Italy sends a frigate to East-Med to Protect ENI’s drill activities

According to local press in Italy and Greek Times news portal, on December 6th, the frigate Federino Martinengo (F 596) was moored in the port of Larnaca. The Italian Navy with a meager press release, announced the mission undertaken in the name of a generic patrol operation in ” protection of national interests “, without specifying the mission.

The presence of Martinengo in the port of Larnaca is part of naval diplomacy and navy activities, carried out in the field of international cooperation and dialogue between the countries of the area, with which Italy has important political-diplomatic, economic and industrial relations .

The area is precisely the area of ​​the continental shield, the stretch of sea disputed between the concessions of Eni and Total and Turkey , which claims its right to drilling in the south east of the Mediterranean. To protect this, Turkey had sent a drill, the Yavuz, accompanied by two military ships last October to the waters south of Cyprus.

France had responded by sending, in turn, two frigates.

East mediterranean is a huge conflict area because of the rich underground sources, especially gas. As known, Turkish Navy have been sustaining protection of national drilling activities at the area. By conduncting flag diplomacy, they say “there’s no solution without me at East-Med”.

Federino Martinengo’s presence in the port of Larnaca is part of the Naval Diplomacy activities carried out in the field of international cooperation and dialogue between the countries of the region, with which Italy maintains important political relations – diplomatic, economic and industrial.

East Med waters seem to be warmer at following days..

Federico Martinengo (F 596) :

The Federico Martinengo missile frigate of the Italian Navy is the seventh unit of the Bergamini class (FREMM) , the third in a multi-role configuration after Carlo Bergamini and Luigi Rizzo .

The ship is equipped with a 127/64 mm forward cannon (able to use Vulcano ammunition ) for naval interdiction and long-range land targets and for anti-aircraft shooting; a stern gun on the sky hangar of 76/62 mm (able to use the ammunition Davide is equipped with the STRALES system), 2 machine guns OTO / Oerlikon GBM-AO1 of 25/80 mm. For the missile part the weapon systems are: 8 Teseo Mk2 / A missiles for anti-ship combat and land targets within 180 km; 16 VLS Sylver A50 cells for Aster 15 for short and medium range for self-defense and Aster30 for area air defense (anti-aircraft and anti-missile). For antisubmarine warfare it is equipped with 6 torpedo tubes in two triple systems B-515 for 324 mm MU-90 Impact torpedoes; 1 SLAT anti-torpid system . Finally embark 2 SCLAR -H rocket launchers . Weapon systems for the Radar part are: a 3D EMPAR Multifunction Active airborne radar, two NA-25 DARDO-F direction-of-radar, a RASS surface discovery radar (RAN-30X-I), a radar for the navigation Selex ES SPN-730 and two radars for navigation GEM-Electronics MM / SPN-753, an IFF SIR M5-PA radar .

For the Sonar part : 1 Thales UMS 4110 CL in the forward bulb, 1 Thales TUUM-6 t underwater telephone, 2 MM / SMQ-765 electronic warfare Nettuno 4100 systems.

For command and control: two Athena combat systems, 21 multi-function triple consoles, including 19 in the Combat Operations Center, 1 on the command deck and 1 in the Command Room.

For the on-board helicopter component: 2 SH90 or 1 SH90 and 1 AW101 equipped with 2 Mars anti- ship missiles or 2 MU-90 Impact torpedoes ; 1 Curtiss-Wright system for helicopter assistance during assembly.