Fas'a FREMM

Fransız La Tribune gazetesine dayandırılan aşağıdaki habere gore Fas, Fransa ile 470 milyon Euro karşılığında bir adet FREMM tipi çok rollü firkateyn tedariği için geçtiğimi hafta anlaşmaya vardı. Resmî olarak kamuoyuna 18 Nisan’da duyurulacağı bildirilen alım için Fas hükümetinin Fas ve Fransız bankaları ile kredi konusunda görüşmelere devam etmekte olduğu belirtiliyor.

Thales afiliate DCNS finalises 470 mln eur frigate deal with Morocco

Thomson Financial – 19/03/2008

DCNS has been awarded a contract worth 470 mln eur to supply Morocco with a FREMM European multi-mission frigate, La Tribune reported on its website, citing unnamed sources as saying the deal was finalised last week and will be officially announced on April 18.

It said Morocco is still negotiating funding for the frigate with a pool of French and Moroccan banks.

Karadeniz'e Gowind'ler

Bulgar mediapool haber sitesine göre, Bulgaristan Fransa'da 4 adet Gowind F200 tipi korvet satın alıyor. Toplam tutarı 750 milyon Euro olan proje kapsamında ilk korvet Fransa'da, geri kalan üçü ise Varna'daki TEREM tersanelerinde üretilecek.

Konuyla ilgili ayrıntıların Plovdiv'de 31 Mayıs Çarşam günü açılan HEMUS 2006 fuarında belirginleşmesi beklenebilir.

Aynı zamanda Gürcistan'ın da F200 tipi iki korvet tedariği ile ilgilendiği de konuşulmakta.

Gowind çok rollü korvet ailesinin F120, F170 ve F200 olarak farklı tonaj ve alt sistemlere sahip üç üyesi bulunmakta.

Güney Kore'de Skandal: Thales Çalışanı Tutuklandı

Fransız savunma devi Thales'in Güney Kore temsilciliğinde çalışan bir yetkili, Güney Kore'nin yeni savaş gemileri ile ilgili gizli bilgileri çalmak suçlamasıyla dün tutuklandı. Eğer Thales çalışanının suçu sabit görülürse 15 yıla kadar hapis cezasına çarptırılması söz konusu.

İddiaya göre adı açıklanmayan ancak soyadı "Park" olan Thales çalışanı, bir Koreli savunma yetkilisinden, Güney Kore'nin yeni savaş gemileri için tedarik edeceği radarlarla ilgili gizli proje bilgilerini talep etmiş. Soyadı "Lee" olan bu Koreli savunma yetkilisinin sağladığı bilgiler karşılığında "Park", şirketinden 80 milyon won ($500,000) almış.

South Korea indicts French executive
By Choe Sang-Hun International Herald Tribune

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2006

SEOUL The head of the South Korean office of Thales, the French military electronics maker, was indicted Tuesday on charges of illegally gathering classified data on the next-generation warships of the South Korean Navy, prosecutors said.

The Thales official was arrested Saturday, said Kim Hoon, a senior prosecutor in Daejeon, 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, south of Seoul. A South Korean arms broker and a researcher at the government-run Agency for Defense Development were arrested and indicted on charges of leaking the data to the Thales official.

Prosecutors refused to reveal the name of the Thales official. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison under South Korean law.

Markus Leutert, a spokesman at Thales's headquarters in suburban Paris, said the employee "did not steal any documents."

"He is accused only of gaining access to these documents, which he obtained in good faith," Leutert said, adding that Thales had done business with the South Korean military for more than 30 years.

The company said it was "surprised by and regrets the decision" in South Korea.

Kim said the arrests should send alarms to the country's military procurement officers. This is the first case in which South Korean military secrets appear to have been funneled to a foreign arms dealer through government researchers, the prosecutor said.

Under President Roh Moo Hyun, South Korea is modernizing its military to reduce its dependence on U.S. forces, and looking beyond the United States for weapons. Thales is competing with the U.S. military contractors Boeing and Raytheon to supply radar and other military hardware to South Korea.

