Category: Headlines

Philippines receive support from Japan and the USA

In view of the Chinese navy's unabated bullying behaviour towards the Philippine units in the South China Sea, Japan has agreed to make its six Abukuma frigates (109 metres, 2,500 tonnes) available to the island state when they are decommissioned. Although these ships have over thirty years of service under their keels, they would be a class of ship that the Philippine Navy has not had at its disposal for a long time, but which should give it a completely different weight in the region - because these ships would come to Manila with their armament such as Harpoon, ASROC and torpedoes. As an encore, some TC-90 (Beechcraft...

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Norway - Financial closure of the frigate drama

After almost seven years of legal wrangling, the Norwegian Ministry of Defence and the Spanish shipyard Navantia reached an out-of-court settlement in the case of the frigate "Helge Ingstad", which sank in 2018, at the beginning of June. The settlement provides for Navantia to grant discounts of almost 50 million euros on maintenance and modernisation work on the remaining Fridtjof Nansen-class frigates over the next six years. Originally, Norway had demanded compensation totalling just over one billion euros. This was based on alleged design defects, in particular the hollow propeller shafts, which had allowed water to penetrate through the compartments. Navantia rejected this and conducted the investigation into the...

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Colombia - Launch of the Fassmer OPV

As a strategic hub between Central and South America, between the Caribbean and the Pacific, as well as the most important drug trafficking routes from South to North, Colombia has a small but very agile navy. The country receives a great deal of material support from the USA (guard boats) and South Korea (2 corvettes), as well as operational support from the USA. Germany was actively involved when four frigates were built at HDW in Kiel in the mid-1980s and German naval stocks were reduced after reunification in the 1990s. Today, all of this is "old" material. That is why Colombia is now trying its own hand, albeit based on design and technology from...

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Germany's gas imports rise significantly

Imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) have picked up speed in recent months, reaching a new high following the launch of the first terminal in Wilhelmshaven in December 2022. In mid-June, a total of three terawatt hours of natural gas were fed into the German grid within a week, roughly the same amount as a major German city consumes annually. The controversial and often lamented terminal in Mukran on the island of Rügen in particular is now receiving significantly more LNG than at the beginning of the year. Data from the Federal Network Agency shows that over 10 terawatt hours of natural gas were fed in there in the second quarter, significantly more than at the other German LNG terminals....

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Let's get to work!

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the German Navy has once again focussed on the Baltic Sea. The crews of the 1st Corvette Squadron are well equipped to defend against the various threats. In recent years, the German Navy's corvettes have been called upon for missions in the Mediterranean - but that is not what they were designed for. The demand for units was already higher during the planning phase than the number of units available today. Despite this, the second batch is still waiting in the wings. How is the organisation doing under the current circumstances? Time to head back to the summery beauty of Warnemünde,...

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