Egyptian Navy: News

Isos, the French actually removed the SYLVER A70 VLS for the Aster 30 leaving it only with the Aster 15. They also removed the NETTUNO-4100 jamming equipment because of some export limitation on sensitive equipment. At any rate, even though it is intended to have both Aster 15 & 30, it only has the former in Egypt's case. That was one of the issues that caused friction and ended up cancelling future Gowind & FREMM acquisitions. You can read that on Wikipedia it's all on there in the equipment the French removed. It was a big stink in Egypt a lot of TV shows were talking and complaining about it.

Meanwhile the Italian FREMMs will operate both missile systems and even though they also removed sensitive NATO communications equipment, they offered to replace it with another including a satellite to assist in all the GPS Comms needs. That was a huge difference between the Italian offer and the French. Plus the Italian FREMMs are equipped with AESA radars unlike the French FREMM.

There was a long story with the SCALPs and it's kind silly when you think about it because they refused the Aster 30 on the FREMM but agreed to sell 50 SCALPs with 300km range?!?!

At any rate, lobbing land attack missiles onto Israel is far from what Egypt is looking for. I honestly think the Buyan class frigates would've been a difficult sell and the EN was certainly interested in them as I provided in that article because they want to diversify the entire fleet. That's the primary reason and not just to have ability to land attack Israel. Hey, the way Egypt is spending on military equipment -- and especially with Russia -- you never know, it could still happen and like you said, one of the naval assets being used by Russia in this exercise is in fact a Buyan class missile frigate.

Gomig-21 wrote:Isos, the French actually removed the SYLVER A70 VLS for the Aster 30 leaving it only with the Aster 15.  They also removed the NETTUNO-4100 jamming equipment because of some export limitation on sensitive equipment.  At any rate, even though it is intended to have both Aster 15 & 30, it only has the former in Egypt's case.  That was one of the issues that caused friction and ended up cancelling future Gowind & FREMM acquisitions.  You can read that on Wikipedia it's all on there in the equipment the French removed.  It was a big stink in Egypt a lot of TV shows were talking and complaining about it.

Meanwhile the Italian FREMMs will operate both missile systems and even though they also removed sensitive NATO communications equipment, they offered to replace it with another including a satellite to assist in all the GPS Comms needs.  That was a huge difference between the Italian offer and the French.  Plus the Italian FREMMs are equipped with AESA radars unlike the French FREMM.

There was a long story with the SCALPs and it's kind silly when you think about it because they refused the Aster 30 on the FREMM but agreed to sell 50 SCALPs with 300km range?!?!  

At any rate, lobbing land attack missiles onto Israel is far from what Egypt is looking for.  I honestly think the Buyan class frigates would've been a difficult sell and the EN was certainly interested in them as I provided in that article because they want to diversify the entire fleet.  That's the primary reason and not just to have ability to land attack Israel.  Hey, the way Egypt is spending on military equipment -- and especially with Russia -- you never know, it could still happen and like you said, one of the naval assets being used by Russia in this exercise is in fact a Buyan class missile frigate.

AFAIK Egypt didn't request Aster-30 to be deployed on the French Fremm .

The ship (Normandy ) was basically assigned for the French navy but to catch with the Egyptian deadline the French handed over it to Egypt after some modifications which were requested.

The Sylver A70 was on Normandi for launching the Naval MdCN with 1000 km range (also can launch Aster-30) ,so it's logically to be removed if Egypt didn't request to use it for another purpose . (Morroco has the same thing )

Egypt could have made the request to replace the 16x Sylver A70 with a second row of A50 model in order to deploy up to 32x ASTER 15 SAM. Or to replace the A70 VLS with A43 model and the FREMM would be able to launch up to 16x VL MICA missiles in addition to the 16x ASTER 15.

An even cheaper alternative would be to leave the 16x A70 cells in place since they can launch ASTER 15 missiles as well so the FREMM would then be able to deploy up to 32x ASTER 15.

My explanation is Egypt may be has prefered to wait for a version of French cruise missile with a range that match with the MTCR then could ask to recover the space that was occupied by the Sylver A70.(Morroco may will do the same thing )

They already have tested a 250 km missile this month .

