Meanwhile, off the HoA
Here we see the Spanish Navy replenishment oiler ESPS Patiño (A14) providing refueling at sea for EUNAVFOR Flagship, the Italian Navy frigate ITS Carlo Margottini (F592), in support of counter-piracy and maritime security patrolling duties, April 2018.
A 17,000-ton offshoot of the HNLMS Amsterdam of the Royal Netherlands Navy, Patiño was commissioned in 1995 and has been very busy– enforcing the NATO/WEU trade embargo against the former Yugoslavia and during the Kosovo War in 1998, capturing the North Korean freighter So San and her cargo of Scud missiles bound for Yemen in 2002, and several times serving in the anti-piracy operations off Somalia to include repelling an armed attack on her by seven pirates in a trawler in 2012.
Margottini, a Bergamini-class FREMM-type multipurpose frigate of the Marina Militare, was commissioned in 2014. A score of FREMMs are in commission or on order for the French, Italian, Moroccan and Egyptian navies, while the U.S. is considering the type for its new frigate program, so you could very well see these 6,700-ton warships operating in haze gray soon.
The ships are assigned to the European Union Naval Force (Op Atalanta) Somalia, conducting anti-piracy duties at sea off the Horn of Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean. Since 2009, Atalanta ships have protected 437 World Food Programme (WFP) and 139 African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)-chartered humanitarian aide vessels without losing one to pirates yet.
