Launch of first Saudi MMSC announced

HMS Saud on the ship lift at Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin. (Saudi Ministry of Defence)

The first of four frigates being built for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF) under the Tuwaiq programme has been launched, the Saudi Ministry of Defence announced on 16 December.

It released a video showing HMS Saud (820) being rolled out of a construction shed at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin and being loaded on to the ship lift without its mast fitted, but not entering the water.

The video showed the ship had been fitted with its mast by the time RSNF Chief-of-Staff Lieutenant General Mohammed Abdulrahman al-Gharibi attended its naming ceremony at the yard on 13 December.

Fincantieri Marine Group revealed on 29 October that the ship it refers to as Multi-Mission Surface Combatant 1 (MMSC-1) had been taken out of the construction shed two days earlier.

The US Navy International Programs Office (NIPO) released photographs on 3 December showing the vessel on the ship lift with its mast fitted. It then announced on 15 December that a launch ceremony had been held for MMSC-1.

The event took place nearly six years after the steel cutting for MMSC-1 was announced in November 2019.

The MMSC design is based on the US Navy's Freedom-class littoral combat ship with an increased range of 5,000 n miles and the addition of Harpoon Block II anti-ship missiles and a Mk 41 vertical launch system for Evolved SeaSparrow surface-to-air missiles.

For more information, please see Special Report: Saudi Arabia's Multi-Mission Surface Combatant sails a slow course .