Italian Navy Discussions and Updates

Hi everybody, here there is the current planning for the future of the Italian Navy by the year 2030.

These infos are taken by what has been said by the Capo di Stato Maggiore della Marina Militare (Navy Chief of staff) Valter Girardelli.

The navy will be composed by:

The Cavour Aircraft Carrier (30.000 t) that might undergo other modifications to extend the flight deck of 25 meters.

The LHD Trieste (34.000 t) that is currently under construction.

4 DDG that means 2 Horizon class (7,050 t) and 2 new DDGs, with AAW & ATBM capabilities, the rumors talk about a 10,000 t displacement.

10 FREMM Class fregates of which 4 ASW and 6 General Purpose

At least 7 PPAs of which 2 Full/ASW, 3 Light+ and 2 Light. Any of these ships, if needed, can be upgraded to

full arrangement.

7/8 European Patrol Corvettes (ex PPX about 3.500 t) if the PPAs will stop at 7.

A smaller number will be financed if all 10 PPAs already authorized by the Parliament will be built.

3 LXD, rumors talk about at least 16.000 t, with the capability of carrying 700 troops, with 4 helicopters spots and wet dock for 4 LCM or 1 LCAC, in order to replace 3 LPD San Marco class.

3 LSS Vulcano class to replace Stromboli, Vesuvio and Etna.

8 subs, 4 U-212A, 2 U-212NFS that have just been financed and 2 more U-212NFS to replace the Sauro IV Class.

A new class of minehunters,between 8 and 10, with "long range missions" capabilities to replace 8 Gaeta class.

New Maritime Patrol Aircrafts for long range missions to field together with the 4 P72A.

[quote from post above] "might extend CAVOUR flight deck by 25 metres" - cool - meanwhile the video title says it all.

Carrier Cavour enters port for F-35B refit

The details of the refit would be interesting.
Adding 25m is a dramatic cut and paste!

Regards S

That's a hell of a lot.

The ski-jump could be moved forward several metres, but I can't see the flight deck being extended 25 metres without a hull plug.

swerve said:

That's a hell of a lot.

The ski-jump could be moved forward several metres, but I can't see the flight deck being extended 25 metres without a hull plug.

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I wonder if it was meant to be 2 . 5m maybe they are moving the Ski Ramp forward that distance.

Agree with all the above.

Someone has their wires crossed or something's lost in translation.

An extra 25m of flight deck?

Nah!

It's most certainly not mentioned in the itemised refit document released by the Italian government some months ago, and that was the final approval.

Redlands18 said:

I wonder if it was meant to be 2 . 5m maybe they are moving the Ski Ramp forward that distance.

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Heheh. That 2.5m distance seems to me to be a 'why bother?' distance. Perhaps the uncertainty about whether or not was from before more was known about F-35B STO performance. IF the latest SAR is to be believed (I could quote it but now I think that particular SAR made a mistake [however I could be mistaken - I'm eagerly awaiting next SAR to see if the 'mistake' in 'demonstrated distance performance' for STO is repeated]. Anyway it seems clear the F-35B performs STO up to spec (& not confirmed then when CAVOUR ruminations mooted - 2.5 or 25).

How about just elongating the ski jump forward - so that it is longer and higher (continuing ramp profile) - that would seem easiest?

Link to video of Trieste Launching. From the stats it's about the same length with Carvour. Quite a handsome design for LHD.

Like a smaller Queen Liz with the twin control towers

Ananda said:

Link to video of Trieste Launching. From the stats it's about the same length with Carvour. Quite a handsome design for LHD.

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“Handsome” is not a description I would use but as beauty is in the eye of the beholder I’ll go with it.
I think she looks “special” but that’s not unusual with both Italian and French designs.
A great addition for the Italian fleet.

Ananda said:

Link to video of Trieste Launching. From the stats it's about the same length with Carvour. Quite a handsome design for LHD.

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Good to see a proper Launch, none of this taking 2 Hours to lower her into the water.
Interesting they are not going to fit her with a Ski Ramp.

@ASSAIL , I put handsome on LHD perspective . Seems for LHD compared to US LHD or French ones..it's less 'boxy'. But yes..it's much on each everyone perspective .

On the matter of no sky ramp..this one makes me wondering. It's in same length catagory with Carvour. While Carvour maintain sky ramp in order to operate their VTOL (including later on F-35B) more efficient, omitting sky ramp in Trieste perhaps shown that Italian Navy perhaps only going to use Trieste as secondary role for their VTOL operation. Which mean their VTOL operation still focus from Carvour.

