US Combat Ship Decision Coming in 'Very Near Future'

[Harald]

In this video we focus on the following:
• Fincantieri Marine Group FFG(X) Frigate based on Italian Navy FREMM
• Fujitsu collaborative table for JMSDF AEGIS destroyers & Japan AEGIS Ashore
• Raytheon SM-3 Block IIA ballistic missile interceptor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXSL6B5EwWQ&feature=emb_logo

[Harald]

Fincantieri Betting on Power Generation to Land U.S. Navy Frigate Contest





In the contest to build the Navy's new class of guided-missile frigates, bidders are counting on power generation as the difference-maker as the service nears awarding a contract.

Though the Navy required bidders to base their future frigate (FFG(X)) designs on a mature design currently in use, the Navy also wants a hull that will be adaptable enough to keep up with future technology and warfighting needs for weapons, radars and more across several decades of service.

Power generation is among the strengths of the Fincantieri Marine frigate proposal, retired Vice Adm. Richard Hunt, president of the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Marinette, Wisc., said during aWednesday media briefing.

Fincantieri's design, based on the Italian FREMM, is for a 7,500-ton ship that generates 12 megawatts of power. In comparison, Hunt said the latest Flight III Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers have displacements of more than 9,000 tons and generate 12 megawatts of power.

"We're delivering this thing as it will be delivered to the government, generating 12 [megawatts] of power," Hunt said. "If you wantmore power than what the ship has, I can put bigger diesels in there right now and give you another four [megawatts] of power."

On the line is a contract likely worth more than $1 billion to designand build the Navy's first frigate, with options for more ships in the coming years. The Navy received bids from Fincantieri and three other firms – General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, who will partner with Spanish F100-builder Navantia; Ingalls Shipbuilding; and Austal USA, builder of the Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship. Hunt said he's expecting the Navy to make a decision and award the first frigate contract in July.

"The first award goes to ship number one and the design. And then it's nine more options for more ships. It's not a guarantee that they'regoing to give them all to the guy that wins this," Hunt said of the ongoing downselect process.

All four firms are expected to showcase their designs at next week's Surface Navy Association symposium in Northern Virginia, an event many of the Navy's top civilian and active duty leaders are scheduled to attend. The Navy will own the frigate design, so it could opt to divide the future work among more than one shipyard.

The Navy's Fiscal Year 2020 budget request included $1.3 billion for the first of 20 planned frigates. The Navy set a target of an $800-million per-ship cost for the rest of the frigate fleet, starting with the second ship.

Power generation is likely to be one of the Navy's deciding factors when it selects a frigate, Adriane Stebbins and retired Navy Capt. KevinEyer wrote in the July issue of Proceedings.Their reasoning was simple: Navy leaders know technology and their warfighting needs are changing faster than new ship designs are developed.

"No modern Navy ship class has had its engineering plant changed out for a different or novel type midway through its service life. It would be easier and less expensive to simply build a new ship—the hull and theengineering plant are virtually inseparable. Consequently, on day one, these plants must be able to provide all power necessary to drive the ship and operate its systems well into the future," Stebbins and Eyer wrote.

With the 12 megawatts generated by Fincantieri's current power generation design, Hunt said the Navy would have the option to deploy directed energy weapons – such as lethal and non-lethal laser weapons, microwave and millimeter wave weapons and more – which are part of the Navy's requirements.

However, powering directed energy weapons means making other adjustments on the ship, including diverting power from propulsion.

The trade-off of speed for directed energy weapon is not significant,Hunt said, as slowing the frigate's speed from 28 knots to 24 knots doesn't decrease the ship's performance but frees up a tremendous amountof energy for weapons. These weapons, he added, are closer to being ready than most people realize.

"I think you can put directed energy on the second ship by time it goes into the water," Hunt said. "Rail gun is not that far behind."

The Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Actadds a wrinkle to the Navy's frigate contest. The law states the first frigates built under the initial contract award could use foreign-built engines and main reduction gears, but the rest of the anticipated fleet would be required to use domestic engines and reduction gears.

