Chevalier Paul is a of the French Marine Nationale commissioned in June 2009, the third vessel of the French Navy named after the 17th century admiral Chevalier Paul. The main mission of this type of ship is the escort and protection of a carrier strike group formed around an aircraft carrier, usually or one of the aircraft carriers of the US Navy, or an amphibious operation carried out by amphibious helicopter carriers. The ship's specialty is air traffic control in a war zone, but it can be employed in a wide variety of missions, such as intelligence-gathering, special forces operations, or in protecting less well-armed vessels. Horizon-class frigates such as Chevalier Paul are the most powerful surface combatants that France has ever built. In service since the end of 2011, it bears the pennant number D621. Its namesake is Jean-Paul de Saumeur, better known as Chevalier Paul, a French naval officer born in Marseille in 1598.
Nantes is the godmother city of Chevalier Paul since 17 March 2012.
Design and description
Aster missile
Aster missiles are the main weapon system of Chevalier Paul. The ship is equipped with 32 Aster 30 missiles and 16 Aster 15 missiles, housed in vertical silos of the Sylver A50 type, located on the foredeck. A main anti-air missile system (PAAMS), combined with an EMPAR multifunction radar operating in C-band, controls launch and target tracking.
The first launch of an Aster 30 against a target from sister ship Forbin took place in November 2008 at Toulon. It was the first fire of this machine since a frigate. The previous Aster 30 launches from the sea were carried out from a British barge and the Italian test ship Carabiniere. The missile was fired at an aerial target from the evolving building off the DGA's Le Levant test and launch center . The Aster 30 missiles of the air defense frigate are the second bulwark of protection of the carrier strike group, after the Rafale fighters, and provide 360° protection at a distance of 100 kilometers against aircraft and 30 kilometers against grazing and maneuvering anti-ship anti-ship missiles in service or in development. The French Navy has shown with the frigate Forbin its capacity to destroy a supersonic missile ( 3,000 km / h ) maneuvering ( SS-N-22, AS-17, BrahMos ) and at an altitude of less than 5 meters above water by shooting down a GQM-163 Coyote.
Exocet MM40 Block 3C
Chevalier Paul embarks eight sea-sea Exocet missiles installed on the upper deck amidships. The most recent version MM40 Block 3C of the Exocet missile was selected. It can operate at a distance of more than 180 kilometers from its objective.
Others
thumb|left|upright|Twin [[OTO Melara 76 mm turrets on Chevalier Paul]]
Two turrets with fully automated OTO-Melara 76 mm cannon, controlled from Central Operations, with a rate of fire of 60 to 120 rounds per minute. Each turret, weighing 5.5 tonnes, is gyro-stabilized, in order to maintain the point-of-aim, despite the movements of the ship. It has a magazine containing 60 shells which can be refilled in real time by crew members moving ammunition from the main ammunition compartment via an elevator. More than 1,000 shells of different types (land, surface, or anti-aircraft) are stored, with a maximum range of 13 kilometers against surface targets, and 2 manual guns of 20 mm mod. replaced in 2018 by 3 Narwhal 20 mm automatic cannons.
Service history
thumb|Chevalier Paul at [[Valparaiso]]
Chevalier Paul was launched by DCN at Lorient on 12 July 2006. She is a sister ship to . Chevalier Pauls first trip to the sea took place in November 2007. Two years later, the Navy accepted the ship into service. This ship was approved by the French Navy in December 2008 and is based in the military port of Toulon. On 5 May 2009, the four Horizon-class frigates of the French and Italian navies met off La Spezia, Italy. Chevalier Paul remained moored there until 7 May in the evening.
The ship made the first launch of an MM40 Block 3 missile by a French Navy ship on 17 March 2010. It made its first long-term crossing from 18 March 2010, which ended in mid-July/ Chevalier Paul sailed to the North Sea and briefly participated in the NATO exercise Brillant Mariner (12 to 22 April 2011), which also involves the aircraft carrier and . Then the frigate crossed the Atlantic to reach the United States and Canada, before sailing south to the Caribbean, stopping over in Mexico and crossing the Panama Canal. She then began a tour of South America and arrived in Rio de Janeiro in June 2011. Chevalier Paul then re-crossed the Atlantic to reach Morocco and in mid-July, returned to the naval base of Toulon.
Chevalier Paul was admitted to active service on 10 June 2011, when the ship was engaged three days later in Operation Harmattan, the French contribution to the 2011 military intervention in Libya.
On 29 August 2013, Chevalier Paul left Toulon. Some reports claimed she had been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean in response to the Syrian Civil War, but the navy authorities declined to confirm she was heading for Syria. From 13 to 26 October 2014, the frigate took part in the large international operational exercise Catamaran 2014 that practiced an amphibious assault. In November 2015, a French Navy press release stated that Chevalier Paul was to be part of the Charles de Gaulle task force launching strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The ship was a component of the Charles de Gaulle Carrier Strike Group, which left Toulon on 13 January for a mission of approximately five months and engaged for eight weeks in the Persian Gulf.
On 18 November 2015, Charles de Gaulle set sail and joined its carrier strike group, of which Chevalier Paul is a member. It also consisted of the , the , the British destroyer , the supply ship , and a nuclear attack submarine.
On 6 July 2016, following Operation Arromanches 2 in the eastern Mediterranean, the frigate received the Belgian military cross.
thumb|Chevalier Paul with an aircraft carrier in the [[Mediterranean Sea]]
In May 2017, Chevalier Paul completed its intermediate technical stop which saw the replacement of the two 76 mm turrets named "Hercule" and "Licorne".
Coronavirus pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, on 15 April 2020, the Ministry of Armed Forces reported that, out of the 1,767 tests conducted on the members of the carrier battle group led by , 668 returned positive.