Plus Rapidement !!!
Posted on 02/17/2003 3:04:47 PM PST by dighton
The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is returning to France next week, say French officials, apparently scotching suggestions that it might be heading for the Gulf.
The vessel set sail on 4 February from its Mediterranean home port of Toulon, amid speculation that its final destination might be the Gulf.
Officially the vessel was heading for exercises off Crete, but some military analysts believed that it would subsequently join the build-up of military forces in the Gulf.
However, a senior French naval spokesman said on Monday there was “no question” of the Charles de Gaulle going to the Gulf.
“As planned, we will leave Crete again on 21 February and we should arrive back in Toulon on 25 February,” said Lieutenant Commander Bertrand Bonneau of the Charles de Gaulle battle group.
“There is no question at all of us going to the Gulf,” he told the French news agency AFP.
France has been leading European resistance to an early conflict with Iraq, but has been expected to eventually back a war if it believes all diplomatic routes have been exhausted.
Its confirmation that the Charles de Gaulle was returning home appeared to suggest that even in the medium future, it saw no place for conflict.
“I assumed the Charles de Gaulle would steam on to the Gulf,” said Ewan Southby-Tailyour, editor of Jane’s Amphibious and Special Forces.
“I think the statement about it returning home might be just “today’s statement”.
“It is almost certainly directed at the Americans, to try to add credence to their political statement in the UN Security Council.
“They are trying to show the US they really don’t believe we should be going to war yet.”
The French Government had not confirmed speculation that the Crete exercises would lead on to a Gulf deployment, but the Defence Ministry had stressed that the Charles de Gaulle was set for any mission.
“When a ship sails, it goes battle-ready - in terms of its crew, its weaponry and its aircraft, in times of peace or crisis,” said spokesman Christophe Prazuck at the time the vessel set sail.
“A ship like the Charles de Gaulle is not half-operation, or giving an illusion of being operational. It is totally operational.”
The Charles de Gaulle’s three weeks of exercises have included some with a US aircraft carrier, the Harry S Truman, deployed in the Mediterranean ahead of a possible war.
The exercises have taken place between Sicily and Crete, with the Charles de Gaulle based at Souda Bay on Crete, about 250 kilometres (150 miles) south of Athens.
Fighting power
If, as analysts suspect, the Charles de Gaulle eventually turns round once again and sails back towards the Gulf, it will take around two days’ extra sailing to get back to the eastern Mediterranean.
From there - or from closer to the Gulf - the French vessel could be used to deploy French aircraft to join any war on Iraq.
Around 40 aircraft are on board, including fighter jets and reconnaissance planes.
The nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle has been beset by technical problems over the years, but is a potent symbol of French military power.
It returned in July 2002 from a seven-month mission in the Indian Ocean as part of the war against terror.
Although France is still strongly backing extended weapons inspections, it sees war as a last resort, and is thought to fear being sidelined militarily if war does finally come.
Question is - on which side?
As the article says, "a potent symbol of French military power."
;-)
SR
Shouldn't that be a "symbol of impotent French military power." (a Mirage by any other name...)
In other words, the French carrier tucked its figurative tail between its figurative legs and ran.
Plus Rapidement !!!
1/ CHARLES DE GAULLE
The first name of this aircraft carrier was "Richelieu" but for political reasons it has been renamed Charles de Gaulle (under Jacques Chirac's government) after the famous WWII general. This aircraft carrier was built to replace the CV Clemenceau and the second one should replace the CV Foch. The program has been launched in 1980, the construction began in November 1987 at the DCN Brest naval shipyard in Brittany ; it's the first French nuclear aircraft carrier. France chose this kind of engine because of the unlimited range of the nuclear reactors.
The construction of the CVN ended in November 1998 and it has been tested until January 25st 1999. The construction of the Charles de Gaulle was stopped four times because of the budget (in 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1995). It cost 3,33 billions $ (3 billions of Euros) .
The Charles de Gaulle will be the main warship of the French Navy for the next century, she will be the masterpiece of the French Naval Action Force and the French Carrier Group (Groupe Aéronavale) gathered around the carrier, her CAW and the FF Horizons ; a second one would be built (in 2010-2015). She is now homeported at NS Toulon. She cast off on October 24th 2000 in order to conduct an ultimate test cruise over the world (calls at Norfolk/ Fort-de-France/ Naples and Casablanca).
