilder Navantia; and a variant of the Type 26 frigate for the Royal Navy, now in production with BAE Systems in the UK, known as the Global Combat Ship.
FREMM program
The European FREMM (FRégate Européenne Multi-Mission/FRegata Europea Multi-Missione) frigates are multi-role vessels being built for the Italian Navy by Fincantieri and for the French Navy by Naval Group (formerly DCNS).
The FREMM program was launched by the Italian and French governments in 2005 to jointly design and build a multi-mission frigate. Similar to the Italian program, the French Navy is acquiring two versions of the FREMM, a General Purpose vessel (six ships) and an Air Warfare variant (two ships).
The original program called for eight ships to be built, but options on a further two were exercise in 2015 and production of both vessels is now well underway.
Known as the Bergamini class in Italian Navy service, the Italian FREMM is four metres longer than its French equivalent and, at around 6,700 tonnes, has a displacement 700 tonnes greater.
Key dimensions include a length of 144 metres, a beam of 19.7 metres (slightly less than the French variant) and a draft of 5.1 metres. Propulsion is combined diesel-electric and gas turbine (CODLAG), providing a speed in excess of 27 knots and a range in excess of 6,000 nautical miles, according to Fincantieri literature.
The Bergamini class has two hangars, capable of operating either two NHI NH90 NFH helicopters or one NH90 and one AW101 helicopters, both of which are regularly deployed at sea aboard Italian warships. The hangars are of different sizes with the larger (starboard) hangar able to accommodate and maintain the large three-engine AW101. The smaller hangar is able to accommodate and maintain the NH90 and both are capable of performing the same roles for other medium naval helicopters, such as the Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk used by the Royal Australian Navy.
Weapons include a 76mm OTO Melara Super Rapido gun fore and aft on the ASW variant, and an OTO Melara 127mm gun forward and 76mm gun aft on the General Purpose vessel. A 16-cell vertical launch system (VLS) is fitted, but the ship is designed to accommodate a further 16 cell module if required. Two triple torpedo launchers are mounted forward of the hangar bay, port and starboard, and are used to launch the Eurotorp MU90 torpedo.
Primary ASW sensors are hull-mounted Thales UMS 4110 CL low frequency active and passive sonar and (on the ASW variant) a Thales CAPTAS 4249 towed-array sonar. The General Purpose version is optimised for operations with Italian Special Forces and has a stern door and stowage bay in the same location as the towed array on the ASW ship. This enables the stowage and rapid launch and recovery of Rigid Inflatable Boats (RIBs) and other equipment.
Two other bays in the waste of the ship can store and launch/recover RIBs, albeit lowered into the water by a telescopic crane, and this feature is common to both the ASW and General Purpose versions.
Building the FREMM
Fincantieri builds the FREMM near Genoa in north-west Italy in what it calls an integrated shipyard. This is actually two yards, one at Riva Trigoso, which constructs and launches the vessel; and one a little further south at Muggiano (La Spezia), where they are completed and undertake their sea trials. The integrated nature of the yards is such that work can be distributed between them as required.
The integrated shipyard has an established drumbeat of the launch of a FREMM from the Riva Trigoso facility every February (as witnessed by the launch of the eighth ship on February 4) and a delivery every April from Muggiano. On April 21 the seventh FREMM for the Italian Navy, ITS Federico Martinengo (F596) is due to join the fleet.
Fincantieri has a third yard in Genoa itself, Genova Sestri Ponente, which builds cruise ships and five other facilities around the country. It also has shipyards in Norway (five yards), Romania (two), Brazil (one) and Vietnam (one), as well as three facilities in the US under the Fincantieri Marine Group (FMG) banner (see ‘Fincantieri kick starts Australian shipbuilding program’ in the December/January issue of ADM).
In early February the company signed an agreement with the French Government for a 50 per cent stake in STX France, which owns a major modern shipbuilding facility at Saint Nazaire. Under the agreement, signed on February 2, Fincantieri will expand its cruise ship building capability, but the yard also builds warships of destroyer size and larger.
Launching the FREMM
The eighth of the Bergamini class ships, the Antonio Marceglia, was ‘technically’ launched at Riva Trigoso on February 4 in from of guests which included the Italian Minister of Defence Roberta Pinotti, the Chief of Staff of the Italian Navy, Admiral Valter Girardelli, and Fincantieri CEO Dr Giuseppe Bono.
Although not a launch in the traditional sense, the ship was symbolically moved towards the sea on a combination of large, multi-wheeled, vehicles and after the ceremony, the Antonio Marceglia was transported the short distance to Fincantieri’s integrated shipyard in Muggiano by special barge, where it will be completed and begin sea trials, ahead of delivery in April 2019.
The Bergamini class replaces the older Lupo and Maestrale-class frigates in Italian Navy service and Director of Naval Armaments, Vice Admiral Matteo Bisceglia, describes the new vessels as the ‘backbone’ of the modern Italian Navy.
VADM Bisceglia has been involved with the FREMM program from the very beginning and described the Thales sonar suite on the ASW variant as the ‘best performing sonar in the world’ and said that the ‘stealth’ capability of the ship itself meets or exceeds very demanding requirements from the Navy.
“I’m talking about a state of the art ship and nobody can disprove that,” he said, revealing that an Italian Navy ASW-optimised FREMM (the ITS Carabiniere, which visited Australia in February 2017) recently detected a ‘non-NATO’ nuclear submarine in open water and tracked it for five days.
“In the beginning I thought the ASW requirements were too demanding and I was originally a little worried. In the early trials a few things needed to be fixed but in the end we reached the exact specifications that we wanted,” he said. “The ships are exactly what we wanted (and) I’m a satisfied customer. If I could have my time again I would suggest that we would have one or two more FREMMs.”
FREMM for Australia
Naturally Fincantieri also thinks the FREMM, in the FREMM-A configuration with the CEA radar and Aegis combat system, is the best fit for the Sea 5000 requirement.
“I think we are in the best position in the world, because our ships are at sea,” Fincantieri’s CEO Dr Guiseppe Bono said. “Our commitment for Australia is clear. We hope that it will be a fair competition, based on the technological merits of each ship. We are ready to assist the (Australian) customer during the lifecycle of the ship (and) we have the experience to transfer technology around the world.”
The FREMM design is also in contention for the US Navy’s large FFG-X completion, which seeks to acquire at least 20 ships and, similar to the Australian proposal, the ships would be built in the US by FMG if the Fincantieri/Lockheed Martin bid is successful.
Dario Deste, Chairman of Fincantieri Australia said that the Italian shipbuilder was serious about establishing a presence in Australia, with Sea 5000 as the early goal, but also for the long term.
“We don’t just want to build nine ships in Australia,” he explained. “We want to develop our local presence. We want to ‘grow up’ in the region.”
Deste says that the knowledge Fincantieri has accumulated over the FREMM program and the experience it has with the establishment of partnerships with other countries, to set up local production, is one of the company’s major strengths.
“We feel we have an advantage when it comes to cutting the first steel for Sea 5000 in 2020, because we know the ship very well,” he said. “Transferring technology doesn’t just mean building a FREMM in Australia, but building any ship in Australia. Fincantieri has a ‘market’ to offer to Australia and not only in the naval sector. At the end of the day you can’t build a supply chain based on nine frigates, you need a global market that only Fincantieri can provide.”
Disclaimer: ADM travelled to Italy as a guest of Fincantieri Australia.
This article first appeared in the March 2018 edition of ADM.