The bill also contains language restricting the use of foreign-manufactured components including "air circuit breakers; gyrocompasses; electronic navigation chart systems; steering controls; pumps; propulsion and machinery control systems; totally enclosed lifeboats; auxiliary equipment pumps; shipboard cranes; auxiliary chill water systems; and propulsion propellers."

HII and Austal USA previously declined to comment to USNI News about how the FY 2020 NDAA affects their bids. A Fincantieri spokesman told USNI News in December that their bid would not be affected by the language.

Fincantieri has made several adjustments to its operation at the shipyard in Wisconsin to accommodate the Navy's desire to build two frigates each year, Hunt said. The company has already spent about $180 million on improvements to the yard and plans to spend an additional $80million to $100 million on capital expenditures if awarded the contract.

The company is installing a syncrolift to use when putting ships in the water. If awarded the contract, Fincantieri plans to build a hull-erection facility large enough to build two frigates simultaneouslyinside a climate-controlled facility. At 20 million cubic feet and 3.42acres of floor space, the facility could contain two football fields and still have room for a marching band.

Originally, Fincantieri hadn't planned a two-ship-per-year build rate, Hunt said, but the Navy made clear it wanted a quicker build rate.

"Six or eight months ago, when I was talking to the Navy's top leadership, I said: truth be told, I think we can make 1.5 ships a year," Hunt said. "The unofficial guidance, coming from a couple of different places, was, we don't think we like that."

https://www.navalnews.com/event-news/sna-2019/2020/01/fincantieri-betting-on-power-generation-to-land-u-s-navy-frigate-contest/

[Sparkplug]

Fincantieri revamps Wisconsin yard to meet USN FFG(X) capacity needs

https://www.janes.com/article/92523/fincantieri-revamps-wisconsin-yard-to-meet-usn-ffg-x-capacity-needs


FMM is proposing a tailored variant of its Bergamini-class FREMM frigate to meet the USN FFG(X) requirement. Source: Fincantieri

[Sparkplug]

USN calls EASR development "critical" for FFG(X)

https://www.janes.com/article/90526/usn-calls-easr-development-critical-for-ffg-x

[Sparkplug]

GAO Report on Navy Frigate Program

https://news.usni.org/2019/08/12/gao-report-on-navy-frigate-program

Rapport (09-08-2019):

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6251161/GUIDED-MISSILE-FRIGATE-Navy-Has-Taken-Steps-to.pdf

[Sparkplug]

Lockheed Martin gets $125M for integration of combat system elements into future frigate

https://defence-blog.com/news/lockheed-martin-gets-125m-for-integration-of-combat-system-elements-into-future-frigate.html

[Poleme]

Fincantieri's FREMM frigate design bulks up for the US FFG(X) competition

To meet the U.S. Navy's famously high survivability standards, the FREMM frigate design has had to hit the gym and pack on hundreds of thousands of pounds of muscle in pursuit of wining the Navy's FFG(X) competition.

U.S. Navy ships are built like linebackers: able to take hit upon hit and stay in the game. But that comes at the cost of extra steel. And in the case of Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri's FREMM, it meant adding hundreds of tons of steel, said retired Adm. Rick Hunt, a former head of Naval Surface Force Pacific who now works for the Italian company.

"We did, like all the competitors, monthly technical exchange meetings with the government to make sure we were as compliant as possible going into detailed design and construction," he said. "One of the things that the Navy wasn't going to budge on, and we agreed, was the toughness of the ship. So we added about 300 tons of steel on the design for the FREMM."

Bringing the ship up to Naval Sea Systems Command's high standards for toughness was always a foregone conclusion for this competition, but packing on all that steel drives choices into the design, especially when the Navy is trying its best to get a highly capable frigate for less than $1 billion.

Fincantieri's FREMM is competing alongside three other offerings: General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Navantia's F-100 variant, which is roughly equivalent to a small Arleigh Burke-class destroyer; a modified, up-gunned version of the National Security Cutter from Huntington Ingalls Industries; and Austal USA's frigate version of its aluminum-hulled Independence-class littoral combat ship.