French Aircraft Carrier to Join Fight Against Terrorism by Mid-December |
| French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its escort ships will be deployed in the Indian Ocean in mid-December to support the ongoing anti-terrorist fight in Afghanistan, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced Wednesday |
The choice was easy.
Four NAVAIR Voyage Repair Team members and two Carrier and Field Service Unit representatives spent less than three weeks in Toulon, France, working with French sailors to service the catapults aboard the ship.
Yes, a symbol.
It is still operating with the screws off of the old Clemenceau, which don't match it's power or size at all. The de Gaulle's screws both threw blades and destroyed themselves within months of instalation.
A proud French Design, like Ariane V and the Renault.
So9
French 'calamity' carrier heads for sea - again
By Julian Coman in Paris
(Filed: 11/03/2001)
ONE of the most embarrassing sagas in French maritime history took a further twist last week when France's most accident-prone warship began the countdown to another attempt to take to the high seas.
In the Ministry of Defence and on the quayside at Toulon, where the 40,000-ton aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle had been dry-docked, sceptical observers crossed their fingers and prayed for a fair wind.
The idea of France's first nuclear-powered carrier was dreamt up in 1986. It soon became a pet project of the then president, Francois Mitterrand. The ship that was built has proved, however, to be a humiliating and expensive naval failure. Fifteen years and £7 billion later, it has still to complete its first successful tour of service and has suffered a series of mishaps.
An attempt to go to sea in November ended characteristically in disaster somewhere in the Bermuda triangle. A substantial part of a 19-ton propeller broke off, obliging the carrier to limp back to southern France.
Since then, naval engineers have worked round the clock for three months in preparation for the next bid for seaworthiness. Last Tuesday, the vessel moved into the bay of Toulon proper. Its 1,950 crew are hoping for an April sailing, although no one was celebrating prematurely.
Frustration with the carrier has become palpable. Some of the more mutinous sailors of the Charles de Gaulle have taken to calling it "the damned ship [le bateau maudit]". The French minister of defence, Alain Richard, has promised to take whoever was responsible for the latest propeller debacle to court. He has even admitted that the Charles de Gaulle has become a subject of "ridicule".
It is not hard to understand why. The propeller incident was only one of a growing list of examples of mishap, misjudgment and mismanagement of the ship that was intended to be a symbol of French military prestige in the 21st century. "If you look back on the history of this ship," said one senior naval official, "it has just been a catalogue of errors."
Even the ship's name caused trouble. In 1986, President Mitterrand decided to call it the Richelieu, after the cardinal. In 1989, however, the Gaullist Jacques Chirac became prime minister. Mr Chirac believed that such a potent symbol of national pride should be named after the general who inspired his own political beliefs.
After a ferocious row, Mr Chirac prevailed. While the arguments raged, however, construction was falling further behind schedule. As economic recession began to bite in the 1990s, the project was starved of funding. On four occasions, work on the ship was suspended altogether. It was clear that the 1996 deadline for active service was wildly unrealistic.
Mr Chirac, then president of France, made a virtue out of necessity and decided that the Charles de Gaulle should become a millennium project, ready for service in 2000. After years of neglect, technical work and development began to be conducted at breakneck speed. By the late 1990s, the carrier was ready for its first proper sea tests, at which point things began to go even more awry.
The ship's flightdecks, it became clear, were too short to accommodate the American Hawkeye radar aircraft that France had bought for the vessel. In addition, the decks had been painted with a substance that eroded the arrest wires used to slow the aircraft as they landed.
The ship's electronics circuits weremalfunctioning, while its personnel, it emerged, were being exposed to unacceptable levels of radiation. The ship was simply not fit to sail. After many months of repairs, the Charles de Gaulle was relaunched last year on a cruise to Guadaloupe. Then the propeller problems began.
The firm that made the propellers, Atlantic Industries, went bankrupt in 1999. When the ship sails next month, it will borrow two propellers from older carriers. This time, the voyage must be a success. "If repeated mishaps don't finish a ship off, ridicule does," said Mr Richard. The French navy's communications officer in Toulon, Pierre Olivier is issuing similarly warnings. "Nothing must be left to chance for this trip," he said. "Everything must be in order this time."
Actually the French Naval base at Toulon has a history of being the place where the French fleet was scuttled in WWII.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.