French Navy successfully fires MdCN naval cruise missile from FREMM frigate Bretagne

The  arrival of the Egyptian ships to Novorossiysk‬ .

First Italian Fremm Bergamini for Egypt .

Now we can see if the jammer is missing or any of those important elements that I was complaining about that the French took out and never offered to replace them, especially the Nettuno 4100 Electronic Jamming unit that you see amidship here in this pic.  The sat comms should also be there since this contract includes an Italian satellite supplied specifically for naval comms.  So keep this diagram photo as a good indicator cuz you know yours truly will be analyszing every piece of equipment and if it's on there or missing when Al Galala docks in Alexandria lol.  

But something tells me that the Italians will honor everything in the contract more so than the French did yekhreb bethum wbe'et abuhum lmaooo.

Next naval exercise coming right up!  Queen Snake-Head Medusa is coming to Alexandria, incidentally the city of the most beautiful queen of the late, ancient Egyptians.

Gomig-21 wrote:Now we can see if the jammer is missing or any of those important elements that I was complaining about that the French took out and never offered to replace them, especially the Nettuno 4100 Electronic Jamming unit that you see amidship here in this pic.  The sat comms should also be there since this contract includes an Italian satellite supplied specifically for naval comms.  So keep this diagram photo as a good indicator cuz you know yours truly will be analyszing every piece of equipment and if it's on there or missing when Al Galala docks in Alexandria lol.  

But something tells me that the Italians will honor everything in the contract more so than the French did yekhreb bethum wbe'et abuhum lmaooo.

NETTUNO ECM Could be removed coz it's not for export for being NATO materials .As part of the deal Egypt paid 140 million euros for modifications of the warefare equipments which Italy is responsible to modify with other systems, 55 of the 140 will go to Leonardo company ,also they could use Scorpion 2 from thales or wahtever they agreed on .
https://espresso.repubblica.it/plus/articoli/2020/09/30/news/italia-egitto-navi-guerra-regeni-1.353736?preview=true

For satellite ,Egypt will use it's own satellite communication equipments through Egypt’s TIBA-1 Military Communications Satellite .

Also in the French Fremm Egypt replaced the communication systems with Egyptian one .

En dehors de l’armement, l’ensemble des systèmes  de communication et d’information (SIC 21, RIFAN…) de l’ex-Normandie ont été débarqués et remplacés par des systèmes égyptiens.

English ..
Apart from armaments, all of the communication and information systems (SIC 21, RIFAN, etc.) of the former Normandy have been landed and replaced by Egyptian systems.
https://www.meretmarine.com/fr/content/la-fremm-egyptienne-prend-la-mer

Turkish Navy humiliated by Egypt when attempting to interrupt MEDUSA 2020 exercises

According to sources in the National Guard of Cyprus that were quoted by Infognomon, a serious incident involving the Turkish Navy occurred during the joint MEDUSA 2020 military exercises between Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and France this morning.

The incident was between an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate of the Egyptian Navy and a frigate of the Turkish Navy.

Specifically, the Turkish frigate, according to OPEN TV, was the famous Kemal Reis ship that was also humiliated earlier this year by the Greek Navy.

The Kemal Reis attempted to enter the exercise area in Egypt’s maritime space. The Kemel Reis was duly warned to leave the area but it refused to obey instructions.

What was probably unexpected for the Turks, the Egyptian frigate rushed directly towards the Turkish one in an attempted collision. However, the Turkish captain literally fled immediately and did not try and approach the exercise site again.

It is recalled that on August 12, things became tense when the Turkish Kemal Reis frigate, that was escorting the Oruç Reis research ship, was hit by the Greek Limnos frigate and damaged the Turkish warship severely.

The interception did not cause any damage in Limnos, while the Kemal Reis suffered a hole in the stern.

A few days after the event, the Minister of Defense, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, contacted Saliaris and congratulated him, telling him: “You’re a player, congratulations,” as reported by Greek City Times.

