Russia To Buy French Helo-Carrying Warship

I-G

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Russia set to purchase large French warship - top brass

Russia set to purchase large French warship - top brass

15:3826/08/2009

ULAN BATOR, August 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is planning on signing by the end of 2009 a contractual agreement with France on the purchase of a Mistral class amphibious assault ship, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Wednesday.

"We are planning to reach an agreement [with France] this year on the production and the purchase of a Mistral class vessel," Gen. Nikolai Makarov told a news conference in the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator.

"We are negotiating the purchase of one ship at present, and later planning to acquire 3-4 ships [of the same class] to be jointly built in Russia," the general said.

A Mistral class ship is capable of transporting and deploying 16 helicopters, four landing barges, up to 70 vehicles including 13 main battle tanks, and 450 soldiers. The vessel is equipped with a 69-bed hospital and could be used as an amphibious command ship.

Makarov did not disclose the amount of the deal, but a high-ranking Russian source close to negotiations earlier said the ship could be worth between 300 and 400 million euros ($430-580 mln).

The purchase, if successful, would be the first large-scale arms import deal concluded by Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia first expressed an interest in bilateral cooperation with France in naval equipment and technology in 2008, when Navy chief Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky visited the Euronaval 2008 arms show in France.

The admiral said at the time that the Russian Navy was interested in "joint research and also direct purchases of French naval equipment."

According to other military sources, the possibility of buying a Mistral class amphibious assault ship was discussed at the naval show in St. Petersburg in June this year.

Russia's current weapons procurement program through 2015 does not envision construction or purchases of large combat ships, so the possible acquisition of a French Mistral class ship is most likely to happen under the new program for the years up to 2020, which is still in the development.

Russia set to purchase large French warship - top brass | Top Russian news and analysis online | 'RIA Novosti' newswire
 

Payeng

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Russia don't have that infrastructure to support, manufacture and maintain an effective level of ships in its navy, future procurement from a foreign manufacturer seems inevitable, IMO we should maintain a close ties with both France and Russia, French companies should be invited to India to maintain shipyards and manufacture ships in joint ventures, they can reduce their cost of production and India can increase its infrastructure capabilities.
 

bhramos

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thats a good idea , but i think you forgot Israel, it has potential in electronics which is needed on every platform,may be sea, land, air ........ what not.
 

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French helicopter-carring warship. France's Navy has two of the 21,300-ton carriers in service, and one more is under construction at the Chantiers de Saint-Nazaire dockyards.
Manned by 160-strong crew, a Mistral carrier can also carry four assault landing boats, and is armed with two Simbad missile air defense units, two 30mm Breda-Mauser guns and four 12.7mm machine guns.
Mistral-class helicopter carrier that could carry 16 helicopters, 40 tanks or 900 troops



 

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Russia plans purchase of French warship: military chief

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia said Wednesday it plans to buy a new helicopter-carrying assault warship from NATO-member France in an unprecedented deal experts say reflects Kremlin efforts to accelerate military modernization.

The agreement for purchase of one Mistral-class naval ship also equipped with hovercraft and landing craft will be completed by the end of the year, the Russian chief of staff, General Nikolai Makarov, said.

He did not name a price, but the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported this month that the ship, which can carry 16 heavy helicopters, 470 airborne troops and other gear, costs 700 million euros (995 million dollars).

Makarov also said Russia wanted to forge a deal with France on joint production of more ships.

"We also want to establish production of a series of at least four or five ships of this class," he said.

Makarov, an influential proponent in Russia of modernizing the country's conventional armed forces quickly through procurement from Western suppliers, admitted the military needs equipment that Russia cannot produce at present.

"No country in the world can do everything" on its own, he said, adding: "Some things will have to be purchased" from foreign producers.

France currently has two Mistral ships in service with a third under construction.

