Mistral ships won’t be delivered to Russia Nov. 14 – French Defense Minister

Well, it looks like the US and NATO is trying to play "big brother " and stopping the shipment of the Mistral Ships .

anyone else see the dirty games here ?

my Question is Why ? this is only going to escalate things .

to be quite Honest , i used to have a Pro US stance with this whole Russia /US silent war. but now i am not so sure .

How do you guys feel ? i mean i see they are both in a pissing contest ,but who is more the aggressor here ?

your thoughts ?

France hasn’t yet fixed a date for delivery of the first of two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia (scheduled for November 14), the French defense minister said. If France doesn’t deliver due to US and NATO pressure, it will have to pay a huge forfeit.

"No delivery date can be fixed at this stage," Jean-Yves Le Drian, the country’s defense minister told the National Assembly, the lower house of France’s Parliament.

"The president of the Republic has said that a definitive decision will come at the right moment, taking into account all the responsibilities that come with this decision, which is not a simple one," he added.

Moscow and Paris signed a €1.12 billion ($1.6 billion) deal to build two Mistral helicopter carriers in June 2011. The contract says that Russia was supposed to receive the first of the two warships, the Vladivostok, in October 2014.

Delivery, however, has been postponed due to the conflict in Ukraine and pressure applied by the US and EU on France to cancel the contract.

Western allies have been pushing Paris for months, saying that France has to make sacrifices to meet its commitment to oppose Moscow through sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine.

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a reply to: Walsh

It's not so bad for Russia since there were quite a few outrages between residents because of the costs of Mistral ships. Now Russia will get its money back with interests and penalties. It's all in the contract. The biggest loser in all of this is France and French will be furious because of this.

Well now Russia knows not not to do business with the treacherous spineless French government again.Always better to be self-sufficient,I am sure Russia will manage on her own.All lessons are valuable.a reply to: Walsh

a reply to: Walsh

Sorry but I agree with france on this.

If you own a gun shop you dont sell a gun to a local thug thats started terroizing your neighbours in case he turns that gun on you!

Well in that case I sure hope France has never sold weapons of any kind to,or aided in any military capacity,the US government or the state of Israel.a reply to: crazyewok

I hear Canada is looking at purchasing them. The French will only be out the penalties for not delivering.

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: Walsh

Sorry but I agree with france on this.

If you own a gun shop you dont sell a gun to a local thug thats started terroizing your neighbours in case he turns that gun on you!

Yeah, but in this case France will be buying new Mistral ships for Russia.

... the penalty for non-delivery of the two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia could reach $ 3 billion.

Russia paid $ 1,6 billion for two ships. Now they will get their money back and enough money to build 4 new ships and French are buying them for Russia. Bad deal for France, I would say.

a reply to: intrepid

It'd be great if Canada could get these. Our military is a bit behind in case of a new WW.

a reply to: swanne

If we honestly had to go back to war mode we would be churning out war machines left and right.

There is a lot of factories in Canada that are equiped to build weapons of war. And many factories can be reassembled as such.

I'd just rather not.

We don't need another depression with conscription. That sucked for our grandparents for sure.

a reply to: AnuTyr

I think that these ships, which we need, are a better investment than the F-35's that we don't.

a reply to: baburak the US must have france by both oinons for them to delay delivery of these ships to Russia which is gonna piss putin right off, notice how I say US and not nato

a reply to: intrepid

If they were to get them they'd be best served to switch from A to B F-35s and fly some of them off the ship. Train the pilots with the US LHA and LHD crews, and learn how to operate them.

I've also heard Australia is looking for new assault ships and might be interested in these as well.

a reply to: ryan2010

I seriously doubt that. France has never had a problem telling Uncle Sam where to stuff...... You have to understand that France shares a continent with countries that are being threatened by Russia. It's more of an EU thing.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: intrepid

If they were to get them they'd be best served to switch from A to B F-35s and fly some of them off the ship. Train the pilots with the US LHA and LHD crews, and learn how to operate them.

Win/win.

I've also heard Australia is looking for new assault ships and might be interested in these as well.

Pretty sure we have deeper pockets.

Mind you they may need a little tweeking. We don't understand Cyrillic all that well.

originally posted by: intrepid
I hear Canada is looking at purchasing them. The French will only be out the penalties for not delivering.

I hear they are pretty good ships.

a reply to: intrepid I never looked at it like that intrepid, you may be right but I just feel that nato is the face of the US

a reply to: intrepid

Australia is actually looking to Japan from what I've heard, and are reportedly interested in the new Izumo class Japan is building. They have two of the Canberra class on order, with one completed, and the Izumo would fit in nicely with them, if they decided to go with more. It's a little bit longer, at 248m at the deck, which equates to a total of 28 aircraft for the Izumo, compared to 18 for the Canberra.

It will be interesting to see if Canada goes for them, if France chooses to cancel the order outright. Then see if anyone in the Canadian government is smart enough to turn them into assault ships, or leaves them ASW ships. They won't be able to take off at MTOW, but they'd be able to take off with a useful payload on board.

originally posted by: AnuTyr
We don't need another depression with conscription. That sucked for our grandparents for sure.

Sure, but if the alternative is the invasion of Russian forces?

I'm a pacifist, and I know my history. Depression is a walk in the park compared to military invasion.

I pray that Canada does not buy them.

I am sure they are fantastic ships for their purpose, but they are not ships that Canada needs now.

We have glaring deficiencies throughout our military, and assault ships are now where even close to the top of the list.