French frigate La Motte-Picquet

La Motte-Picquet was a F70 type anti-submarine frigate of the French Navy. She was the fourth French vessel named after the 18th Century admiral count Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte. As of January 2012^[update] she was serving in the Persian Gulf. The ship was decommissioned in October 2020.^[3]

Service history

On 22 August 2007, she took custody of the Danish freighter Danica White which had been captured by pirates on 3 June.

She left Brest on 9 November 2011 for active duty in the Indian Ocean and was refuelled by the US replenishment ship USNS Patuxent on 10 January 2012.^[4] On 22 January she passed through the Straits of Hormuz with the British frigate HMS Argyll and a US battlegroup centred on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.^[5]

In November 2015, a French Navy press release stated that La Motte-Picquet will be part of the Charles de Gaulle task force launching strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant starting January 2016.^[6]

In March 2016, La Motte-Picquet shadowed the Russian destroyer Vice-Admiral Kulakov, an oiler and a tugboat as it passed near French waters.^[7]

In April 2016, La Motte-Picquet was part of the Anglo-French CJEF exercise.^[8]

The F70 type frigates are equipped with a Variable Depth Sonar type DUBV43 or DUBV43C.
Operational Center of La Motte-Picquet (7 February 2001).
Gunnery crew of La Motte-Picquet, in front of the Crotale anti-air missile launcher
Shooting exercises with an ANF1, from the bridge.
WEAPONS crew of La Motte-Picquet.
Patch of La Motte Picquet.
La Motte-Picquet in Cobh, Ireland, 12 June 2014.
La Motte-Picquet in Cobh, Ireland, 12 June 2014.

^ "La Motte-Picquet : Dernière cérémonie des couleurs à Brest". 15 October 2020.
^ "Georges Leygues class anti-submarine destroyer Type F70 ASM ASW Anti-submarine Frigates Frégates anti-sous-marines FASM D640 D641 D642 D643 D644 D645 D646 DUBV-43 DSBV-61 Marine Nationale French Navy DCNS datasheet pictures photos video specifications".
^ "La Motte-Picquet : Dernière cérémonie des couleurs à Brest". 15 October 2020.
^ "Un pétrolier américain ravitaille la frégate La Motte-Picquet". French Ministry of Defence. 11 January 2012.
^ Stringer, David (24 January 2012). "UK could send more navy assets to Strait of Hormuz". Associated Press.^{[dead link]}
^ "Mission Arromanches 2 : Déploiment du GAN en Méditerranée orientale et dans l'Océan Indien". colsbleus.fr (in French). 18 November 2015. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
^ "HMS Somerset's tsar turn as she spends Easter monitoring Russian task group". Royal Navy. 30 March 2016. Archived from the original on 10 April 2016. Retrieved 31 March 2016.
^ "UK and France launch rapid deployment exercise". Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom). 10 April 2016. Retrieved 10 April 2016.