Cmdr. Giuseppe Lai, commanding officer of the Italian Navy’s FREMM-class frigate Carlo Margottini, and anti-submarine warfare officer Lt. Riccardo Rossi, discuss their ship’s capabilities, specifications, special features and much more during a wide-ranging, March 2018 interview and ship tour with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian. The interview and tour were conducted during the 2018 Doha International Maritime and Defence Exhibition and Conference in Qatar, where our coverage was sponsored by DIMDEX 2018. The Margottini is a sister ship of the Alpino, which is visiting Boston, Baltimore, New York and Norfolk this month to showcase its capabilities to US Navy leaders as they assess proposals for a new multi-mission frigate. Co-developed by Italy and France, the Fincantieri dream is built by Fincanteri, which is competing for the US frigate award against variants of the two littoral combat ships now in Navy service — one by Lockheed Martin with Fincantieri and the other by Austal with General Dynamics — a design by Huntington Ingalls and an American version of Spain’s F100 frigate being bid by a team composed of GD’s Bath Iron Works with Spain’s Navantia. The visit aboard Margottini came before Fincantieri and Huntington Ingalls Industries sponsored our coverage of the Navy League’s recent Sea-Air-Space conference and trade show.
