The F70 frigates are first of all a slender and racy warship silhouette but above all the crew spirit that reigned there for 43 years. Up to 230 sailors perfectly dedicated to anti-submarine warfare and distant deployments, most often under the spotlight. Regularly in the shadow of the aircraft carrier but never very far behind…
Emblematic ships of the ports of Brest and Toulon, the F70 type frigates have symbolized for more than 40 years the excellence of French anti-submarine warfare and a certain idea of power at sea.
“Of all major deployments”
As recalled, this Tuesday morning, the Chief of the Naval Staff Pierre Vandier, present on board, “these frigates have been in all the major deployments of the past 40 years”. Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Libya… “From the fall of the Berlin Wall to today’s Russian offensive in Ukraine, they have always been there”.
With the planned disarmament of this older generation unit (the Greek Navy did not want it in the end), it is a page of history but also a whole era that is turning for the Navy. For Xavier Baudouard, the admiral commanding the surface forces for the Navy, “we have gone from mechanical force, with the F70s, to numerical force with multi-mission frigates”. On heavier ships – 6,500 tons against 4,500 tons – and crews reduced by half. Another dimension of this modernity.
This Tuesday and Wednesday is the last time it will be possible to admire this emblematic frigate in the Brest gully!
–
