NAVY ARSENAL – Explanatory Memorandum
Authors: V.Am.(rtr) C.S.I Dr. Eng. Ion Plaviciosu, C.Am of the fleet(rtr) Dr. Eng. Constantin Rusu-Admirals’ Club
The Navy Arsenal is an organizational structure designed to build and modernize ships belonging to the Navy, ensure preventive and corrective maintenance of ships, installations, and weapons on board, ensuring the training of various categories of weapons that require it, providing spare parts and installations necessary for the operation of ships, as well as keeping them ready for use in their own warehouses. In short, it maintains the operational capacity of the Navy at the highest levels.
The military fleets of nations with access to the sea usually also have facilities representing high-tech production capacities designed to maintain the operational capacity of combat ships and coastal protection means. Economically developed countries, such as the US, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Germany, etc., are investing heavily in the development of war fleets, naval weapons, communications systems, modern AI-based systems for target detection, classification, and strike capabilities, and the development of logistical support, as the Navy is an essential means of protecting economic and geopolitical interests.
The existence of a Naval Arsenal in Romania would be to our country’s advantage in discussions on the establishment of the European Maritime Security Center based in Constanta, as one of the EU’s key military infrastructures in this area, intended for the protection and safety of maritime routes and navigation, the protection of critical naval infrastructure, the combating of hybrid or asymmetric threats, and the increase of the capacity to respond to third-party aggression.
The establishment of the Navy Arsenal can be financially supported under the SAFE program, through which our country receives, on favorable terms, €16.68 billion in funding, part of which is allocated to strengthening the defense industry and investments in priority capabilities related to the protection of NATO’s eastern flank. The SAFE mechanism also provides, among other things, for the financing of investments in technological and industrial defense bases.
The Navy Arsenal, which has been part of the Romanian Navy for a long time under various names, has a rich and long tradition and remarkable achievements.
Thus, in 1864, the Shipyard Arsenal was established, which became the Fleet Arsenal in 1870 and, in 1889, the Navy Arsenal, contributing to the Navy’s equipment through the construction of ships and the production of naval armaments, supporting the war effort in both world wars in which our country was involved.
In 1956, the Navy Industrial Group was established, namely the Mangalia Shipyard, which began its activity with a staff of 2 officers and 12 civilian employees, becoming, after successive developments, in the 1980s, a powerful industrial unit with 2,400 employees capable of performing complex repairs on ships and on-board combat equipment, as well as building new ships for the Navy.
Between 1977 and 1989, S. N. Mangalia built and delivered to the Navy: 18 first and second generation armored river patrol boats, 12 large torpedo boats (with 4 torpedo tubes), 2 mine layers, the deep-sea diving vessel “Grigore Antipa,” the light helicopter cruiser “Muntenia,” 4 large submarine hunters, project 1048, 2 large submarine hunters, project 1048M, 5 third-generation armored river patrol boats, 6 floating barracks, 6 300 HP towing and rescue boats, two 200 tf floating docks, engineering equipment (pontoons mounted on SR 120, Bucegi and MAN truck chassis, and associated towing boats). Starting in 1977, major repairs and modernization of the basic dredgers (4 units), project 780, and the harbor dredgers (6 units) began. For the MM Diving Center, two diving boats were built on torpedo boat hulls on wings and two diving boats on the hull of the pr. 0111C maritime patrol vessel.
In 1986, the expansion phase of SN Mangalia began, which included the construction of a 5000 tf floating dock with vertical immersion at the site, the installation of reinforcement platforms for the floating dock, 5 quay cranes; 12 and 24 tf, a mechanical machining section, a carpentry hall, and a ship hull assembly and construction section.
After 1990, against the backdrop of systemic crises in Romania and a lack of orders from the Ministry of National Defense, S.N. Mangalia entered a process of rapid decline in production capacity, so that it currently has only about 40 employees, and part of the production assets and land owned by the shipyard have been sold or transferred to settle debts to the state budget.
Under these circumstances, in order to ensure the development of the Navy and increase its combat capability, it is considered that the creation and operation of a permanent naval arsenal structure with extensive responsibilities in carrying out activities related to the construction of new military ships with modern NATO-compatible equipment, the development and operation of weapons systems and technology on board ships, and the modernization of existing technology.
To this end, the arsenal must have structures in its organizational chart dedicated to research activities in the fields of technology development and modernization, weapons and naval ammunition ensuring preventive and corrective maintenance of ships and equipment on board, as well as for the creation and storage of stocks of materials and combat equipment that constitute the reserve for maintaining the operational readiness of military ships in service during campaigns, the creation and maintenance of the fleet of ships that will form the operational reserve of the Navy, the activity of maintaining the physical fields (magnetic, acoustic, thermal) of the combat ships in service at optimal parameters, maintenance and periodic verification of naval ammunition to keep it in permanent working order.
With the exception of Damen-Galati, all of the country’s shipyards have been privatized and no longer have the specific technologies required for the construction and equipping of military vessels, and are no longer a valid resource for equipping the navy.
In view of the above and the existence of financial opportunities for the development and modernization of the Navy’s equipment, we bring to the attention of decision-makers interested in the development of the Romanian Navy, a force category at the forefront of maritime confrontation with a potential adversary and in the vicinity of a war at the border, the need to establish a Navy Arsenal.
Initially, the arsenal could consist of a core formed by the S. N. Mangalia structure with the participation of the Naval Scientific Research Center and the Constanta Maintenance Center.
V.Am.(rtr) C.S.I. Dr. Eng. Ion Plaviciosu
C.Am. of the fleet (rtr) Dr. Eng. Constantin Rusu