Category: Marines from all over the world

Uruguay orders new coastal boats for the navy

Uruguay - 30 years ago, Germany helped the Uruguayan navy with numerous ships and boats from the German surplus stock, thus ensuring that it had reasonably operational material. For some years now, the second life of these units has clearly been used up. The country needs new ships! Now, in mid-July, after 15 years of half-hearted searching and some extremely controversial offers from China to take over a few of the cheap JIANGDAO corvettes (type 056), then the proposal to purchase Norwegian NORDKAPP-class coast guard vessels, which are ice-capable but completely worn out after 40 years but even cheaper, a lonely decision was made by the Minister of Defence, Javier García:...

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Spanish transport ship sunk during Sinkex manoeuvre

Spain - The transport ship MARTIN POSADILLO (75 m, 2200 t), built in northern Spain in 1973 as a civilian ship for internal Spanish island traffic, bought by the Spanish army in 1990 and operated by the Armada since the turn of the millennium, was to be given an honourable end in service after almost 50 years at sea: as a target ship in the Spanish Navy's 2023 Sinkex manoeuvre off the Canary Islands at the end of June. The newly commissioned submarine S-81 ISAAC PERAL was actually supposed to release a premiere torpedo and send the transporter with the classic lines to the bottom of the sea, but things turned out differently: in the end, the submarine was allowed to...

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Russia strengthens Black Sea fleet with Karakurt-class ships

Russia - The 18-boat construction programme of Project 22800, the KARAKURT class (60 m, 800 t), currently stands at 16 units laid down, four of which are in service, two are undergoing trials, five have been launched and five are under construction. Following the commissioning of one of the small missile ships for the Baltic Fleet at the end of 2018, 2019 and 2020, the fourth has now followed: At the Zaliv naval shipyard in Kerch on the island of Crimea, the ZYKLON, the first naval vessel in years, was put into service in mid-July. With ASKOLD (undergoing trials) and AMUR (launched at the end of...

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French Naval Group seeks partnership with Philippines for submarine modernisation

Following the cancellation of the Australian submarine contract, the French Naval Group is turning to new potential customers. This time, the state-owned defence contractor senses an opportunity in the Philippines. The island state has just painstakingly freed itself from America's almost eternal grip. Now, however, with its weak and outdated armed forces, it sees itself exposed as the first island in the face of the aggressive territorial and power claims of the Chinese armed forces and their paramilitary organisations in the South China Sea. However, one can only assert one's own legitimate and internationally recognised territorial claims through a robust maritime presence. Inexplicably, the Philippine navy tends to compensate for its weakness in the surface area by building up...

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The specialists

The Kiel-based shipyard group Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems is celebrating a milestone birthday. Founded 185 years ago as the iron foundry and machine shop "Schweffel und Howaldt", the company can look back on an eventful shipyard history. On 1 October 1838, the merchant Johann Schweffel and the "mechanic" August Ferdinand Howaldt founded the Schweffel & Howaldt machine factory and iron foundry at the port of Kiel. This was also the beginning of Kiel's industrialisation. The young company expanded rapidly with a wide range of products from ploughs, boilers and iron household items to railway carriages. Schweffel & Howaldt did not actually plan to build ships. However, during the time of the Schleswig-Holstein uprising, the company built...

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