Lockheed Martin's version of the FFG(X), an up-gunned, twin-screw variant of its Freedom-class LCS, was pulled from the competition in May.

As for the FREMM, the extra weight eats into some of the extra space on the ship — its spaciousness is one of the defining characteristics of the platform.

"[The extra steel is] going into scantling, ballistic and frag protection, the way the spaces are laid out: We're as compliant as a DDG. That's a lot of steel. The compartmentation, the toughness of the ship, the U.S. requirements that are different from the European ships — we moved around some of that extra space; it gets classified very quickly."

What hasn't been compromised has been the modularity of the ship that creates routes for major equipment to be brought in and out of the hull so that replacing, for example, major engine or computer components doesn't require cutting a hole in the ship, Hunt said.

.../....    https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/07/05/fincantieris-fremm-frigate-design-bulks-up-for-the-us-ffgx-competition/

23 juni 2019,  schreef ik (bron: dezelfde admiraal b.d. Rick Hunt):
Fincantieri is de Italiaanse FREMM variant (Bergamini klasse) aan het aanpassen aan de zware US Navy eisen.
Oorlogservaringen van de US Navy leerden om de opbouw zo laag mogelijk te houden, want een zo klein mogelijk silhouette is belangrijk in het gevecht. Dit verbeterd ook de radar cross section (RCS), is radar-doorsnede, dus meer steelsheid (stealth / low observability).
Door het verlagen van de oorspronkelijke FREMM opbouw, kan men ook minder toe met ballast gewicht onder in het schip, om de stabiliteit te verbeteren en SLA, sea life allowance for future weight growth margin (groei-potentieel door het aanhouden van reserve marges voor ruimte en gewicht).  Nadeel is wel dat de 3 phased array radar platen niet in een Mast of toren, maar in de opbouw zelf zijn geplaatst.   Hierdoor krijg je wel een kleinere / kortere radar horizon.

Fincantieri claimt dat haar FREMM voorstel vergeleken met de andere kandidaten het minst geluid voortbrengt.  Omdat dit ontwerp in tegenstelling tot de andere kandidaten van het begin af aan primair voor de ASW rol is ontworpen.
Het FREMM beschikt ook over Combined Gasturbine and Diesel Electrische (hybride) aandrijving en electriciteitsopwekking.  Kan zodoende veel 'prik' (meerdere megaWatten) vrijmaken tijdens de inzet van Directed Energy Weapons.

Om aan de strenge eisen van overleefbaarheid te voldoen, waar de LCS klassen dus niet aan voldoen, werd het FREMM / Bergamini casco versterkt en stijver gemaakt, maar dat koste wel 300 short tons = 272 metrische ton aan extra gewicht.  Deze versterkingen zorgen er niet alleen voor dat hun ontwerp meer kan incasseren, maar het verbeterde ook de zeegang.  Het 65 ft / 19,83 m. brede FREMM FFG(X) voorstel is ook met ca. 22 voet / 6,68 m. verlengd tot 496 ft / 151,28 meter.  Dat is bijna net zo lang als de Arleigh Burke Flight IA, die meet 509 voet / 155,25 meter.   De US Navy ging ook niet akkoord met de bestaande lay-out / indeling van de vertrekken en gangen stelsels.  "Redundancy" eisen zorgde voor extra compartimenten.  Het FREMM gangenstelsel vond de USN een risico bij Damage Control werkzaamheden, werd dus ook gewijzigd.

Toepassing van het "AEGIS" combat system  en Amerikaanse wapensystemen en sensoren maakte een bijna her-ontwerp van het FREMM noodzakelijk.
Heel veel apparatuur, varieerend van navigatie middelen zoals gyro-kompassen tot HVAC (Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning); stuur-machines; Integrated Platform Management System; voorstuwing motoren en hun electronische aansturing; life boats / RHIBS; pompen; generator-sets; kranen, tot aan de schroeven moeten volgens Amerikaanse wetgeving zo min mogelijk van buitenlands fabrikaat zijn.

