Tag Archives: Charles de Gaulle

Bon chance!

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While the Mississippi Dixiecrat lawmaker John C. Stennis and the founder of the Fifth Republic of France Charles de Gaulle probably wouldn’t have played well together in many cases, their namesake modern nuclear-powered supercarriers seem to do just fine.

A great series of images were released this week from a passing exercise held Monday (15APR), where the John C. Stennis (CVN 74) Strike Group/Carrier Strike Group 3 was able to maneuver and cooperate with the French Marine Nationale’s Charles de Gaulle Carrier Strike Group in the Red Sea. Commanded by Rear Adm. Olivier Lebas (Fr) and Rear Adm. Michael Wettlaufer (USN), besides the two carriers their escorts included the guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul (DDG 74), and the guided-missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay (CG 53) on the U.S. side, and the French air defense destroyer FS Forbin (D 620) along with the attached Royal Danish Navy frigate HDMS Niels Juel (F 363) accompanying De Gaulle. (Below U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Joshua L. Leonard and Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Skyler Okerman)

Enjoy!

Note the spread of U.S. and French E-2 Hawkeyes as bookends, sandwiching F-18Es and Dassault Rafale Ms. Of note, while De Gaulle was in her refit over the past several years, the French worked up on U.S. carriers, so there is a lot of common knowledge between the two forces

 

Vive de Gaulle!

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Here we see a splendid image of the 42,000-ton 858-foot long French nuclear-powered carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91). She is the flagship of the French Navy (Marine Nationale) and the largest Western European warship. Although France has had nine other carriers since the old Béarn back in the 1920s, this ship is by far the largest warship ever placed into service to the Republic (having both a longer length and higher standard displacement than the two Richelieu-class battleships of WWII, although those ships had a marginally greater full load displacement)

She took more than 15 years to build, but the French love her, having sent her in harms way to have her air-arm deployed over Afghanistan no less than four different times supporting NATO operations. Then in 2011 she flew more than 1,350 sorties from her deck over Libya.

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