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FREMMs and neighbours: Europe seeks benefits of consolidation
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| 13 November 2006 |
By Joris Janssen Lok
The FREMM programme is described by senior industry executives as "the largest European naval programme for the next decades and the benchmark for future co-operative programmes". According to Philippe Poirier, FREMM project director at DCN, the overall value of the programme amounts to EUR11 billion, of which EUR6.5 billion would be for France and EUR4.5 billion for Italy.
Poirier says: "We have started intensive efforts to make the FREMM project a success. The system design review for the platform was completed by early October, with just a few remaining questions left to be answered. These should have been cleared up by November. The combat system design review for the French FREMM took place in November. We looked at a wide range of topics, including the internal ship design, electromagnetic compatibility issues and the propulsion suite."
The last is based on a hybrid CODLOG configuration based on a design developed by DCN Indret (which is also acting as the prime contractor for the propulsion). According to Poirier, the FREMM propulsion suite represents the "first time" in France and Italy that a CODLOG solution has been attempted.
The CODLOG suites on the French and the Italian FREMM ships are planned to have few differences, Poirier says. The main difference, he says, would be that the French ships will have fixed-pitch propellers (supplied by DCN Indret) while Italy has selected controllable-pitch propellers (requiring a different arrangement of the shaft lines).
Another difference is that the Italian FREMM configuration allows the crew to use the electric motor to generate power for the ship when the ship is running on its gas turbine.
Stealth has been a main theme during the design of both the French and the Italian FREMM configuration.To reduce the ship's infrared signature, the exhaust from the diesel generators in the forward machinery room is channelled out via a side exhaust system with water injection to cool down the fumes. The exhaust system will probably be purchased from either a Norwegian company (Mecmar AS) or a Netherlands-based competitor, Discom BV.
Synergies between the French and Italian FREMM building programme will be "mainly in the procurement of equipment, not so much in the actual building," Poirier says, "except perhaps in the area of the propulsion system." This would be because there are "significant differences at the detail level" between the two nations' variants.
Major suppliers to the combat system include the DCN/Thales joint venture responsible for the French SETIS (ship enhanced tactical information system) combat management system; Thales for the Herakles multifunction radar and Artemis infrared surveillance system for the French ships; Finmeccanica-owned Selex Sistemi Integrati for the Italian combat management system, the EMPAR radar and the SASS dual-band infrared search-and-track system for the Italian FREMMs; Oto Melara for the 76 mm naval gun; the Sigen joint venture (Elettronica plus Thales) for the electronic warfare suite; and Thales Underwater Systems for the sonar suite.
The European company outside DCN and Fincantieri that is expecting the most significant benefits from the FREMM programme is MBDA, the 10,000-strong Anglo-French-German-Italian missile company. "MBDA has been selected as the sole missile system supplier for FREMM, and our systems will be on board all FREMMs both as a common baseline fit for the whole fleet or as a national variant on either the French or Italian subtypes," says Fabrizio Giulianini, managing director of MBDA Italia in Rome.
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© 2006 Jane's Information Group
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