A volunteer lifeboat crew from the UK's Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) came to the aid of the RoRo vessel belonging to Finnish shipping company Finnlines after the ship made a distress call in the early morning of 11 November 2025. The cause was a fire in the engine room around 20 kilometres south-east of Eastbourne/East Sussex. When the lifeboat crew...
The US Navy has stopped its Constellation-class frigate programme (FFG-62) and terminated the construction of further units in addition to the two ships already under construction. Officially, considerable delays, cost increases and an unresolved degree of maturity of the design are cited as reasons. At the same time, the naval leadership emphasises that the decision is part of a fundamental strategic...
With the OPEX test series, the navy is feeling its way towards the future use of unmanned boats. The "Tamsen Jet" from Tamsen Maritim and Anschütz demonstrates what a national industrial initiative can achieve. OPEX as a testing ground for maritime autonomy With the Operational Experimentation (OPEX) test series, the German Navy is driving forward the integration of unmanned surface vehicles into its...
USA authorises sale of SM-6/SM-2 The US Department of State has approved a possible export of up to 173 "SM-6 Block I" and 577 "SM-2 Block IIIC" worth up to 3.5 billion US dollars to Germany as part of its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and, as provided for in the Arms Export Control Act, has...
Pirate attack on "Hellas Aphrodite" - another serious incident off the coast of Somalia. The Greek product tanker Hellas Aphrodite (30,000 tonnes, flagged Malta) was boarded by armed pirates around 560 nautical miles south-east of Eyl on 6 November. The 24 crew members saved themselves in the ship's citadel before the...
In a region where Europe's infrastructure network and security is vulnerable to Russian attack, the five-day NATO exercise "Playbook Merlin 25" focussed on anti-submarine warfare using advanced technologies and techniques. Submarine crews and surface forces were to be prepared for the realities of underwater operations from 10 to 14 November 2025...
Until now, the state of Lower Saxony has levied trade tax on offshore wind farm operators in the German Bight that were not assigned to a municipality. The city of Oldenburg had filed a lawsuit against this because an operating company of a North Sea wind farm is based there. This practice has now come to an end, as in December 2024 the Federal Fiscal Court in...
Parliamentary pressure increases - Budget Committee creates room for manoeuvre: Bundestag prepares a possible F126 alternative solution with 7.8 billion. MEKO A-200 as a bridge to the delayed Lower Saxony class? The Budget Committee of the German Bundestag has made a far-reaching decision in its review meeting on the 2026 federal budget: The Federal Ministry of Defence can expect around 7.8...
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