New Italian aircraft carrier launched 15 months after construction start

Add:
More pictures on Trieste launch (from Naval Today), on different angle. According to this, even tough many expect Trieste can operate VTOL, but no official confirmation of Italian Navy so far.

I don't know..with Carvour also getting more modifications, seems to me Italian Navy will only focusing their VTOL especially F-35B from Carvour. I know this Trieste supposedly also replacing capacity of Garibaldi.
Perhaps Trieste can handle AV-8B, however I still got impression Italian Navy only seriously prepare Carvour for F-35B.

They laid it down last year and expect it to be in service in 2022. They don't muck around these Italians.

Got to admit as an Australian I am slightly envious of this ship.

hauritz said:

They laid it down last year and expect it to be in service in 2022. They don't muck around these Italians.

Got to admit as an Australian I am slightly envious of this ship.

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Hautitz

Credit where credits due, the Italians make a good ship and equally importantly are able to operate them in a professional manner to get the most out of them.
Agree the Trieste LHD looks an impressive ship and I trust it serves their navy well; but I'm not to envious as we have a couple of very capable LHD's in service with our own Navy.
The main difference between us and the Italians in this field is our lack of experience and that is diminish everyday as we become more proficient with our own Canberra class.

I wonder if we have / had, any naval exchange of personnel with the Italian Navy to see how they go about operating their amphibious ships?



Regards S

Ananda said:

I don't know..with Carvour also getting more modifications, seems to me Italian Navy will only focusing their VTOL especially F-35B from Carvour.......however I still got impression Italian Navy only seriously prepare Carvour for F-35B.

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TRIESTE was designed with F-35B ops in mind. The long standing requirement of the Italian navy is to always have embarked jets available in at least one ship, so the LHD and CAVOUR will provide that guarantee.

The matter was addressed by the Chief of Naval Staff, VADM Valter Giredelli, at the launch last week. Journo who wrote this is well known from Jane's.

" “The new LHD will replace the Garibaldi amphibious helicopter and STOVL-aircraft carrier, maintaining all her capabilities in addition to the well-dock and all the expanded transport and amphibious capabilities including an extended hospital and C4I facilities”, explained Vice Admiral Valter Girardelli, Italian Navy’s Chief of Staff. The new LHD will be equipped to operate and support the new Lockheed Martin F-35B STOVL aircraft, and will be delivered in June 2022, with a full aviation capability. Although rumors about the presence of a ski-jump had been around for some time, at the launch ceremony Vice Admiral Girardelli confirmed for the first time that the ship will be fitted with that system, which will allow to fully exploit the F-35B capabilities. "

That quote from this article https://www.edrmagazine.eu/fincantieri-launches-the-lhd-trieste-for-italian-navy

It will be interesting to see how both this and the Cavour develop post fitout.

Putting a ramp on this LHD I think will be interesting. The Americans don't fit ramps because they have bigger ships and the ramps do limit the other missions of the LHD a bit.

I do like the split bridge/control. Mini Liz.
In terms of looks, I quite like the Canberra class, it has a slabby smooth elegance. I still think for Australia's needs, even if this was available at the time, we would have gone with the JC1 design.

But I do like the Italian combination of Cavour and Treiste. Both specialise, but both have flexibility too.

I am still suspicious about the possibility of a ski-ramp being installed to the LHD.
None of the official models shown to the public ever has a design with ramp.
Not to mention that ski-ramp is an structurally integrated part of a ship that one doesn't simply put them on post-launch the same way that weapons, electronics and onboard utilities do. If it doesn't have it at launch, then it's very unlikely to be installed in the near future until it go into the dry dock again for an extensive overhaul modification.

The first ships to have ski-jumps fitted were designed, & construction began, without them - the RN's Invincible class, originally called "through-deck cruisers" & intended to operate only helicopters. HMS Hermes had been in service for over 20 years before a ski-jump was added.

The Japanese have decided to fit ski-jumps to ships already built & commissioned, Izumo & Kaga.

Yes, it'd be a major piece of work, but it doesn't need to be done in a dry dock. It can be done alongside.

In addig the ramp is this a structure that is mounted forward of the bow and the deck or simply added to the deck (effecting length of ship), and has the ship had a version of thermion coating for heat stress for the f35b ?

seaspear said:

In addig the ramp is this a structure that is mounted forward of the bow and the deck or simply added to the deck (effecting length of ship), and has the ship had a version of thermion coating for heat stress for the f35b ?

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The reason the ski ramp was left on the Canberra class, or so it was claimed, was because of the difficulties involved in altering the design. In an asymmetrical design such as a carrier you can't make huge structural changes without affecting the stability of the ship. I imagine it would be the same for this ship.