Photos: French Navy Tests Heavyweight Torpedo on Aging Corvette

The French Navy recently validated the performance of its top-end torpedo in a rare and dramatic sinking exercise.

In a test-firing in mid-December, an unnamed French nuclear-powered attack submarine launched an F21 heavyweight torpedo at the retired corvette Premier Maitre L'Her. Images released by the Marine Nationale show that the torpedo hit just aft of the deckhouse and broke the ship's keel, as designed. 

Courtesy Marine Nationale

The F21, a heavily-upgraded evolution of the Italian A184 design, is a 20-foot-long torpedo with a 440-pound warhead. With electric propulsion and a single-use aluminum-silver oxide battery, it has a top speed of 50 knots and can reach targets out to 30 nautical miles away; it can dive as deep as 1,600 feet for antisubmarine warfare duties. It is wire-guided with acoustic homing in the terminal approach phase, and can be re-targeted in midcourse. 

Premier-Maitre L'Her was a D'Estienne d'Orves-class light corvette of the Marine Nationale. She was commissioned in 1981 and was 43 years old by the time she exited service. 

Originally designed for antisubmarine warfare in the Atlantic, the class' poor seakeeping performance and limited sonar capability saw them relegated to a patrol and policing role after the end of the Cold War. Premier-Maitre L'Her was deployed for antipiracy duty in the high-risk zone off Somalia in 2009, and conducted one successful interdiction resulting in the arrest of eight pirates. She also served in Operation Sophia, the EU's migrant-rescue mission. Her final overseas deployment was a three-month policing mission in the Gulf of Guinea, followed by a two-month Atlantic patrol. She was decommissioned in July and prepared for sinking.