Armament doesn't look to bad in times of drones, but I still wonder if this new one gets even more guns against drones, perhaps simply for better coverage. Three guns could just not be enough to cover all directions if a swarm of drones attacks from all angles.
But yeah, good on/for France. Seems like the evaluation of the first delivered ship of this class is going well [Amiral Ronarc'h](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Amiral_Ronarc%27h)
2
mufanekApr 2, 2026
+1
I don't know if it's even needed. Currently, the drones in maritime use are way bigger than your small FPV quadcopters. We are talking small speedboat size, which were threat to ships for decades now. Just at the time there was a fella there driving it towards the ship. So hardly a new threat.
Thanks to ships like this having huge engines, it has a lot of power, giving you many options over what you might have mobile on land. Radars are basically only limited by horizon, say 20 nautical miles and helis on this ship more than doubles that, if they were hovering just above the ship, but they also have range they can fly themselves. Add to that you can have strong EW capabilities, because it's unrealistic to think everything can be attatched by a cable or fibre. And you get quite a strong complement of everything you need to be able to destroy anything that comes towards you at a range guns can't even effectively hit anything without some special rounds (vulcan comes to mind).
FDI specifically is quite a lot of capability within it's size and I don't know if they even have physical space to bolt anything on anymore. But if they do, I imagine they would chose more universal armament than guns.
2 Comments