Category: Marines from all over the world

The glorious eighteen

Ferdinand Magellan never wanted to circumnavigate the globe and never did. The voyage he began was completed 500 years ago by the Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano. Thanks to Providence, we reached the bay of San Lucar, and of the sixty men who made up the crew when we left the Moluccas, we were only eighteen, and most of them were ill." This is how Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler of the first circumnavigation 500 years ago, described the arrival of the VICTORIA in the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 6 September 1522, right where the Guadalquivir flows into the Atlantic Ocean....

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Sea sick

Only a few countries have hospital ships, despite the great advantages. A possibility for Germany? The Helgoland's deployment in Vietnam ended 50 years ago. From 1966 to 1972, as a hospital ship in the Vietnam War, it was the German response to the American request for military assistance. The German government had the seaside resort ship converted into a hospital ship with 150 hospital beds. The German Red Cross took over the sponsorship. The Helgoland's first mission took it to Saigon, after which it was transferred to Da Nang in the north. At that time, the important US Army base with its 350,000 inhabitants had just 500 hospital beds...

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Moscow's gateway to the Pacific

Russia and Japan have been at odds over the Kuril Islands for decades. After the latest developments, is the archipelago a strategic challenge for Moscow? Located between the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka and the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, the Kuril island chain forms a gateway out into the Pacific and into the Sea of Okhotsk, the backyard of the Russian Pacific Fleet. Shortly before the end of the Second World War in the Pacific, the Soviet Union completely occupied the island chain in September 1945. While Russia's claim to sovereignty over the northern islands of the Kuril Islands is undisputed, Japan claims the four southernmost islands for itself and justifies this with historical...

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New mine defence vehicles for European navies

As their mine countermeasure vessels are on average around 30 years old, most European navies are replacing existing weapon systems with a mix of mother ships and unmanned plug-and-play systems to manage a full detect-to-engage cycle. The navies of Northern, Western and Southern Europe continue to receive the majority of funding for new build programmes, while Eastern European navies, for example from Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine, are seeking to modernise their existing ships. As of September 2022, there are fourteen Mine Countermeasures (MCM) projects for European navies with a total of 82 platforms in the pipeline. Five of these projects are already underway and nine are planned. The following overview begins...

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Sailing in the wake of the kite

In recent decades, China has continuously upgraded its navy with strategic foresight. Its democratic neighbour India, on the other hand, has largely failed to build up its maritime capabilities. Now could be the time to change course. Indians upset by recent images of Chinese naval vessels in Indian Ocean ports such as Hambantota (Southern Province of Sri Lanka, editor's note) and Djibouti would have been pleased to learn that on 15 August, nine Indian Navy warships in seven ports worldwide - one on each continent - flew the Indian flag to mark the 75th anniversary of independence from Britain....

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