After loss to French firm, Lockheed eyes combat system, corvette deals with Greeks – Breaking Defense Breaking Defense

WASHINGTON: While the Greek government has moved forward with a French company for the core of its new frigate program, Lockheed Martin is continuing to eye business with the Mediterranean nation for combat systems upgrades and potentially a corvette.

The Greeks had been in discussions with the US as well as a handful of European countries in pursuit of a future frigate, dubbed the Hellenic Frigate. Analysts told Breaking Defense last summer Lockheed, which was offering an adapted version of its Multi-Mission Surface Combatant, was facing stiff competition.

In September the Greek government announced it would pursue a deal with the Naval Group out of France. Then in December the State Department authorized $9.4 billion in foreign military sales to the Greek government. Roughly $6.9 billion would have come from Lockheed’s ship offering, but $2.5 billion remain in weapons upgrades and ship modernization, according to the State Department. Those sales remain up for grabs.

“The Hellenic naval modernization has a lot of parts to it,” Joe DePietro, an executive at Lockheed Martin, told Breaking Defense during the Surface Navy Association symposium last week. “It had a frigate requirement. It had an upgrade to their Hydra class, which is a MEKO-based ship, a midlife upgrade, if you will, to those ships.”

That modernization could include improved electronic warfare capabilities, greater integration of the MH-60R helicopters and the COMBATSS-21 Combat Management System. Formal negotiations between governments for some of these upgrades are expected to begin in the coming weeks, he added.

DePietro also said the Greeks have expressed interest in a corvette program, a ship he said might look like “Littoral Comat Ship plus or even lite MMSC,” referring to Lockheed’s Multi-Mission Surface Combatant. A corvette is a smaller warship generally defined as being between 500 tons and 2,000 tons.

“The [formal capabilities request] doesn’t specifically ask for that but based on the meetings that we’ve had, they’re talking about corvettes. They’ve asked Lockheed Martin about them while we’re in country and they’re talking to several other countries and vendors about potential corvettes for the future,” he said.