For some years now, the Iranian naval forces have had a number of unusual units at their disposal. The converted merchant ships are intended for the use of drones. For over ten years, rumours have been circulating on social media that Iran was planning to acquire its own aircraft carriers. At the beginning of 2014, these rumours seemed to become reality when satellite images...
Illegal fishing threatens the livelihoods of many countries in Africa and South America. International cooperation and regional solutions form the basis for an effective fight against it. Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is increasingly jeopardising the marine resources of coastal states in developing countries. While global attention is often focussed...
With the US Foreign Military Sales programme, it took less than five years from order to delivery of the first P-8A. A concept with potential for Germany? The procurement of large defence equipment for the Bundeswehr is usually a lengthy and usually expensive process. For the replacement procurement of a maritime patrol aircraft, the...
Numerous conversions turned a merchant ship into a floating operations centre. The OCEAN TRADER is used by the American special forces to support their worldwide operations. The ship was built in 2011 as the CRAGSIDE at Odense Staalskibsværft for Maersk. The US Navy agreed a long-term leasing contract with Maersk in 2013 and had the ship built between 2015 and 2017.
The transit of a Russian submarine from the Mediterranean took an unusually long time. It turned into a communications drama for no good reason. The redeployment of the Russian submarine NOWOROSSIJSK from the Mediterranean in October 2025 attracted unusual attention in the media, security policy circles and political commentary. According to everything that optical reconnaissance, Russian shipyard signals and movement data...
The Littoral Combat Ships were once planned as an all-purpose weapon. Following the failure of the concept and a reorganisation, the last units will be commissioned this year. On 15 November 2025, the nineteenth and last ship of the INDEPENDENCE class, the PIERRE, was ceremoniously commissioned. The fifteenth and penultimate...
The new Dutch Combat Support Ship (CSS) "Den Helder" (179 metres, 22,400 tonnes) has officially been in royal service since mid-October. It is the first and probably only ship of this class to be built by Damen Shipyards in Galati/Romania and equipped in the Netherlands. She is intended to fill the logistical gap...
At the beginning of October, India celebrated the resurrection of the small submarine hunter, as it was mainly known from the Baltic Sea during the Cold War, with the commissioning of "Androth", the second "Anti-Submarine Warfare Shallow-Water Craft" (ASW-SWC), in Visakhapatnam. Previously planned with eight units, the corvette-sized Arnala class (78 metres, 900 tonnes) is intended to use the shallow...
While ten of the twelve Soryu boats (84 metres, 4,200 tonnes submerged) are still equipped with Saab Kockums' external air-independent propulsion system and only the last two of the construction series from 2020 have been fitted with lithium-ion batteries for propulsion, the Taigei boats (85 metres, 4,300 tonnes) developed from this class are exclusively battery-powered. "Sougei",...
The automation of shipping also offers opportunities and challenges for the navy. It is crucial that regulations are put in place soon to enable the operation of autonomous ships within a legally secure framework. In future, the navy must demonstrate even greater combat readiness and presence in its operating areas and be able to provide continuous situational awareness across all areas of operation.
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