What makes the movements by Lieutenant Captain Saliaris all the more extraordinary is that he did this with a 38-year-old vessel, considered one of the weakest warships in the Greek Navy, as of opposed to the Kemal Reis that is one of the main ships of the Turkish Navy.

Turkey has been so embarrassed by the superiority of Greek seamanship that they even resorted too, and were caught, spreading fake news and a photostopped image of the Limnos ship. See the full report and unbelievable report here.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/12/06/turkish-navy-humiliated-medusa-2020/

MEDUSA-10

More photos

Egypt received the first FREMM class frigate purchased from Italy




The FREMM-class frigate F 598 Spartaco Schergat, which was originally built for the Italian fleet by Egypt and received the Egyptian name FFG 1002 Al-Ghalala, shortly before the transfer to the Egyptian Navy. December 2020 (c) Alessandro Burla 1959



https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4221317.html

@navalgroup

Launching of the 4th and final Gowind corvette of the El Fateh-class, the Luxor. It’s the 3rd corvette of this class built in Egypt through technology transfer.

The first corvette built in Egypt is put into operation

On January 6, 2021, a ceremony was held in Alexandria for the entry into the Egyptian naval forces of the first Port Said corvette (hull number "976") built at the Egyptian state naval shipyard Alexandria Shipyard of the French project Gowind 2500 with the assistance of the French shipbuilding association Naval Group. The corvette became the largest warship built in Egypt to date.

The armament of the Egyptian corvettes consists of two four-container launchers of the MBDA Exocet MM40 Block 3 anti-ship missile system, 16 vertical launchers of the MBDA VL MICA anti-aircraft missile system, a 76-mm Leonardo (Oto Melara) Super Rapid universal artillery mount, two remotely controlled 20-mm artillery mounts Nexter Narhwal, two 324mm three-tube torpedo tubes for MU90 torpedoes. The hangar can accommodate a helicopter up to a 10-ton class of permanent deployment (probably, in fact, the Egyptian Navy will use the Kaman SH-2G Super Seasprite).

The electronic armament of Egyptian corvettes is ASBU SETIS (similar to that installed on frigates of the FREMM type), an integrated PSIM mast with a Thales SMART-S Mk 2 three-coordinate radar under the fairing, the Thales Vigile 200 electronic warfare system and the Lacroix Sylena Mk 2 anti-submarine anti-submarine system. Thales Kingklip and towed GAS Thales CAPTAS 2.



https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4231902.html

Nice video , this supposed to give more work experience to the Egyptian Engineers and workers to build such corvettes .

https://twitter.com/Rusembegypt/status/1361739361759490051

On February 16, Russian Ambassador to Egypt Georgy Borisenko and other Russian diplomats visited the frigate of the Russian Navy "Admiral of the Fleet Kasatonov", which arrived at the port of Alexandria on a friendly visit.

Second Italian-Built FREMM For Egypt Started Sea Trials.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/02/second-italian-built-fremm-for-egypt-started-sea-trials/

Today is the memorial of the Egyptian operation on 1970 to damage the Israeli oil rig in Abidjan ,coast of cote d'ivoire .The rig was intended to be operated in Sinai .

Abidjan that time was full of not only Mossad agents protecting the oil rig but also with CIA agents  who were guarding the NASA astronauts during their visit to Côte d'Ivoire.

Also Israel has protected the rig by operating it by four countries :

The main operators companies were from US and UK , the rig was rented from Canada  ,the pulling ship from Netherlands .

The Egyptian intelligence spotted the rig for first time in Port-Alfred ,Canada .Then in Ponta Delgada -Portugal then in Dakar-senegal then in Abidjan- coast of cote d'ivoire where it was attacked by the Egyptian frogmen who planted sets of explosives, had them detonated and damaged the rig .

Egypt Intelligence has used multiple agents to trace and locate the rig through oceans , some of them were foreigners ,one of them was a Canadian woman journalist , two members of the Irish Republican Army and  a restaurant owner in Portugal .

Some Egyptian agents transferred explosives from Egypt through some Europe airports to cote d'ivoire .

After damaging the rig ,they couldn't fix it and Canadian company has cancelled the contract with Israel ,the rig was sold as a scrap .