The 200-metre (656-foot) ship is equipped with high-grade communications equipment and is desiged to control a NATO amphibious operation -- beach landing from the sea, according to the specialized website globalsecurity.org.

Russia in tsarist and Soviet times prior to World War II, notably during Stalin's modernization drive in the 1930s, routinely made substantial weapons purchases from suppliers in the West.

But the ship purchase deal with France is unprecedented since World War II both in terms of the size of the equipment in question and Russia's insistance since the war on producing all military hardware for its own use and export.

Russia has in recent years talked a lot about modernizing its armed forces, which still rely heavily on Soviet-era doctrine and equipment, and steadily boosted procurement budgets during Vladimir Putin's tenure in the Kremlin.

The political rhetoric and the money however have failed to achieve desired results as Russia's bloated military-industrial complex has raised prices on hardware without actually delivering much more of it or developing new systems.

"This is the first major step in that direction -- of Russia turning to the West to modernize its military and military industry," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a noted Russian military analyst and commentator on defence issues.

"It is a major change."

Felgenhauer said the ship purchase and production agreements with France however would likely come under scrutiny from Washington as naval ships built in France and other NATO states contain potentially sensitive US technologies.

"We're talking not just about buying off the shelf but also getting the technology," he said. "There is going to be discussion about this."

Bob Ayers, a former US intelligence officer and current security analyst with the Chatham House research institute in London, disagreed, saying the French ship was not a particularly sensitive item.

"A helicopter ship by itself is not really capable of doing a whole lot," he said. "It makes a big, fat target."

More interesting, according to Ayers, was what the ship deal could say about changing thinking and behaviour among Russian military planners.

"The Russian navy is not into power projection these days," said Ayers, noting that the French vessel was best suited to special operations and light, rapid assaults.

Felgenhauer mentioned the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia as well as the Crimea peninsula in Ukraine and the Baltic states as areas where the ship could be used effectively for landing special forces onshore and other operations.

Russia plans purchase of French warship: military chief - Yahoo! News
 

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Mistral is the French Navy's first all-electric warship and is fitted with two Alstom 7MW electric azimuth pods.
The vessels have ample capacity for use as hospital ships or for humanitarian evacuation missions
 

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Designation: LHD

Length: 653 ft

Width: 105 ft

Beam: 105 ft

Displacement: 21,000 tons

Propulsion: 4 Wärtsilä diesel engines,

2 PODS (2 Mermaïd elec. motors, )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistral_(L9013)

Speed: 19 knots

Crew: 1,060

Troops: 1,400

Airwing: 16 Rotary, vtol

Armament:

- 2 X 2 Simbad SAM

- 2 X 30mm CIWS

Elevators: 2

Ships in class: 2
 

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A very important decision from Russia, this ship would plug a vital gap in their navy.

India should take a decision on its helicopter carrier assault ships (LHDs?), these ships are ideal for sea control missions in the Indian Ocean Region.
 

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No comment from the French, so I see a deal as rather unlikely.

However from the Russian point of view it makes some sense. They can't afford 6 new carriers, (hell, they can barely afford to keep their current fleet working, with most of the Navy budget going into the nuclear aspect, even with the Navy soon to be recieving 40% of the falling military budget). Anyway, they would want something that gives capability at a already known, lowish cost (they can't afford any overruns) and might give a boost to their shipyards. If they did get it though it would be minus most of the systems and built to a lower, simpler standard. (Maybe build more of it to a civilian standard than is currently so). Russian ship building expertise and technology is rather poor these days, I see no reason for a NATO nation to give them a boost.
 

natarajan

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why our navy is not interested in helo carrying ships like this one
 

Energon

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I think with all the problems hindering the Sea Harrier's operational readiness Viraat should function as a helicopter carrier (akin to what the Royal Navy did with their Invincible class carriers) until the new carrier is deployed.

Off the topic, sorry.
 

