New design concepts for a
Spanish multirole frigate and a French drone carrier attracted considerable attention at the recent Euronaval show.
Spain's Navantia, designer and builder of a wide range of warships, presented its Multimission Future Frigate, or F2M2. The stealthy ship at first glance looks like a combination of two new American designs, but Navantia naval architect Juan de la Cueva insisted it is intended for different uses.
"We are not thinking of the F2M2 as a littoral combat ship [LCS]," de la Cueva said. "This is intended as a multirole frigate, not for littoral missions."
The F2M2 is not based on a particular government requirement, de la Cueva said, but incorporates a number of concepts and innovations developed in the past few years by Navantia. The ship, meant to be produced in the 4,500- to 5,000-ton range, is notionally about 140 meters long with a beam of 30 meters and a draft of about 5 meters.
A combined diesel-electric and gas turbine plant featuring two electric motors and one gas turbine would drive three water jets, the outer two being steerable. Speed would be about 30 knots, and a total of 150 personnel could be accommodated.
Forward, the F2M2 presents a conventional frigate bow with a medium-caliber gun and vertical launch system. The superstructure, however, bears a striking resemblance to the U.S. Navy's DDG 1000-class destroyer, with angular, flat-sided faces that incorporate all the ship's sensors. No masts or sensors project from the superstructure block; a single exhaust is located on the topmost deck, and air intakes are flush with the structure.
The hull amidships widens to a trimaran configuration and reaches its full width over the last third of the ship. A hangar is fitted in the aft part of the superstructure, and the flight deck is spotted for two NH90 helicopters. Space and weight for surface-to-surface missiles is located ahead of the hangar, atop which secondary guns can be mounted.
As in the U.S. Navy's LCS, a mission bay is located beneath the flight deck, with aside door ramp fitted to starboard. Unlike the LCS, though, above-water torpedo tubes are intended to be fitted in the bay.
While a ramp for a rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB) was on the model displayed here, de la Cueva said a roll-on/roll-off deck, somewhat similar to that on the Danish flexible support ship Absalon, could be fitted.
The ship would be built with a steel hull, de la Cueva said. Final determination of the superstructure material has yet to be made, he said, although it is likely to be a composite material rather than aluminum.
Navantia will make its official presentation of the F2M2 concept Nov. 4 at Ferrol, Spain, in conjunction with the launch of the Cristobal Colon, last of the F100 Aegis frigates for the Spanish Navy.
A different type of ship, but one that also attracted onlookers, was on display for the first time by Bureau Mauric, a French naval architecture firm in Nantes and Marseilles.
The 70-meter drone carrier or offshore patrol vessel (OPV) also features a trimaran hull, but with a beam of 28 meters is meant to provide excellent seakeeping and stability characteristics, said Vincent Seguin, the project's chief engineer.
The ship's steel hulls are topped by a flight deck, with an aluminum superstructure offset to starboard to provide a portside deck spot for a medium-sized helicopter, or flying area for small UAVs. The hangar embedded in the superstructure features roller doors both aft and to port to simultaneously accommodate manned and unmanned aircraft operations.
Like the F2M2 and the LCS, the drone carrier features a mission bay, with ramp doors on each side, and an RHIB ramp in the stern.
One somewhat unusual feature is that the ship has twin propellers rather than the water jets of other ships - a nod, Seguin said, to the design's emphasis on seakeeping rather than speed.
With an average displacement of 1,800 tons, the drone carrier would not be a small ship, but could be adapted to a variety of OPV and multirole uses.
By: Shelldrake
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment