When one has followed with pain the often biased and irrelevant comments concerning the Shortfin Barracuda submarine program in the Australian press, follow the reactions of the Hellenic press on the subject of the announcement of the choice of FDI Belh @ rra frigates for the modernization of the country's fleet, is more than refreshing, as the enthusiasm overflows from the press articles as from the comments of the Greeks themselves. We also learn, at the turn of a paragraph, that the Naval Group frigate had received, from many, the best rating from the Hellenic Navy Superior Council, leaving little chance for the other models to be able to impose themselves as the gap was imposing. But, beyond the obvious satisfaction of having selected this model, to sign a strong defense agreement with France, and to enrage Ankara, it now appears that the Hellenic Navy, supported in this by a majority of Greeks if we refer to the comments published, do not hear the stop there, and that the negotiations to obtain a local construction license for the Gowind 2500 corvettes are also moving very quickly.
The underlying logic obviously makes a lot of sense, since if the FDI is an intermediate-sized frigate with the firepower and operational capabilities of a heavy frigate or a light destroyer, the corvette Gowind 2500 offers, for its part, capacities close to those of a medium or light frigate, and this for the price of a corvette. Thus, the 100-meter-long ship with a tonnage of 2.400 tons, carries, in its reference configuration, 8 MM40 Block3C anti-ship missiles, a 57 or 76mm gun, 2 20mm guns and 2 launch tubes. torpedoes for Mu-90 anti-submarine torpedoes like the FDI or like the FREMM of the Aquitaine class, the only difference in the field of armament being the replacement of the Sylver vertical launch systems to accommodate anti-aircraft missiles at long-range Aster 30 B1 or MdCN cruise missiles, by 16 vertical cells for Mica VL NG short-range anti-aircraft missiles, to effectively ensure self-defense in this area. As for the sensors, they are equivalent to frigates in the field of anti-submarine warfare, but less efficient in the field of anti-aircraft defense, since that is not the ship's mission.
On the other hand, with a public price of € 375m, the Gowind 2500 is more than half the price of the FDI, and its 65-man crew is 40% smaller. In addition, it requires less heavy and sophisticated infrastructure to be assembled, and therefore more limited investments to adapt a shipyard to its production. Finally, sharing its DNA with the FDI, it is able to cooperate in an advanced way with these ships to articulate a cooperative and coordinated defense. Finally, in the specific case of the Greek need, the Gowind 2500 is not only more efficient and better equipped than the new Ada corvettes of the Turkish Navy, but it hardly has to envy the frigates of the Istanbul class under construction. In addition, if part of the construction costs will remain incompressible, especially with regard to on-board systems or propulsion, local construction in a Greek shipyard could significantly lower the cost price, between 10 and 20% depending on the selected configuration.
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