Qatar has announced a $5.9 billion deal for seven warships from Italy.
Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said at a Doha press conference:
“We have signed a contract on behalf of the Qatari navy to acquire seven warships from Italy for five billion euros ($5.9 billion).”
The Italian warship deal was completed on Wednesday and involves the purchase of four corvettes, an amphibious vessel and two patrol boats.
In June 2016, Qatar had signed a letter of agreement with Italian shipyard Fincantieri to build:
- 1 Landing Helicopter Dock (similar to the Fincantieri built Algerian amphibious transport dock Kalaat Béni Abbès;
- 4 Corvettes (2,800 tonnes) with a helicopter deck and hangar. Weapons: Aster 30 in vertical launchers and short-range Raytheon RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles. Their other armament will consist of MBDA Excocet MM40 Block 3 anti-ship missiles, a 76 mm Super Rapid gun, and two 30 mm guns);
- 2 Offshore Patrol Boats.
In June this year, the United States agreed a $12-billion sale of F-15 fighter jets to Qatar, re-affirming support for the emirate in the throes of the worst diplomatic crisis to hit the Gulf in decades.
Since when does Qatar have a need for an LPH? They are not planning to invade another country or try to steal territory from Saudi Arabia. I can see Qatar getting an LPD such as the Endurance-class landing platform dock or the Makassar-class landing platform dock but if Qatar wants an LHD, the smallest is the Mistral-class amphibious assault ship.
They are for logistics to drop weapons supplies in support of their terrorist friends who like to burn their prisoners alive and behead the rest. Unfortunately when they are willing to spend billions of $$$ western governments are more than happy to supply them with the capability to do so.
There’s been a lot of military equipment sold to Qatar by Italy recently (typhoons etc.) Can’t help but wonder if there’s a bigger political deal taking place…
Oops, that was Kuwait with the Typhoons. Though the point remains that Italy has been very successful lately with these types of deals.
All that oil and gas money sure can buy you out of a lot of trouble, as for the West “defending our values and championing human rights”…….Pah.
It really is a joke how we turn a blind eye to their human rights and terrorist funding record because they have oil, gas and trillions of dollars.
There are more Brits in Qatar than Arabs, if they hadn’t have handed it back in the 70’s it would have served as a great Gibraltar east of Suez that covered all of our oil and gas needs and could have opened the rest of the middle east to modern values.
More Brits in Qatar than Arabs? that’s not true in the slightest.
“it would have served as a great Gibraltar east of Suez that covered all of our oil and gas needs”
What a preposterous statement that is.
I have studied, admired and respected the Empire since I was a teenager but I would never be ok with us ruling over another indigenous population and raping them of resources ever again.
You mean raping the Qatar Royal family and sovereign wealth fund of their resources the indigenous population only see a fraction of it.
So it would be fine for us to rob the country of resources, but not the Qatar Royal Family?
Ahh I see where you’re coming from now, for a minute there I thought you were talking complete mince.
Glad you cleared it up for me 🙂
Qatar was only ever a protectorate
What is the alternative? We could not buy fossil fuel from them and out go the lights or we could effect regime change and the bleeding hearts would pitch a fit. So realistically we are stuck buying their oil and gas and so may as well get some money back from them by selling arms.
‘4 Corvettes (2,800 tonnes)’
Sign of the times – a corvette would have been around 1000 tonnes in the past. Still, with destroyers now being the size of light cruisers I shouldn’t be surprised.
$5.9 billion is about twice what those ships should have cost. I wonder why…
Have you seen how much they pay for players for the football clubs they own ?
[…] Qatar purchases warships from Italy in $5.9 billion deal […]
‘we could effect regime change and the bleeding hearts would pitch a fit’
given the record of ‘regime change’ in Libya & Iraq the ‘bleeding hearts’ may have a point.
I know what was DC thinking? At least Tony could argue he didn’t understand how important a post regime change plan was. DC had no such excuse just wiped out the government and expected the country to sort itself out.
seems kinda cheap to me, considering we are getting 1 frigate at £1b price which doesn’t include weapons since they are being taken off the existing ships and rehoused.
Isn’t it amazing that their corvettes are as well armed as our T45s! – helo with hangar, Aster 30, Excocet, RAM, 30mm guns…. I don’t see any ‘fitted for but not with’ going on here! Just goes to show how underfunded our Armed Forces are when we can’t even afford to properly arm the precious few escorts we do have. I have often wondered how many missiles are actually siloed when you see photos of our escorts in the media. Sure, the official line is we supply them as their tasking dictates but I wonder how much of this is… Read more »
Based on what happened with the tomahawks during the libya conflict, i suspect that they are probably running with no missiles or maybe a couple max.
Or like HMS Westminster with just 4 Seawolf in the same. Ok, the threat might have been minimal but the nature of war is unpredictable and we would have been caught in a tight spot if the worst happened.
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