With the delivery of the 5 FDI frigates from 2025 to 2032, the LPM 2024-2030 will make it possible to respect the format of 15 1st rank frigates required, for the French Navy, by the 2022 Strategic Review. However, the 5 light stealthy frigates of the Lafayette class, they still do not have designated replacements, while the ships must leave service around 2030.
Worse still, the very replacement of these 5 frigates, whose status fluctuates according to needs, and therefore very useful for the planning of the French Navy, is not even addressed by this LPM, leaving a capacity gap of 25% in the French fleet of high seas escorts, from the next decade.
The whole question, today, is to understand the origin of this format of 15 escorts established by RS 2022, to determine whether, yes or not, the French Navy needs to replace five ships, or if these frigates of second rank, are now useless, between the increased performance of modern frigates, and the evolution of threats above and below the surface.
In this section:
The format of 15 1st Rank frigates of the French Navy, a legacy of the 80s
Unlike the fleet of fighter planes or French tanks, divided by 3 after the Cold War and the arrival of the benefits of peace, the escorts of the National Navy have not evolved, in number, since the 80s.
Thus, in 1989, the French Navy already fielded 15 so-called first-rate escorts, with two Suffren-class anti-aircraft destroyers, two Cassard-class anti-aircraft frigates, three Tourville-class T-67 anti-submarine frigates, and seven anti-submarine frigates. T-70 class Georges Leygues, and a C-69 anti-submarine corvette, Aconit class.
In addition to these 15 escorts, there were 17 Estienne d'Orves class A-69 escort avionics, ships equipped for anti-ship and coastal anti-submarine warfare, as well as for lower-intensity missions. .
The French frigates and destroyers were tasked with escorting the two Clemenceau-class aircraft carriers, the two Ouragan-class amphibious assault ships, and the Jeanne d'Arc helicopter carrier. These ships could also serve as escort to the cruiser Colbert, also having the function of Capital Ship, or flagship.
Typically, a French aircraft carrier was escorted by an anti-aircraft escort, two anti-submarine frigates, and two avisos, and was accompanied by a replenishment tanker, a Rubis-class SSN, and one or two Breguet Atlantique maritime patrol aircraft. The TCD and the Jeanne d'Arc, on the other hand, were only escorted in combat by an anti-aircraft escort, an ASM escort and an aviso, the submarine device and Patmar being variable depending on the missions.
In doing so, the French Navy had the possibility of simultaneously protecting an air group and an amphibious group, while retaining four anti-submarine frigates and one anti-aircraft frigate per seafront, including one at sea, one on alert, two in training, and one in maintenance. These ships, along with the remaining A69s, could be used to reinforce escort requirements, or to constitute one or two naval action groups in their own right.
In fact, although significantly inferior in number of ships to the Royal Navy, the French Navy then had a fleet of escorts perfectly consistent with its needs.
The Lafayette class FLFs replace part of the Avisos A-69 from 1996
From 1996, the French Navy began to take delivery of the new Lafayette class light stealth frigates. Initially, the class was to be formed by 7 multi-purpose ships, with 12 Aster 15 missiles in vertical launch cells, 8 MM40 Exocet anti-ship missiles, as well as a hull sonar for anti-submarine warfare, a cannon DCN 100 and a helicopter Panther.
The arrival of these ships was to remove the C-69 corvette Aconit from service, as well as 8 A-69 escorts, while increasing the escort fleet to 21 ships. We will find this same format ten years later, when the Navy planned to acquire 4 Horizon frigates, and 17 FREMM frigates.. However, the Lafayette class arrived when the Soviet threat had disappeared, army budgets were being reduced, and conscription was suspended.
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