Gowind class corvette
Posted on 07/26/2015 6:32:45 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Egypt is in talks with France to buy two more naval corvettes, a French diplomat said Saturday, as Paris's Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian visited Cairo in an African tour.
French shipbuilder DCNS had already signed a contract estimated at one billion euros ($1.1 billion) to supply four Gowind-class corvettes to Egypt, which also became the first country to purchase French Rafale jets.
Le Drian, whose government has developed close ties with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, met the leader and his defence minister on Saturday morning. "There is a bid for two more corvettes; the discussions are ongoing," the source told AFP after the meetings.
The talks also touched on Libya, where Egypt had conducted air strikes on Islamist militants and pushed for intervention amid a slide into chaos in the neighbouring country.
"Overall on Libya what we can say is that during the meeting we underlined our support for the mediation by Bernardino Leon," the source said, referring to the UN mediator between Libya's rival governments. The diplomat said the ball was now in the court of the formerly elected parliament, the General National Congress, to accept a Leon-mediated deal with the internationally recognised government in the east. "The responsibility lies there to move forward on the unity government," he said.
Le Drian's visit to Cairo came days after Egypt took delivery of three of the 24 Rafale fighters it has bought from France in a 5.2-billion-euro deal.
Egypt bought the jets to boost its military capability in the face of an unstable Libya to the west and the threat posed by the Islamic State group in the Sinai Peninsula. Egyptian pilots had flown the Rafales from France to Egypt after receiving training to pilot the advanced jets.
Le Drian discussed further training for the Egyptian
(Excerpt) Read more at globalpost.com ...
Gowind class corvette
I had to read that headline twice...LOL
I expected to see the top down, a balding middle-aged man driving, and a hot young chick in the driver’s seat.
The French feed the Egyptians will their grain exports, The Egyptians now fly French fighter jets and now naval craft. All paid for by the Saudis. The Saudis have huge influence over the French. The Saudis have invested heavily into prime French real estate, French companies and own a good part of the French national debt. The French have developed a relationship with the Saudis which they now need to maintain their exports and bolster their economy. Soon the Saudis will make the big demand. To counter Iran ,they will want the French to sell them some dusty but still usable nuclear weapons,
Saudis financed Pakistan nukes and already have agreements with Pak to deliver them when needed.
“To counter Iran ,they will want the French to sell them some dusty but still usable nuclear weapons,”
Nuclear weapons have a best-by date. Due to the deleterious effects of radioactivity it isn’t certain that nukes older than a certain date will function. That was why countries conducted nuclear tests. They needed to be able to predict how various designs would age. So, if they do sell nukes they’ll have to be new or at least not old.
Can’t they refresh the nuclear charge as part of normal maintenance?
“Can’t they refresh the nuclear charge as part of normal maintenance?”
The purpose of nuclear testing was to determine, among other things, what had to be maintained and what didn’t. I suspect that one ongoing problem is that working with nukes is dangerous and expensive. It requires specialized buildings and industries and does not create enough cash to keep those industries in business. What do you do if you’re a specialized worker and you only see a nuke to work on once in a long while?
I don’t know this for a fact, but working for the government defense business I strongly suspect that the support infrastructure in most countries has been allowed to decay and vanish. Think of the fate of the SR-71, the fastest, and as it turns out, most useful intel tool of all time. To save a mere $28 million dollars, Clinton cancelled the funding for the support infrastructure. When they discovered they simply had to have those planes they took one from a museum and recalled retired workers and a pilot from the civilian world. I never saw the final figure, but you can bet it took way more than the $28 million that Clinton “saved.”
This is the short term thinking of liberals everywhere, as the last objective of liberalism is to protect the state. I’d lay money that the French nukes are decaying and have not been refreshed in a decade or more.
How many feet long is this corvette? Someone out there know?
(U) I saw some radar data from a French SLBM launch, from the Bay of Biscay to French “territorial” waters south of Newfoundland. French missiles and deployment systems seem to work superbly.
“French missiles and deployment systems seem to work superbly.”
Those are most likely in present manufacture. Also, solid state devices not seeing radiation tend to work regardless of how old they are. (This is changing as current US contracts forbid the use of anti-corrosion treatments as un-green. The company I worked for was seeing field failures right out of the box when new, due to corrosion. This hadn’t happened since the Korean war.)Nuclear bombs are most likely not in current manufacture because they aren’t using the old ones. Also, what do you do with the old ones? They are a political nightmare.
Having worked for the defense arm of Schlumberger I have a lower opinion of French made arms. They regularly sent us equipment that, despite quality data, which was obviously fake, didn’t work. They were often missing components like power supplies, despite having quality seals in place and undisturbed.
Perhaps their missiles are done by different people or maybe equipment they sell to their own government is actually held to quality standards. I don’t know.
Pakistan .
Stingrays or Z06’s?
Round about 100 meters (330 feet).
330 feet is not that long. Pardon my ignorance, but what are these corvettes primarily used for.
These are mini-frigates, ideal for limited anti-sub, anti-ship work and anti-piracy patrols etc.
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