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I think with all the problems hindering the Sea Harrier's operational readiness Viraat should function as a helicopter carrier (akin to what the Royal Navy did with their Invincible class carriers) until the new carrier is deployed.

Off the topic, sorry.
Our Carriers are going to be embarking Harriers a lot more now, the reason the Invincible class were mostly carrying Helo's was that the Harriers were busy in two hot and sandy countries. Now Iraq is pretty much over and GR4's are replacing the GR7/9's at KAF the Harriers will be free for the Carriers more.
 

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Our Carriers are going to be embarking Harriers a lot more now, the reason the Invincible class were mostly carrying Helo's was that the Harriers were busy in two hot and sandy countries. Now Iraq is pretty much over and GR4's are replacing the GR7/9's at KAF the Harriers will be free for the Carriers more.
The way I understand it Harriers have been disjointed from ship born operations altogether. The composite Joint Harrier Force is primarily a land based unit with only nominal attachments to their mother ships. The carriers themselves function solely with rotary winged air complements. This is unlikely to change until the F-35Bs are inducted.

A British review commission deemed ship borne Harrier operations unnecessary based on the cost/benefit ratio. From the looks of it the numbers are probably even more skewed for the IN.
 

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France nears big warship sale to Russia



The Russian navy has its eyes on a new helicopter-carrying warship. The impressive model that they want to buy could have let Russia drive Georgian forces from the north Caucausus last year in a flash,says Admiral Vladimir Vysotski, the navy chief.

And who makes this great vessel ? France. In Moscow yesterday, two ministers -- Bernard Kouchner of Foreign Affairs and Hervé Morin of Defence -- settled the outline of a deal to sell a 700 million euro Mistral-class helicopter-carrier to the Russians.This would be the first sale of a major western weapon to Russia since World War Two, so President Sarkozy will have some explaining to do with Washington and the Nato allies.

Paris is optimistic. Kouchner, a lifelong human rights activist, waxed enthusiastic about the imminent sale. "This political agreement should be reached, I think, but it's not up to me to decide ... concerning this wonderful warship," he told Moscow Echo radio station.

Moscow is aiming to order one or two Mistrals from the French naval dockyards, plus the technology to put together their own versions. The ship, which is France's second biggest after the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered carrier, is capable of carrying more than a dozen helicopters and 470 infantry along with dozens of tanks and other armoured vehicles.

Moscow wants the ship to supplement its antique surface-fleet. It is just the thing to project Russian power around the world -- and close to home. Russia's Black Sea neighbours are appalled and Admiral Vysotski helpfully spelt out why. Talking about Russia's ejection of Georgian troops from the rebel province of South Ossetia last August, he said that a Mistral "would have meant that our Black Sea Fleet could have accomplished its mission in 40 minutes instead of 26 hours by road."

France, you may recall, claims credit for stopping that conflict. Sarkozy flew to Moscow and Tbilisi and brokered a ceasefire after three days of fighting in August last year.

Dutch and Spanish firms are also bidding for the Russian deal but the French are confident that they have it sewn up. But there are obvious hurdles. The United States jealously guards the export of its technology, especially of a military kind. It is pretty likely that despite French expertise, the Mistral class carries a load of US patents. So if France is determined to go ahead, Washington will become involved.

The Obama administration would have to decide whether it will accept what would in Cold War times have been an unthinkable deal in the interest of the famous US-Russian reset button. Washington is unlikely to be happy about a western ally giving a helping hand to the Kremlin to flex Russian muscles on the high seas. Whatever happens, Moscow has a good chance of driving a wedge into the Nato alliance over the affair.

The sale would be a nice boost to the French arms business after last month's provisional agreement by Brazil to buy 36 Rafale fighters plus the technology to build them.

But before everyone piles in against French "merchants of death", here is last year's table of suppliers. The USA was top with 49 percent of the world military export market. Britain was second with a 15 percent share. Russia scored eight percent and France seven percent.

Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG: France nears big warship sale to Russia
 

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