Second FREMM frigate delivered to Egypt .

ahmedfire wrote:Second FREMM frigate delivered to Egypt .

You know what's crazy?  On top of the 2 MEKO200 we already ordered, they're currently negotiating for 2 more possibly 4 for a possible total of 6 Mekos only!

As far as the Italian FREMM frigates, they are also negotiating and very close to a deal for 2 0r 4 more LOL!  How could you not love that frigate?  They're radars can switch from AESA to PESA in seconds lol.  Love those ships.  They filled all the launchers with the 16 Aster 15 and 16 Aster 30 instead of leaving them empty like the French did (I think because those were land attack missile the French had and they couldn't export them, ma3lesh.  At any rate, the totals of ships should be very respectable when all is said and done and because of that, the French have backed off their tough stand a bit lol and now rumors of them offering submarines up the wazoo!

They offered the Scorpene 2000 which is a deep sea submarine which will raise a lot of eyebrows for sure.



Germany countered with the Type 214 which will be interesting to see,



Naval Groupe has countered with the Bahara frigate has been offered to Egypt.



Since when were all these options so willingly provided?  Oh yeah, since Sisi masterfully organized the original deal with the 2 Mistrals, the 24 Rafales and FREMM and 4 Corvettes 3 built in Alexandria with the option for 12 more Rafales which the French reneged on, BIG MISTAKE.

While I think the Rafale is one of the best fighters in the world with a well trained pilot (which I'm amazed how many flight hours they're putting on them, but because the French are not easy to deal with, I have absolutely NO PROBLEM taking the Italian offer of the 24 Typhoons and combining them easily with the Rafales.  Maintenance and pilots can easily be trained to work on both because of the eurocanard similarities and Fusion sensors and the only difference is I would insist on the new Captor AESA radar for sure.  Otherwise, there might be some issues communicating with the Rafale's exemplary RBE2 AESA. I think most of us will forget all of this once the Su-35SEs start flying around. And what a great role put on the MiG-29/35s. It's almost like we forgot we have 200+/- F-16s lol.

I know you also would prefer more Rafales, but what is you opinion on the Typhoon?

The situation with these Italian OPVs is very interesting because we already ordered 20 of them and a few already delivered, but Germany had refused to send Saudi Arabia their Patrol vessels and instead have been given permission to deliver them to Egypt LOL!  Are they gonna have enough docks for all these ships?



These were a separate option to the above OPV patrol vessel and obviously quite larger capable of accommodating a helo and has quite a few additional features. We'll have to see which one they pic. My bet is on the smaller one because of the already large quantities of ships that larder patrol boats are not really necessary IMO.

There is talk that over the last months, Egyptian officials have held three meetings with executives from the French shipbuilder Naval Group to finalize the deal for the purchase of Scorpene 2000-class submarines.

Egypt is close to signing an additional submarine deal with France, Scorpion 2000, with local manufacturing, as Egypt is preparing a basin specializing in submarine manufacturing and maintenance, which will be completed on May 25.

https://www.tacticalreport.com/egypt-naval-group-and-submarines-update-no-2/

Thus, The Egyptian arsenal will have manufacturing experience for all important Naval Categories ..

Corvettes - locally manufactured Gowind
Frigates - Meko to be manufactured locally
Submarines - Scorpene to be manufactured locally
OPVs - to be manufactured locally

Missile boats.. most likely to be manufactured locally
And still some Designs by Lurssen..
https://luerssen-defence.com/

This would be quite something if it goes through.  And I think a huge reason for so much spending and modernization of the Egyptian Navy is they discovered A LOT of gas.  No where near the amount Qatar has I don't think that exists anywhere in the world, but because Sisi and the Egyptian authorities in cooperation's with the Italians have proven that there are The total gas in place in just the Zohr gas field in the Mediterranean in Egypt's EZZ has around 850 billion cubic meters (30 trillion cubic feet). If confirmed, Zohr will almost double Egypt's gas reserves.  There are also quite a bit of recent oil discoveries in the western desert but since we and I think Israel was very shortly after us started immediately after exploration to retrieve and Egypt has the only 2 gas liquification conversion plants in the entire ME, we were able to get ahead of almost everyone in that aspect and what that did was buy us A LOT of collateral to build all the new cities in Egypt, the new capital of course and embark on a massive operations to eliminate all the slums and provide all Egyptians with much better living conditions and standards which will take a lot of time for sure.  

