The
Horizon Common New Generation Frigate (CNGF) is a multi-national collaboration to produce a new generation of anti-air warfare
frigates. Originally an alliance of
Britain,
France and
Italy, the project is now a French/Italian effort following the withdrawal of Britain due to differing requirements. It is named
Orizzonte in Italian and
Horizon in French and English.
History
France,
Italy and the
UK issued a joint requirement in 1992 after the failure of the
NATO Frigate Replacement (NFR-90) project. The resulting CNGF program consisted of the
Horizon frigate and its
Principal Anti Air Missile System (PAAMS).
Problems emerged almost immediately: the primary problem was that of differing requirements: France wanted
Anti-Air Warfare (AAW) escorts for its aircraft carriers, but only a limited range was necessary due to the self-defence capability of the
Charles De Gaulle. Italy too required only close range capabilities, as in its home waters of the
Mediterranean Sea the ships would operate under
Italian Air Force cover or escorts for its aircraft carrier
Cavour. The
Royal Navy, however, required more capable ships which could throw a large defensive "bubble" over a fleet operating in hostile areas. The compromise which largely solved this problem was the adoption of a standard radar interface which allowed France and Italy to install the EMPAR multi-function radar and the UK to install the more capable
SAMPSON radar - the SAMPSON radar has a higher data rate and adaptive beam forming allows a greater multi-tracking capability, long-range detection of low-RCS targets, a lower false-alarm rate, and overall higher tracking accuracy.
1995 saw the establishment of an International Joint Venture Company (
IJVC) comprising the national prime contractors,
DCN (France,)
GEC-Marconi (UK) and Orizzonte (Italy). In the period 1995-1996 significant arguments, changing requirements and technological problems led to the slippage of the in-service-date of the frigates to around 2006.
In early 1997 a disagreement emerged as to the choice of
Vertical Launch System (VLS) for the PAAMS'
MBDA Aster missiles. France and Italy favoured their own
SYLVER launcher, while the UK was leaning toward the American Mk 41 - capable of firing the
Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. This issue was eventually resolved when the SYLVER launcher was selected by the PAAMS development team.
UK withdrawal
On 26 April 1999 the UK announced that it was withdrawing from the CNGF project to pursue its own national design. The
Financial Times summarised the main disagreements between the partner countries; the UK wanted a large destroyer which could patrol large areas such as the Atlantic, compared to France's desire for smaller aircraft carrier escorts and Italy's intention to use them in the Mediterranean; Secondly the UK wanted the ships with a wide-area defence capability, able to protect large numbers of ships rather than just protection from missiles targeted in the frigate's general direction; Finally the UK's desire to see Marconi appointed as prime contractor was accepted by France, but only in return for DCN being given the role as prime contractor for the combat management system. The UK, which wished to see a BAE-led consortium given this role, would not accept this.
Summing up the changes from the original specification the UK's Chief of Defence Procurement is reported to have said "it's not common and it's not a frigate!". The resulting
Type 45 destroyer is armed with the PAAMS missile system and has benefited from investment in the
Horizon project.
Franco-Italian project
France and Italy have continued their collaboration under the
Horizon project, ordering two ships each which will also deploy the PAAMS missile system. The first ship of the series, the French
Forbin, was launched on
10 March 2005.
The
French Navy has ordered two units (
Forbin and
Chevalier Paul). Two more units were to be ordered later to replace the
Cassard class frigates, but the plan was replaced by two anti-air
FREMM multipurpose frigates.
The
Marina Militare also ordered two units,
Andrea Doria and
Caio Duilio, to replace
Audace and
Ardito.
Andrea Doria was commissioned on December 22, 2007 and received the flag of the
Navy. Full operation capability (FOC) was achieved in the summer of 2008.
France and Italy have launched a new generation of multimission ships, the
FREMM multipurpose frigates, using the same company structure as the Horizon project.
See also