The Thales official was charged with asking the South Korean arms broker, a former vice director at the Agency for Defense Development, in early January to gather details on radar equipment the navy plans to buy for its next generation of convoy ships, Kim said.

Thales, which is partly state-owned, produces military radar, missile-guidance systems and sonar for warships.

The broker, identified only by his last name, Park, got the data from an agency researcher, identified by his last name, Lee, and passed it to the Thales official, who paid the broker at least 480 million won, or $500,000, Kim said.

Separately, Park once asked for €1 million, or $1.2 million, from Thales when the French company won a contract in the South Korean military's 2004 project to build more copies of its Chunma short-range, ground-to-air missile system. Park did not receive the money, Kim said.

"The data he received was sent all the way to the Thales headquarters," Kim said. "Although the information was not leaked to an enemy state, the fact that it was leaked means that the data cannot be controlled by us and can pose a grave threat to our defense programs."

The act Thales is accused of also threatens fair competition in the bid for the radar project, which has yet to be formally announced, Kim said.

During interrogation, the Thales official denied any criminal intent, "but we have enough strong evidence to support our indictment in court," Kim said.

Thales said it has been fully cooperating with the investigation, and reminded South Korea of its "proactive policy of technology transfers to the benefit of Korea."

"Thales believes that positive outcome to this incident will be reached and that its good faith will be recognized in this case," the company said.

South Korea has been increasing spending on its military since Roh pledged in 2003 to make the country able to defend itself independently within a decade.

He wants to reduce troop levels to 500,000 from the current 680,000 and introduce advanced weapons, including the country's first early warning aircraft.

South Korea's defense budget this year is 23 trillion won, a 12 percent increase from last year. About one-third of it is meant for modernizing weapons. Until now, South Korea has bought - and still buys - most of its military weapons from the United States, which keeps 32,000 troops here.

Thales said this month it had added a provision of up to €80 million to its 2005 earnings report for a dispute with Taiwan over its 1991 purchase of French frigates, which has been clouded by charges of political maneuvering and graft.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/21/business/korea.php

Uçak Gemisinde İngiliz - Fransız İşbirliği

Geçtiğimiz günlerde basına yansıyan bir haber oldukça ilgi çekici, özellikle Avrupa savunma sanayiine muhtemel etkileri sebebiyle.

Fransa ve İngiltere savunma bakanları, ortak uçak gemisi geliştirme çalışmaları ile ilgili mutabakat muhtırası (MoU) imzaladılar. Anlaşma 2 adet İngiltere için, bir adet de Fransa için olmak üzere toplam üç uçak gemisinin üretilmesini kapsıyor ve habere göre yaklaşık 3 milyar £ tutarında.

Bilindiği üzere İngiltere 1970'lerde stratejik bir karar alarak konvansiyonel uçak gemilerini hizmetten çekip yerine Invincible sınıfı daha küçük VSTOL uçak taşıyan gemiler üretme kararı almıştı. Bu karar büyük tartışmalar yaratmış ve Falkland Savaşı da bu tartışmalara farklı bir ivme vermişti. Eurofighter EF-2000 savaş uçağının tasarım aşamasında İngiltere'nin gelecekteki ihtiyacı için bir uçak gemisi versiyonu da düşünülmüştü.

CVF ve JSF F-35 projeleri kapsamında halen İngiltere'de konvansiyonel uçak gemilerine dönüş tartışmaları da gündemde. Fransa'nın bu konuda daha rahat olduğu söylenebilir, zira bu ülkenin yeni nesil savaş uçağı olan Dassault Rafale'nin hem hava kuvvetleri (Rafale C/B) hem de deniz kuvvetleri (Rafale M; uçak gemisine iniş yapabilen) versiyonu mevcut ve kullanımda.

Fransa'nın başlangıçta Eurofighter konsorsiyumu üyesi olup daha sonra Rafale'yi geliştirme amacıyla ayrılmış olması ilginç bir not.

FREMM ve Horizon gibi projelerden sonra uçak gemisinde İngiliz - Fransız ortaklığı ilgiyle takip edilmeyi hak ediyor gibi...

