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French frigate Lamotte-Picquet (D645)

La Motte-Picquet
History
France
Name: La Motte-Picquet
Namesake: Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte
Builder: Brest arsenal
Laid down: 12 February 1982
Launched: 6 February 1985
Commissioned: 18 February 1988
Status: in active service
General characteristics
Class and type: Georges Leygues-class frigate
Displacement:
  • 3,550 t (3,494 long tons)
  • 4,500 t (4,429 long tons) full load
Length: 139 m (456 ft 0 in)
Beam: 14 m (45 ft 11 in)
Height: 39.36 m (129 ft 2 in)
Draught: 5.8 m (19 ft 0 in)
Propulsion:
Speed:
  • 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) on gas turbines
  • 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph) on diesels
Range:
  • 1,000 nmi (1,900 km; 1,200 mi) at 30 kn (56 km/h; 35 mph) on gas turbines
  • 10,000 nmi (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph) on diesels
Complement:
  • 20 officers
  • 120 non-commissioned officers
  • 95 men
Sensors and
processing systems:
  • Detection:
  • 1 Air/surface sentry radar DRBV51C
  • 1 Air sentry radar DRBV 26
  • 1 Fire control radar DRBC 32E
  • 2 Navigation radar KH 1007
  • 1 Hull sonar DUBV 23
  • 1 Towed sonar DUBV 43C
  • Tactical information:
  • SENIT 4
  • SEAO/OPSMER
Electronic warfare
& decoys:
  • 2 Radar interceptors ARBR 16
  • 2 × Syllex chaff launchers
Armament:
  • Anti-air:
  • 1 × Crotale EDIR system - 8 missiles on launcher + 18 stored
  • 2 × Simbad systems - 2 × 2 Mistral missiles
  • 1 × CADAM 100 mm main gun
  • 2 × 20 mm guns
  • 4 × 12.7 mm machine guns
  • Anti-surface:
  • 4 × Exocet MM38 missiles
  • Anti-submarine:
  • 10 × L5 Mod4 torpedoes
  • 2 × L5 torpedo launchers
Aircraft carried:
  • 2 × Lynx WG13 Mk.4 helicopters, each with:
  • 1 × DUAV4 sonar
  • Rheseda system for transmission of acoustic data
  • 12 × Mark 46 torpedoes

La Motte-Picquet is a F70 type anti-submarine frigate of the French Navy. She is the fourth French vessel named after the 18th Century admiral count Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte. As of January 2012 she is serving in the Persian Gulf.

On 22 August 2007, she took custody of the Danish freighter Danica White which had been captured by pirates on 3 June.

She left Brest on 9 November 2011 for active duty in the Indian Ocean and was refuelled by the US replenishment ship USNS Patuxent on 10 January 2012. On 22 January she passed through the Straits of Hormuz with the British frigate HMS Argyll and a US battlegroup centred on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

In November 2015, a French Navy press release stated that La Motte-Picquet will be part of the Charles de Gaulle task force launching strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant starting January 2016.

In March 2016, La Motte-Picquet shadowed the Russian destroyer Vice-Admiral Kulakov, an oiler and a tugboat as it passed near French waters.


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