DCNS delivers third FREMM frigate to French Navy

French naval defence company DCNS on March 16 delivered the FREMM frigate Languedoc to the French Navy.

Languedoc is the fifth FREMM frigate to be built by DCNS and the third intended for the French Navy.

The ship was officially accepted by OCCAR (Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation), an international organisation for the through-life management of cooperative defence equipment programmes, which has the role of contracting authority for FREMMs intended for France and Italy.

Apart from France, Royal Moroccan Navy and Egyptian Navy bought one ship each. FREMM Mohammed VI was delivered to Morocco in 2014 while the Egyptian Navy had their own FREMM, Tahya Misr, delivered in 2015.

According to DCNS, FREMMs are the first vessels in Europe to deploy the naval cruise missile MdCN. The first test firing of these missiles took place on May 19, 2015 from the FREMM Aquitaine.

Anne Bianchi, Director of the FREMM programme at DCNS, commented the occasion: “The delivery of the FREMM Languedoc represents an opportunity to highlight the serial effects of a programme that DCNS clients can take advantage of. It was possible to reduce the duration of the sea acceptance trials for the Languedoc frigate to five weeks, thanks to the experience acquired for the FREMMs already delivered.”

DCNS is set to build an overall of ten frigates eight of which will go to the French Navy. Six are expected to be delivered to the French Navy by 2019 while the remaining two will be fitted with strengthened anti-aircraft capabilities. DCNS said that these two frigates would be delivered in 2022.

The French company further said it was currently completing the FREMM Auvergne, which was floated on September 2, 2015, and was pursuing the assembly of the FREMM Bretagne. It has also started work on the eighth FREMM in the series, the Normandie.

At the start of the year, the Aquitaine and Provence FREMMs participated in the Task Force 50 actions in the Persian-Arabian Gulf, at the sides of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, designed, built and maintained by DCNS.

According to the fact file, the 142-meter ships are equipped with the Herakles multifunction radar, the naval cruise missile (MdCN), the Aster and Exocet MM 40 missiles or the MU 90 torpedoes. They can reach maximum speeds of 27 knots and have a range of 6,000 miles at a speed of 15 knots. The ships can be operated by a crew of 108, with the helicopter detachment included.