Varyag is being moved somewhere…

Well that is a surprise, we haven’t seen a fresh pic of her for years now, next question is are they moving her to the scrap yard slips or to another outfitting facility?

For the carrier market a European fixed winged solution would just be too expensive to make it worth while. A helicopter based solution would be affordable.

There are already European fixed wing solutions for the land based market.

This was discussed on here a while back and I seem to recall someone saying that they actually ran off the Griffon’s avgas supply, I was quite surprised to learn that.

Not particularly surprising, you can get turbojets to run on pretty much whatever you want. The Viper is a fairly simple robust design (amazing really considering it was designed as a disposable engine for target use) it makes sense to adjust it to run off the AVGAS supply rather then adding a seperate fuel tank.

Unless you think mounting Mistral missiles is some sort of equivalent.

Well in theory the Mistral can engage a supersonic target but if you gave me the choice between MISTRAL/SIMBAD/SADRAL and the lifeboat I think you will find me rowing…:diablo:

France frigate Forbin visit Brazil

The air defense frigate the Marine Nationale de France Forbin. The ship is moored since the 25th in the warehouse 8, the dock of the Port of Rio de Janeiro .

On March 3, the brand new air defense frigate left its base in Toulon for a crossing of long duration. The mission of approximately three months brought the first ship of Franco-Italian project for this side of the Atlantic Ocean. After a stopover in Morocco and Brazil, following the ship for the Caribbean, the United States and Canada, to verify the systems of the vessel in cold weather. Forbin’s visit to Brazil is part of the programming surrounding the Brazil-France Strategic Alliance Brazilian officials and allowed to know the technologies present in FREMM, being offered to the Brazilian Navy, for replacement of their escorts.

After two years sea tests, under the control of industrial processes, the Forbin doing their first ocean sailing of significant duration, for operational evaluation.

The captain Christophe BALDUCCHI, says the vessel has been incorporated into the Marine Nationale, but not yet reached the FOC (Full Operational Capacity). The weeks of browsing through different climates will test the ship to verify the reliability of its equipment. The Forbin is boarding a helicopter Panther FLOTTILLE of 36f and should return to France in mid May.

We were not allowed to shoot other internal areas of the ship, but we can say that the design of the Combat Operations Center is really impressive, much like the Type 45 of the Royal Navy, including the format and layout of the console displays. The COC is very spacious, taking the deck of boreste the port, with displays in sufficient number for the shipment of the Force Commanders and their staff.

The combat system CMS 3.2 (Combat Management System) USA COTS technology, dedicated software running on Unix platform. The CMS software includes 22 modules in 24 consoles, 10 computers and 3.5 million lines of code.

If the COC of the ship is struck in combat, a mini-COC which is at the stern of the ship enter in action.

The CMS consoles are connected to two separate buses, one on each side to ensure the operation in case of failure.

In the words of the commander, vessels of this class have as its primary mission serving as flight control tower at Sea “or” sea AWACS , “providing the airspace control to-Task Force.

The secondary mission is to protect high value units, against aircraft and missiles. This can detect, locate, identify and possibly engage both aircraft and 12 missile antinavio. The Forbin has three-dimensional long-distance radar SM1850, a multifunction phased array radar Empar (able to track over 300 targets simultaneously) and a suite of electronic warfare, including jammers and calls for a new generation.

To against the threats from air, surface and submarine, the CMS and its operators are available to 32 Aster 30 missiles (about 100 km range), 16 missiles Aster 15 (range 30 km), two guns of 76 mm, 8 anti-ship missiles MM40 Block III and two tube launchers for anti-submarine torpedoes MU-90.

The technology is geared for combat, based on the lessons of the Malvinas war and the Iran-Iraq War. He is able to offer protection against massive air raids of supersonic missiles and aircraft.

When asked what the magnitude of RCS (Radar Cross Section) the ship and what the main advantage of stealth technology in combat, the master replied Christophe BALDUCCHI in the RCS data is classified, but its great advantage is totally hide the ship when it releases clouds of chaff, providing alternative targets to missiles with greater intensity attackers. A The Forbin has low infrared signature, because the exhaust gases from the chimneys are treated.

The frigate suspend tomorrow morning in Rio de Janeiro and exercises will ship with a Brazilian warships and submarines.

http://translate.google.com/translate?client=tmpg&hl=ar&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.naval.com.br%2Fblog%2F&langpair=pt|en

Those 76mm Super Rapid are the closest the French navy has ever got to buying some form of CIWS system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJpqNFkd9gI

A heavy lift flo-flo ship would probably be a safer way to get her home.

Agreed this is home dry dock work so she will need a lift on a flo-flo ship home, thats not counting she might be a structural and financial wright off.

Out of the countries that operate the Perry class I would not be surprised if Egypt and Poland do a similar upgrade at some time.

Spain is putting its FFG through a mid life update and doesn’t need increased AAW capabilities.

Bahrain only have one FFG possibly making any upgrade less then cost effective unless it was upgraded along with the four Egyptian FFG.

Taiwan is doing its own thing when it comes to upgrades and has the Kidd class now for AAW.

Leaving the US who are turning their FFG into patrol Corvette, Australia who have already done the work and Turkey who will do the work.

As for future users I feel there is a good chance we will see the Perry class in Pakistani service.