£3bn Anglo-French aircraft carriers deal is sealed

Evening Standard

7 March 2006


DEFENCE Secretary John Reid has formally signed an agreement with his French counterpart to deliver near-identical aircraft carriers to the navies of each country.

He inked a memorandum of understanding with France's Michele Alliot-Marie in Innsbruck, Austria, last night to jointly develop and construct the three carriers, two for the Royal Navy and one for France.

France is to pay £100 million towards the cost of preliminary carrier design work already done by Britain's BAE Systems and its partners.

The first Royal Navy carrier is scheduled for delivery in 2012, and the French ship in 2014. The British carriers will operate Joint Strike Fighter aircraft now under development with British collaboration in the US, while the French ship will operate the Rafale combat plane and unmanned combat drones.

Britain has committed around £450 million to the 65,000 tonne vessel's design and demonstration and will make a final decision on building next year. Total cost of the project is likely to be about £3 billion.

The agreement comes despite Britain's withdrawal from a previous programme, Horizon, to jointly design and build a new generation of anti-aircraft frigates for Britain, France and Italy.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=407449&in_page_id=2

Britain and France Build Robocarrier

March 9, 2006: Britain and France finally signed the deal to build three new aircraft carriers. This followed several years of negotiations. What's surprising about all this is not the large size of the carriers (about 58,000 tons, the largest ships ever for both navies), or the unique cooperation (two of the carriers are British, one is French, and both nations will cooperate on design and construction, with the Brits taking the lead.) No, what is amazing about all this is the aggressive plans for automation. These "Queen Elizabeth" class carriers are planning on having a ships crew of 800 (or less) and an air wing complement of 600 personnel. Currently, you need a ship crew of about 2,000 for a carrier that size. The reduction in size of the air wing personnel is even more aggressive.

These carriers are going to cost about $4 billion each, and are to be in use for half a century (including several refits and refurbs). But the biggest cost will be personnel. Currently, it costs the U.S. Navy a bit over $100,000 per sailor per year. Do the math ($7 billion in crew costs over the life of each carrier.) So the smaller the crew, the greater the savings, and the more you can spend on upgrading the ship, buying new aircraft and the like.

The carriers will haul 34-45 aircraft and helicopters and be able to handle about 110 flight operations every 24 hours. That's with current aircraft. The F-35B will be the primary warplane on the British carriers. But it's also likely that many, or all, of the next generation of aircraft on these ships will be robotic. But first, the ship has to be equipped with an unprecedented degree of automation. While 250,000 ton oil tankers can operate with a crew of under 40, all those large vessels do is move their cargo from place to place. An aircraft carrier must fight, and find the enemy, and do a lot of other stuff. The new class of 100,000 ton American CVN-21 carriers are trying to get their ship crew down from 4,000 to 2,500.

Warships have a lot of unique functions, like damage control, and manning many systems for high alert, and combat, situations. Some crew reduction ideas are pretty obvious, like installing conveyers to help move supplies when ships are replenished at sea, or even when in port. Many maintenance tasks can be eliminated by using materials that require less effort to keep clean, and are just as safe as those used in the past. It's also been noted that many maintenance tasks can be left for civilians to do when the ship is in port. Most navies has also not kept up on automation. There is still a tendency to have sailors "standing watch" to oversee equipment that, with the addition of some sensors, can be monitored from a central location. If there is a problem, a repair team can be sent. But in the meantime, thousands of man hours a week are saved, and another few dozen sailors are not needed. Another angle is removing a lot of administrative jobs from the ship altogether. All warships are connected, via satellite, to military networks. So many sailors can stay ashore, and do their work without ever going near the ship. Some sailors have long noted that their administrative jobs aboard a carrier rarely brought them in touch with the people they were serving. Carriers have phones and email. Why use it aboard ship when you can use it from some (much cheaper) shore location? Moreover, many of these admin jobs can be done, more cheaply, by civilians.

But the new British/French carriers aim to take warship automation into uncharted territory. This should be interesting, and it is certainly bold and daring. All three carriers are expected to be in service by the middle of the next decade. Just in time for the centennial of the First World War. Hmmm, that's ominous.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htnavai/articles/20060309.aspx