ITS Giovanni Delle Bande Nere arrived in Faslane and came alongside at Garelochhead yesterday.
Italian shipbuilding bookends just how ghastly and horrendous US Navy procurement is. In roughly the same time it took the US to fight over and fail to build the Constellation class, Italy managed to build 9 multi-role warships with similar capabilities for *half* of the price.
Nine.
Classed as a “Multipurpose Offshore Patrol Vessel” (OPV) by the Italian Navy, she is effectively a frigate/destroyer and carries up to 16 Aster 30 Block 1NT missiles which may be test-fired during exercise Formidable Shield.
This could possibly be what the future looks like for coastal defense. A more heavily armed OPV that also serves as a mother ship for drones would seriously be able to patrol a wide swath of coastline while being able to handle most seaborne threats. Something many nations and Coast Guards should consider.
The US Navy has nothing with this performance and cost savings. We’ve visited the Little Crappy Ship many times in this blog and all of its monumental shortcomings.
