Steel Cutting Ceremony for the 8th Italian Navy FREMM Was Held in February

: Posted On Monday, 09 March 2015 09:19

Naval Industry News - Italy

Steel Cutting Ceremony for the 8th Italian Navy FREMM Was Held in February

Another important milestone in the FREMM programme was successfully achieved on 25th February 2015 with the first steel cutting of the 8th Italian FREMM frigate. The event was marked by a ceremony at the Fincantieri shipyard in Riva Trigoso. This new FREMM ship will be in the General Purpose configuration andwill be delivered to the Italian Navy at the beginning of 2019.

On 26 September 2013, in La Spezia bay, a great day occurred for OCCAR, OSN and the Italian Navy. Three IT FREMM ships, ITS Carlo BERGAMINI (already delivered to the Italian Navy and now engaged in completing some minor works after the official acceptance by the Italian Navy on 29 May 2013), Virginio FASAN (engaged in Platform and Combat system preparatory trials for the delivery to the Navy) and Carlo MARGOTTINI (at her first sea going) were together at sea.

ASW FREMM Carlo Margottini (Foreground) sails in formation with first of class General Purpose FREMM Carlo Bergamini (middle) and ASW FREMM Virginio Fasan (background)
(Picture: Italian Navy)

The FREMM programme is the most important joint initiative to date between European industries in the field of naval defence. The programme foresees the building of ten Frigates for the Italian Navy (eight already confirmed with the option of two more) and eleven Frigates for the French Navy. The FREMM ships are characterized by a high level of flexibility, and are specifically designed to operate in multiple scenarios.

The other Italian FREMM frigates are currently at different stage of production: Bergamini, the First Of Class (FOC) in General Purpose (GP) configuration, is fully operational and employed by the Italian Navy; Fasan, the FOC in Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) configuration, will finish the Warranty Works period by the end of April 2015 and then will be fully operational; Margottini, the Follow On Ship (FOS) n° 1 in ASW configuration, is soon to start its Warranty Works period; Carabiniere, the FOS n° 2 in ASW configuration, will be delivered to the Italian Navy by the end of April this year; Alpino, the FOS n° 3 in ASW configuration, was launched on 13th December 2014; Rizzo, the FOS n° 1 in GP configuration, will be launched in February 2016; and the 7th Italian FREMM is under construction.