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fighting ships of the world

EGYPTIAN NAVY (EGYPT)

AMPHIBIOUS SHIPS AND CRAFT

GAMAL ABDEL NASER amphibious assault ships (2016)

Gamal Abdel Naser 2016

Project history: Copies of French Mistral class with mostly Russian electronics and Russian helicopters. Have a 1800m² hangar with a capacity of 16 medium helicopters, two elevators to starboard aft, a 1000m³ operation direction space and 750m² hospital with two operating rooms and 69 beds. 5000m² flight deck has 6 landing spots. There are 2650m² of vehicle parking area, enabling the carriage for main battle tanks, and side-loading vehicle ramps. 57.5x15.4x8.2m docking well can accommodate 2 LCUs and 4 LCMs. 17t crane is fitted.

    The order of these two ships, in fact, was a nod to the French, really a political gesture to President Sarkozy. Despite resistance of Russian Naval Staff, they were ordered by Minister of Defense Serdyukov (in 2012 he was involved in grand corruption scandal and resigned) overpriced at STX France group, which helped to keep STX afloat. Neither in 2009 nor later, these ships did not fit the concept of combat use of the Russian Navy and since 2012, when Sergey Shoygu became Minister of Defence, one problem of Russian Navy had no solution: how to refuse Mistrals.
    After a successful Nazi anti-Russian coup d'etat in Ukraine, inspired by Obama administration, Obama was so confident that Russia will introduce troops  to protect the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine (to example, according to Gallup Institute, in 2008 83% of Ukrainian citizens prefer to speak Russian rather than Ukrainian), that they announced sanctions against Russia, rather than waiting Russian offensive. French President Hollande was forced to submit to his overlord and stopped military cooperation with Russia. Russian aggression has not begun, and as of the logical chain fell the most important link, anti-Russian sanctions were announced in connection with the fact that the Ukrainian army started a punitive operation (really genocide) against people of the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine. After the partial dismantling of ships (removal of Russian equipment), returning of prepaid and penalties to Russia and convulsive attempts to find a buyer for the ships even below cost, two helicopter carriers were sold in 2016 to Egypt.
    Total sanctions action can be called a surprise to Obama. Russian Navy has not received unnecessary expensive ships that would be very difficult to be used (for example, fuel oil suitable for their main engines doesn't produced in Russia), but got access to all interested technologies: aircraft maintenance, communications and command and control systems and so on. Russian budget received back an advance payment for the ships plus the cost of the hull halves (aft hull halves of both ships were built at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg under French technologies) and the penalties for the failure of the contract. Russian industry produced and successfully sold two aft halves of large combat ships and received a large Egyptian order for about 50 Ka-52 and Ka-29 helicopters and retrofitting of ships to the Russian standards. STX France, frustrated a large state foreign contract, lost confidence in the shipbuilding market, declared bankrupt and put up for sale. Both Mistral's incorporated the Navy of Russian ally.
    At present, Russia designs its own amphibious attack ships.

Modernizations: None.

Naval service: No significant events.

Many thanks to Wolfgang Stöhr for additional information on this page.

© Ivan Gogin, 2018