Morocco boosts its military fleet

Morocco continues to make significant efforts to further equip its armed forces. 

The Moroccan Navy is obviously also included in the planning and the objective is to acquire advanced military vessels to strengthen the military muscle of the Moroccan kingdom. 

Among this new equipment are three French corvettes and an Italian-Galician-built frigate of the FREMM class. The multi-role FREMM frigates (in French Frégate multi-mission or in Italian Fregata Europea Multi-Missione) are vessels designed by the French semi-public shipbuilding company Naval Group DCNS and the Italian Fincantieri to operate in anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and anti-ship missions in different versions and to be capable of carrying out deep strikes against targets on land. 

In addition, according to military sources quoted by media outlets such as Telexpresse, Morocco is also seeking to add a Russian Amur-type submarine to its fleet for the Ksar Al-Saghir naval base, an infrastructure built more than ten years ago at an investment of 1.39 billion dirham (127 million euros). The Ksar Sghir base is located next to the civilian commercial port of Tangier-Med and was once the fourth base of the Royal Moroccan Navy. 

The newspaper El Confidencial reported on the intention to incorporate a Russian Amur-class submarine. A fifth-generation model equipped with autonomous air systems, Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP) technology, which makes it possible to reduce oxygen consumption and increase underwater immersion time. 

According to Russian military sources, the Amur submarine is designed for the destruction of submarines, surface vessels, ships, land-based objects and for reconnaissance. The AIP version has a length of 83.3 metres, a diameter of 7.4 metres, a maximum submerged depth of 400 metres with a speed of 19 knots and a submerged range of 2,000 miles at a speed of 5 knots. In addition, the autonomy is 60 days with the capacity to hold up to 38 crew members, 6 launch tubes and a storage capacity for 18 missiles, torpedoes and mines. 

There is also another possibility that was already raised in 2017, which is the sale of used submarines from the Greek Navy, for the training of modern submarine crews. 

Morocco aims to strengthen its regional presence and influence to match other powers such as Algeria, which has the largest army in the Maghreb. The Moroccan kingdom continues to position itself as a key player in maintaining regional security in the face of existing extremist threats and the instability caused by geopolitical tensions in the region. 

Within this dynamic, Morocco has boosted its military profile by improving its arsenal in recent years, with equipment such as modernised F-16 fighters, Lockheed Martin F-35s, advanced missiles, US-modified Abraham battle tanks and state-of-the-art US- and Israeli-made drones.