PPA - PATTUGLIATORI POLIVALENTI D’ALTURA

The PPA Programme is an innovative Multipurpose Patrol Ship Programme for Italy. PPA characteristics meet the Italian concept of “Multi-Purpose by Design”, a model, shared with the NATO Community, that will allow  these ships to be able to cope with dynamic and complex scenarios, as well as to carry out many profiles of operations.
These units, fully interoperable with NATO and EU partners, will be more versatile than the present generation of ships, benefiting from an extensive use of the modularity concept. They are conceived, since the beginning of the design phase, with enhanced “dual use” features, fit for all military tasks and able to intervene also during peace time, supporting Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Assistance Operations.

The PPA will have a smaller environmental footprint, by further reducing the polluting emissions, also by adopting new generation bio fuel and electric propulsion. Some characteristics deserve a special mention: high flexibility and level of innovation, very high speed, long endurance, resilience and seaworthiness, manoeuvrability, modularity, high level of integration and automation, in other words better suited to face the challenges of the 21st century. PPAs will be able to be rapidly deployed at long distances in a broad spectrum of emergency situations, becoming the backbone of the Italian Navy.
The PPA Programme includes Development and Production of 7 ships and the In Service Support for ten years. Based on a common platform, PPAs will be delivered in three configurations with incremental capabilities:

• LIGHT (2 ships): this version has a complete set of artillery;
• LIGHT PLUS (3 ships): version similar to ‘LIGHT’ but adds a missile firing capability with actuators planned also for ballistic missile defence; and
• FULL (2 ships): able to carry out tasks in all warfare areas such as Anti-Air (AAW), Anti-Surface (ASuW) and Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW).

LIGHT and LIGHT PLUS have been developed with the “fitted for” approach: every system on the FULL can quickly be deployed also on LIGHT and LIGHT PLUS, facilitating operational flexibility and growing capabilities during the Ships life.

The delivery of the First of Class, in Light configuration, is planned in 2021 and 2024 for the first in Full configuration (FOC F).

The PPA Programme was integrated into OCCAR in 2015.