Mistral is an easy-to-scupper and warm-weather ferry – documentation analysis

22.11.2010 Amphibious assault landing ship Mistral represents a common passenger/freight ferry which is built under obsolete technology and does not suit Russian Navy without principal re-designing. Russian shipbuilders can develop a project similar to Mistral in a year. That was opinion of Russian experts who familiarized with the ship and her documentation while Mistral's visit to St. Petersburg.

Mistral is designed in accordance with performance specifications for civil ferries, so the ship does not meet Russian Navy's requirements to hull strength. The hull is not resistant to nuclear blast waves and proximate underwater bursts. Its fastness to ice does not comply with severe Russian climate either. Explosion-and-fire safety of stored aircraft fuel suits only requirements of French Navy but not the Russian one. The carrier's hangar deck doesn't fit our coaxial-rotor helicopters; Russian landing craft cannot pass through Mistral's docking chamber. Landing on unequipped coast is impossible. The shipborne armament is weak and needs strengthening. Russian and French radio aids are not compatible. Those are only few of expert conclusions become available to the Central Navy Portal.

We recall that Russian Navy's closed tender for helicopter carriers has been finished early Nov; French Mistral is considered the tender favorite. Russia's United Shipbuilding Corporation, French, Spanish, German, and S Korean companies submitted to compete in the tender. The winner will be named late in the current month.