Does the Navy really only have 63 missiles?
According to Il Foglio, Minister Crosetto revealed the number of missiles available to the Italian Navy: just 63. Is this really the case? Facts, numbers and insights in Francis Walsingham's letter
Dear director,
I have a doubt.
This morning, while I wasn't having breakfast – you get old when you lose your appetite, they say – I was leafing through Il Foglio and my gaze fell on a headline: Crosetto alarmed: "Our Navy only has 63 missiles" . My stomach tightened, which luckily was empty. Has the Minister of Defense, who has been dealing with defense for decades, publicly revealed information of this type, which should be kept very secret?
This is how Il Foglio reconstructs the story, which took place – or so I understand, given that there are no clear space-time references – during the Minister's hearing in the Defense Committee last November:
“And to think that our Navy only has 63 missiles.” A few days ago Guido Crosetto during a Defense commission let slip this numerical reflection which struck a chord with everyone present. Words accompanied by a certain movement of worried resignation. The minister was commenting on what happened in recent weeks in the Red Sea, when the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner destroyed some drones launched from areas controlled by the Houthi rebels in Yemen. For the occasion, the United States Navy dropped around eighty missiles. A very powerful rain of fire, a demonstration of strength. “And we instead only have 63 missiles,” was Crosetto's comment.
I have a doubt, dear director. Who made the fool (it was actually a very serious thing, but let's keep things low-key: the new year has just begun)? It was Il Foglio , reporting statements never made by the minister; or was it Crosetto, lightly blurting out secrets that should remain secrets?
I really don't know what to think. But I want to be cautious and give the benefit of the doubt to the minister: such a slip is really too big to be taken for granted without the necessary checks. My sources then tell me that Crosetto is abroad, and therefore it is probable that he has not (yet) read the Foglio piece. The newspaper directed by Claudio Cerasa should have been a little more precise and strengthened the piece with clear indications on where and when : we readers cannot and must not settle for "a few days ago" (how many?) and " during a Defense commission” (which one?). That is: was the sentence uttered during the official hearing? On the sidelines of the hearing? Or just to some parliamentarians? I didn't understand it. Furthermore, I can't find anything online, except the Foglio article: is it possible that no one, after the hearing held weeks ago, noticed the scoop provided by the minister himself?
The article, however, raises some interesting points and has generated tasty reflections on X among defense experts. Aurelio Giansiracusa of Ares Difesa , for example, wrote that “the modernized Teseo Mk2s date back more than thirty years and it was known that there are fewer and fewer of them. The problem is that the EVO is still in the development phase and the times are long. For the Aster the equipment is as expected with the 15th and 30th which will have to be upgraded to NG". For the uninitiated, the Teseo MK2 are new generation anti-ship missiles that the Italian Navy is equipping with: the government has allocated around 400 million euros to 2031. Aster, on the other hand, is a missile system: the frigate Virgilio Fasan that Italy sent to the Red Sea to guarantee freedom of navigation from Houthi attacks.
Let's move on to the reflections of Giovanni Martinelli, an expert who follows the maritime defense sector in particular, who writes, referring to Crosetto's (alleged?) leak on the arsenal of our Navy: "Then the military aid decrees for Ukraine are classified because we cannot reveal our endowments.” Effectively…
Martinelli takes matters further, and adds: "Now it is clearer why we 'escaped' Operation Prosperity Guardian." Italy, in fact, which is also an ally of the United States and is led by an Atlanticist government – right? -, does not officially participate in Prosperity Guardian, the international military operation, led by America, to counter attacks by Houthi rebels on container ships. Let's be clear: Italy sent a frigate to the region – the Virgilio Fasan mentioned above -, but took care to distance itself from the American operation, making the shipment part of the European anti-piracy mission Atalanta.
I read "a few days ago" (cit.) on Startmag an interview with Andrea Margelletti , advisor to Crosetto, according to whom the dispatch of the Virgilio Fasan follows "the rules of a mission to protect a merchant vessel, an end for which let's go there".
To think badly – and I, dear director, don't want to do it and I won't do it -; to think badly, I was saying, one could say that the clarifications and twists and turns of our government serve to elegantly hide a sad reality: that is, that our ships have no firepower, and that therefore our concrete contribution to Prosperity Guardian would have been null almost.
The geopolitical analyst Germano Dottori also said this in an issue of Limes , after all: “Voices and testimonies are multiplying which describe the missile launcher compartments of our ships as practically empty. And it is a serious problem, even though it is now clear that in the event of a major conflict the issue of material consumption would affect all Western Armed Forces." 63 missiles is a number which, if true, would confirm that "practically empty" of which Dottori wrote.
Best regards,
Francis Walsingham
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/marina-italiana-63-missili-crosetto/ on Wed, 03 Jan 2024 15:11:23 +0000.