VESSEL REVIEW | HS Kimon – First ship in new multi-role frigate class for Hellenic Navy
French shipbuilder the Naval Group has handed over the first ship in a new class of three multi-role frigates ordered from the company by the Hellenic Navy.
HS Kimon is a variant of the defence and intervention frigate (frégate de défense et d'intervention; FDI) designed by the Naval Group for the French Navy. She belongs to the FDI HN class, alternately known as the Kimon-class, which was developed specifically to satisfy the Hellenic Navy’s operational requirements.
Like the baseline French Navy FDIs, the FDI HNs were built to be capable of anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and insertion and extraction of special operations forces. Each frigate can operate alone or as part of a naval task force and can be deployed long-term over long distances.
Designed to permit incremental upgrades
The Naval Group said that, like the FDIs, the FDI HNs are among the first frigates to benefit from an onboard digital architecture that will enable them to adapt continuously to technological and operational developments, thus allowing them to cope with constantly evolving threats.
Their architecture and digital infrastructures guarantee growth potential, ensuring adaptation to future threats throughout their service lives with relatively brief incremental upgrades to be undertaken in place of longer and more costly mid-life upgrades.
Each FDI HN is also natively protected against cyber threats, with a redundant IT architecture based around two data centres that host a large proportion of the ship's software in what the Naval Group said is a “virtualised” manner.
The ship will also demonstrate the concept of a gateway dedicated to combating asymmetric threats. The Naval Group said this system will make it possible to coordinate and lead countermeasures against small, close air and surface threats.
Equipped for dealing with air, surface and sub-surface threats
Named after a famed Ancient Greek admiral and politician, Kimon has a displacement of 4,500 tonnes, a length of approximately 122 metres (400 feet), a beam of 18 metres (59 feet), a crew complement of 125 including aviation personnel, and a combined diesel and diesel propulsion arrangement that will deliver a maximum speed of 27 knots and a range of 5,000 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 15 knots.
The ship's armament includes Aster and RAM surface-to-air missiles, Exocet anti-ship missiles, MU90 torpedoes, a Leonardo/OTO Melara 76mm rapid fire naval gun, and two Oerlikon 20mm cannon fitted on Leonardo remote weapon stations.
Kimon and sister ship HS Nearchos, the second ship in the class, will initially be fitted with 16 surface-to-air missile launch cells each, similar to the baseline FDIs. Before the end of the decade, the two frigates will each have 16 additional launch cells for a total of 32, thus greatly expanding their air and missile defence capabilities.
Beginning with HS Formion, the third frigate, the FDI HNs will be built with 32 launch cells per ship from the outset.
Aviation facilities are available for use by a 10-tonne utility helicopter and an unmanned aerial vehicle. The Naval Group also provided the vessel with anti-torpedo countermeasures while Thales installed the radar, the hull-mounted and towed array sonars, and the electronic warfare systems.
Sister ships Nearchos and Formion will be delivered to the Hellenic Navy later this year while the fourth Kimon-class ship, HS Themistokles, will follow in 2028. The frigates will be deployed primarily in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
The Naval Group, through its Greek subsidiary Naval Group Hellas and other local partners, will provide in-service support for all four FDI HNs under an agreement with the Hellenic Ministry of National Defence.
