Denmark recently retired all three of that nation's Niels Juel-class missile corvettes. The ships' retirement in mid-August marked the end of service for three very capable and well-armed warships that had served the fleet well since the early 1980s. The trio-Niels Juel, Olfert Fischer, and Peter Tordenskiold, pictured here-were built by Alborg Vaerft, in Alborg, Denmark. After the ships' most recent modernizations, completed between 1998 and 2000, the class was able to carry up to eight Harpoon antiship missiles along with vertical-launched Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missiles, depth charges, a 76-mm gun, and multiple 12.7-mm machine guns. With a complement of 18 officers and 73 enlisted crewmembers, the ships displaced 1,320 tons fully loaded. The Niels Juel class is expected to be replaced in service by the far larger, 6,000-ton Iver Huitfeldt-class frigates, also known as the Flexible Patrol Ship class. These new ships will likely enter service between 2012 and 2014, and are to be named Iver Huitfeldt, Peter Willemoes, and Niels Juel.
During late August 2009, the Vorovskiy, a Krivak-III-class patrol frigate, became the first Russian Border Guard vessel to pay a visit to the continental United States. Built in the Ukraine and commissioned into service on 29 December 1990, the Vorovskiy is the youngest Border Guard member of the her class, known as Project 11351BPB in Russia. The frigate, pictured here, made the visit while participating in Pacific Unity, a three-day multi-national training scenario off Port Angeles, Washington, which involved coast guard forces from Canada, Japan, and the United States. Participants came from member nations of the North Pacific Coast Guard Forum, an international partnership of Coast Guard-like agencies from Japan, Russia, China, South Korea, Canada, and the United States that brings humanitarian professionals together to train on aids to navigation, search and rescue, and maritime security operations.
In a move that may signal a more active role for Israeli military forces in future NATO maritime operations, Israel's government this August approved the participation of an Israeli warship in NATO's operation Active Endeavor. The operation, which evolved from NATO's immediate response to the 9/11 attacks, is designed to help detect and deter terrorist activity in the Mediterranean Sea. In previous years an Israeli naval liaison officer has been assigned to NATO's Allied Maritime Component Command in Naples, Italy. With the decision to contribute a yet-to-be-named Israeli warship to the operation, Israel and NATO seem to be signaling their mutual desire to maintain and improve future cooperation in the Mediterranean. Lower levels of Israeli collaboration with NATO nations is nothing new, however, and this past summer warships from Turkey, the United States, and Israel, including that country's Sa'ar V-class corvette Lahav, pictured here, took part in Reliant Mermaid X, a search-and-rescue exercise in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.