According to a press release published by Naval Group on September 28, 2021, Nikólaos Panayotópoulos, the Greek Minister of Defence, Pierre Eric Pommellet, CEO of Naval Group, and Eric Béranger, CEO of MBDA, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to open negotiations to provide the Hellenic Navy (HN) with three Defence and Intervention frigates (FDI HN) and their equipment as well as an optional additional frigate. Contrary to what we said based on Greek City Times, France and Greece have only signed an MOU, and this one concerns only the IDF and not the Gowind-class.
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Construction of future FDI frigate at Lorient, Brittany (Picture source: Naval Group)
The FDI HN frigates will be built in the Naval Group shipyard in Lorient, where the second in the series for the French Navy has just entered production.
The FDI HN will be an asset of power and sovereignty for Greece.
With the FDI HN, the Hellenic Navy will have a state-of-the-art, high-performance surface fleet.
As a first-rank frigate, the FDI HN is a compendium of the best technologies of Naval Group, Thales and MBDA, which will notably supply the ASTER 30 B1 and Exocet MM40 Block 3C missiles. It will be fully interoperable with European and NATO fleets.
Greece will become the second customer of this multi-mission frigate, bringing the number of units produced from five for the French Navy to eight in total, plus one as an option.
The FDI frigate (Frégate de defense et d’intervention/ Defence and intervention frigate) has been designed to be equipped as growth potential with Naval Cruise Missiles, a Deep Strike capability and able to deal with the latest threats. The physical and digital infrastructures of the FDI guarantee an evolutionary potential that will ensure that the Hellenic Navy will be able to deal with emerging and future threats over the life of the ship (UAVs, Cyber, anti-ship ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, stealth threats underwater or above water, etc.).
The FDI will have a length of 122 m, a beam of 17.7 m, and a displacement of 4,460 tons. The ship will have a crew of 110 people as well as an aircrew detachment of approximately 15 people. She will also have a flight deck and one hangar to accommodate one unmanned VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) aircraft or one NH-90 naval helicopter.
The frigate will be powered by a combined diesel and diesel (CODAD) propulsion system. She will have the capability to reach a top speed of 27 knots (50.0 km/h) with a maximum cruising range of 5,000 nmi (9,300 km) at 15 knots (27.8 km/h).
