The greetings left by other ships in the BAC 'Patiño' A-14 of the Spanish Navy

@DefAviation ES 5·29·2023 · 6:06 0

This past weekend, the combat supply ship (BAC) "Patiño" A-14 of the Spanish Navy visited the port of Vigo.

A spectacular image of two Spanish frigates and three French aircraft
The heavy weapons carried on board by the Spanish frigates of the 'Santa María' class

This ship was launched in 1994 and entered service in the Spanish Navy in 1995. It is 165.84 meters long, 23.7 meters wide and 8 meters deep. She has a large flight deck and hangar, designed to operate up to three SH-3D Sea King helicopters.

The ship is well armed given its mission: it has two 20 mm Oerlikon GAM-B01 cannons, 4 Browning M-2 machine guns and two 7.62 mm MG-42. The ship carries two large bows with six fuel pumps, which are supplied by huge hoses to other ships. The role of the "Patiño" and the other BAC of the Spanish Navy, the "Cantabria" A-15, is very important, since they allow the projection of our naval force over long distances without fuel be a limitation.

I had the opportunity to visit the ship, and one of the things that most caught my attention were the numerous stickers that the ship has on its hose couplings. These stickers are part of a tradition in the resupply ships of the NATO countries: the ship that has been supplied with fuel adds a sticker to the hose as greetings and thanks.

You can see here a selection of some of the numerous stickers that the "Patiño" has on his hoses. Here we see one of the Spanish frigate "Reina Sofía" F-84, already somewhat deteriorated, and another sticker of the frigate "Álvaro de Bazán" F-101 with the colors of the Spanish flag. On the right are two US Navy ship stickers.

Here we see a sticker of the missile cruiser USS Vicksburg CG-69 of the US Navy, a sticker of the Turkish frigate TCG Heybeliada F-511, another of the Belgian frigate < strong>Leopold I F-930 and another from the American missile cruiser USS Anzio CG-68, in addition to other stickers in worse condition and that are already difficult to identify.

More stickers: we see one of the Romanian frigate ROS Regina Maria F-222, two of the Canadian frigates HMCS Halifax FFH-330 and HMCS Toronto FFH-333, and three stickers of the Spanish frigates "Reina Sofía" F-84 and "Navarra" F-85 (there are two).

Another part of the same hose from the previous photo, in which we see a very new sticker of the resupply ship "Somme" A-631 of the French National Navy.

A sticker of the French frigate "Aconit" F-713.

The greetings left behind by the Canadian frigate HMCS St. John's FFH-340. Next to it there is another already torn sticker of the aforementioned Canadian frigate HMCS Toronto FFH-333 .

Two very new stickers. The one above is from the frigate "Chevalier Paul" D-621 of the French National Navy, while the one below is from the destroyer USS Porter DDG-78 of the Navy from United States. On the left we see another sticker from the Formidable Shield 2023 exercise, which concluded last Friday and took place at the Andoya (Norway) and Hebrides (United Kingdom) firing ranges.

In the following photo we see on the right a faded sticker of the American frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts FFG-58 , decommissioned in 2015. Above we see a sticker of the Canadian frigate HMCS Fredericton FFH-337. There are also two stickers of the Spanish frigate "Canarias" F-86 and one of the "Reina Sofía" F-84.