In the meantime, Zohr and the other 6 fields (I believe) need TREMENDOUS defense protection and to me, this is the additional reason for the massive undertaking of the modernization and purchasing of naval assets and all the additional work that involves communications factors which is another area Russia has helped us immensely.  Satellites launched and observation 24 hours a day with these naval ships and our new MiG-29M/35 taking turns patrolling and supervising any mischievous activities.

So if they can get the larger Italian patrol boats on top or the 20 OPV they already ordered, that should do the trick.

I know you also would prefer more Rafales, but what is you opinion on the Typhoon?

Rafale is the normal extension to the Mirage-2000&5 in EAF .It's just like getting Mig-21 out of service and replace them with more capable Mig-35 .

There is no big difference between the two aircrafts but US has  more control over Typhoon sales and this is something Egypt needs to avoid as much as it can .

ahmedfire wrote:

I know you also would prefer more Rafales, but what is you opinion on the Typhoon?

Rafale is the normal extension to the Mirage-2000&5 in EAF .It's just like getting Mig-21 out of service and replace them with more capable Mig-35 .

There is no big difference between the two aircrafts but US has  more control over Typhoon sales and this is something Egypt needs to avoid as much as it can .

Actually sir, I do not believe that is 100% correct since the EFT was a consortium build from the start between  Germany, France, the UK & BAE System & Airbus and France was included and didn't like the positioning of the close-coupled canards and they bowed out.  Now the main manufacturer is BAE Systems and Leonardo that conducts the majority of the project

 Engines are Eurojet 2000 and the entire aircraft is European with the exception of some of the "possible" outside armament that can be integrated into it like mostly GBUs and JDAMs etc. but those won't be necessary as there other choices.  The Storm Shadow is pretty much the SCALP which we already have and if I'm no mistaken, MBDA & Leonardo have the final word.  

But what is more convincing is each of the 4 countries have tweaked their own versions slightly and that last offer Italy made to Egypt with the two Bergammini FREMMs was 24 Typhoons.  That proposal also actually passed and was approved by the Italian congress along with the 20 OPV patrol boats which we accepted and I think 20?  Aermacchi M-346 Master light attack & trainer aircraft.  I think that aircraft has a harder chance with more US involvement with Italy.  But to offer 24 Typhoons with the entire package without being sure it can do it is not something I would think Italy would do TBH.  I think the US would have more of an issue with any Russian aircraft than any European one.  I just don't see any more Rafale's in the EAF's future unfortunately since the EAF is being robbed and they're not afraid to tell the French that's the case and the option for 12 more is actually in Egypt's hands and should be priced at the same rate the original 4 were at, so what is the problem?  Instead they're trying to sell them submarines.  I think the French want to sell what they want to sell to open their world market since that really is what Egypt did with the first massive deal with the FREMM and Mistrals and the first customer of the Rafale instead of offering what Egypt really needs and that is more Rafales.

So far out of that mega deal, it seems Egypt has accepted the two FREMMs and the 20 OPV corvettes. Nothing yet on the EFT because they're still playing with the French for 40+ more Rafales not just the option for 12 more.

Actually sir, I do not believe that is 100% correct since the EFT was a consortium build from the start between  Germany, France, the UK & BAE System & Airbus and France was included and didn't like the positioning of the close-coupled canards and they bowed out.  Now the main manufacturer is BAE Systems and Leonardo that conducts the majority of the project

Oh sorry for the late reply ,being busy those days    .Being shared among several EU countries just give a chance for more easy way to the US to use it's power to make one or more of those countries to reject the deal or to restrict the aircaft capabilities to a specific customer . UK is the US dog and an easy gate to do such games .

The news about EFT deal were just a push to the negotiations with France for more Rafales .