Madrid was the location chosen by the defence company Defence IQ to host the Surface Warships 2013 conference, sponsored by Navantia.

The conference, held on January 30 and 31, was welcomed by Mr José M Sanjurjo from Navantia and Vice Admiral José A Ruesta from the Spanish Navy. It hosted representatives from several international navies that presented and discussed programmes and future plans.

On behalf of Navantia, on January 30, Mr Angel Recamán, Navantia’s Vice President for Engineering, gave a briefing on “Navantia Engineering approach to the current defence market scenario”. On the 31st, Mr Antonio Pérez de Lucas, Navantia’s Vice President for Innovation spoke about “A different perspective to modularity concepts applied in OPV designs for the Spanish Navy.”

The Surface Warships conference was an opportunity to further understand the challenges that navies face and the technological solutions available.

The development of highly capable, flexible and value for money surface fleets that are capable of functioning with coalition partners in a wide-variety of threat environments, remains fundamental to the modern navy.

The Surface Warships 2013 conference enabled participants to get an update on the latest vessel designs; understand how officers from developing and newer navies are executing their procurement strategies; and discuss the successful integration and operation of core combat systems into vessels.