According to a tweet published by the French Minister of Armed Forces on November 22, 2021, the French Aquitaine-class frigate Alsace is ready for operational deployment.
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Aquitaine-class frigate Alsace (Picture source: French Ministry of Armed Forces)
Alsace (D656) is an Aquitaine-class frigate of the French Navy developed through the FREMM multipurpose frigate program. She is the first of two air-defence variants of the class known as FREMM DA (Frégate Européenne Multimissions de Défense Aérienne) in the program.
On 18 April 2019, the frigate Alsace was launched. She began sea trials in October 2020 and was delivered to the French Navy in April 2021.
The FREMM DA uses the most advanced weapons systems and equipment, such as the Herakles multifunction radar, the Aster 15 and 30 and Exocet MM 40 missiles and the MU 90 torpedoes.
Like the other units of the FREMM series, she carries the NH90 helicopter (Caïman Marine), whose use is supported by the SAMAHE® system supplied by Naval Group.
The ships also incorporate Sylver A50 vertical launch systems permitting them to carry both MBDA Aster 15 and/or 30 surface-to-air missiles. On the two AAW variants, the Sylver A70 launch systems (used for land-attack cruise missiles on the ASW variants) are removed to provide space for fitting double the number of A50 cells for Aster SAMs.
