Free Republic

South Korea has launched its second amphibious assault ship. On May 14, South Korean officials launched the second Dokdo-class helicopter carrier. The ceremony took place in Busan at the shipyard of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction, the company that built the vessel. Among those in attendance were Defense Minister Song Young-moo and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Um Hyun-seong, according to local news outlets. Construction of the second Dokdo-class amphibious assault ship, named Marado, began in 2016. The ship will be the second largest ship in the Republic of Korea’s Navy, after the first Dokdo-class ship. Displacing 14,500 tons, the...

Lawmakers urged France on Thursday to cancel the sale of two advanced helicopter carrier ships to Russia and suggested that NATO buy or lease them instead. "The purchase would send a strong signal to (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin that the NATO allies will not tolerate or in any way enable his reckless moves," they said in a letter to NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen obtained by Reuters. France has said it would press ahead with the deal because cancelling would do more damage to Paris than to Moscow. The contract, worth $1.66 billion, has created about 1,000 jobs and includes...

France on Tuesday inked a lucrative agreement to sell four Mistral warships to Moscow, with two to be built in Russia, in a move bitterly opposed by ex-Soviet states in the Baltics. The deal for the amphibious assault ships will be the first sale to Russia of such technology by a NATO country. France's NATO allies -- in particular Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- have expressed concern about arming Russia with modern Western weaponry. Leaked diplomatic cables showed that US Defence Secretary Robert Gates also raised Washington's concerns while on a visit to Paris last year

France and Russia will sign an agreement on the construction of two Mistral helicopter ships on January 25 in the presence of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, the Elysee Palace said on Sunday. Benefits of military cooperation with Russia outweigh possible negative factors, French Defense Minister Alain Juppe said in an interview with Le Monde on January 18. “NATO allies decided at the Lisbon summit to start cooperation with Russia in the development of a missile defense network. Benefits of strategic cooperation with Russia in the military sphere are much more important than negative...

The United States voiced concern to France earlier this year over the possible sale of a French warship to Russia, saying it sent a "mixed signal" to both Moscow and Eastern European allies, according to a leaked US document published. In a meeting on February 8 in Paris, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his French counterpart at the time, Herve Morin, disagreed over missile defense for Europe and over France's plans to sell the Mistral-class helicopter carrier to Russia, a secret diplomatic cable posted by the WikiLeaks website showed Sunday

France is ready to supply its helicopter carrier ships to Russia without any restrictions in the transfer of technology. This came in a statement by Director of the French naval defense company DCNS Pierre Legros at the Euronaval exhibition in Paris. Earlier, media reports said that the Mistrals would have no built-in domestic navigation technologies. Moscow intends to purchase at least four ships of that class. Meanwhile, the Russian helicopter carrier tender may involve an Italian company, Editor-in-Chief of the online magazine Moscow Defense Brief, Mikhail Barabanov said, referring to the amphibious assault ship presented by Italian ship builder Fincantieri....

The Russian Defense Ministry has effectively dismissed the idea of buying a South Korean warship in place of a French Mistral-class amphibious assault ship, a Russian business daily reported on Thursday. According to Kommersant, the United Shipbuilding Corporation proposed the purchase of a $650 million Dokdo helicopter carrier from South Korea. In a letter to Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, USC CEO Roman Trotsenko said his corporation could buy a license to build a Dokdo-class ship at a Russian shipyard within three years. The Defense Ministry is skeptical about the ability of Russian shipyards to build such ships in principle or...

Closing in for the kill, Russia is said to be in final talks to buy a flotilla of four French helicopter-carriers - a deal massive both in terms of the vessels' size and their price tag. "At the moment we are in pre-contract talks on the warships with three states: Spain, the Netherlands and France. We plan to sign a contract for four of these ships," said Russia's Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. Serdyukov said Russia would like at least three of the vessels to be built with the help of Russian shipbuilders, including one at a Russian shipyard. Talks to...

Now, this was posted on another thread I frequent, and since an admittedly half-hearted search didn't turn up anything on the subject, I'm posting it for your eyes.The Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force has been noted for a couple of things. One of those has been it's capability. Most pundits rate it as the #2 navy in the world. Now Japan also has a rather colorful history in terms of military expansionism, so one of the things that tends to freak out the neighbors is any time the Japanese say the words "Aircraft Carrier". This has become a phrase not...