De US Navy gaat bij fregat Space Weight and Power (SWaP) margins altijd uit van een groei-potentieel van 5 %.  Bij destroyers en kruisers ligt dit percentage overigens op 10 %.
De extra verstevigingen van het FREMM Bergamini casco kostte 272 metrische ton.  Dit schip meet volgeladen 6.900 ton, 5 % is dus 345 ton groei marge.
Deze Ge-amerikaniseerde FREMM heeft een lagere opbouw en dus ook minder ballastgewicht nodig.  Maar daar staat tegenover dat de romp weer 6,68 meter langer werd.
Als de lagere opbouw en de langere romp elkaar ongeveer compenseren.  Dan heeft dit ontwerp wel een heel magere groei marge. van circa 45 ton = 0,65 %.

[Harald]

Fincantieri's FREMM frigate design bulks up for the US FFG(X) competition

To meet the U.S. Navy's famously high survivability standards, the FREMM frigate design has had to hit the gym and pack on hundreds of thousands of pounds of muscle in pursuit of wining the Navy's FFG(X) competition.

U.S. Navy ships are built like linebackers: able to take hit upon hit and stay in the game. But that comes at the cost of extra steel. And in the case of Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri's FREMM, it meant adding hundreds of tons of steel, said retired Adm. Rick Hunt, a former head of Naval Surface Force Pacific who now works for the Italian company.

"We did, like all the competitors, monthly technical exchange meetings with the government to make sure we were as compliant as possible going into detailed design and construction," he said. "One of the things that the Navy wasn't going to budge on, and we agreed, was the toughness of the ship. So we added about 300 tons of steel on the design for the FREMM."

Bringing the ship up to Naval Sea Systems Command's high standards for toughness was always a foregone conclusion for this competition, but packing on all that steel drives choices into the design, especially when the Navy is trying its best to get a highly capable frigate for less than $1 billion.

Fincantieri's FREMM is competing alongside three other offerings: General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Navantia's F-100 variant, which is roughly equivalent to a small Arleigh Burke-class destroyer; a modified, up-gunned version of the National Security Cutter from Huntington Ingalls Industries; and Austal USA's frigate version of its aluminum-hulled Independence-class littoral combat ship.

Lockheed Martin's version of the FFG(X), an up-gunned, twin-screw variant of its Freedom-class LCS, was pulled from the competition in May.

As for the FREMM, the extra weight eats into some of the extra space on the ship — its spaciousness is one of the defining characteristics of the platform.

"[The extra steel is] going into scantling, ballistic and frag protection, the way the spaces are laid out: We're as compliant as a DDG. That's a lot of steel. The compartmentation, the toughness of the ship, the U.S. requirements that are different from the European ships — we moved around some of that extra space; it gets classified very quickly."

What hasn't been compromised has been the modularity of the ship that creates routes for major equipment to be brought in and out of the hull so that replacing, for example, major engine or computer components doesn't require cutting a hole in the ship, Hunt said.

.../....

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/07/05/fincantieris-fremm-frigate-design-bulks-up-for-the-us-ffgx-competition/

[Sparkplug]

Report to Congress on U.S. Navy Frigate FFG(X) Program

https://news.usni.org/2019/07/04/report-to-congress-on-u-s-navy-frigate-ffgx-program-4

Rapport (update 25-06-2019):

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6182955/Navy-Frigate-FFG-X-Program-Backgroundand-Issues.pdf

[Sparkplug]

The US Navy wants Congress to slow its roll on 'Buy American'

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/06/27/the-us-navy-wants-congress-to-slow-its-roll-on-buy-american/

[Harald]

BAE Systems Quashes Hopes of Type 26 Entry in FFG(X) Contest  ( Type 26 doet niet mee ! of de USN moet de eis laten vallen van een bestaand ontwerp)

BAE Systems has told USNI News that it would be "delighted" to enter its Type 26 Global Combat Ship in the FFG(X) future frigate competition – if the Navy scraps the requirement for a proven hull design.

The U.K. shipbuilder has taken a close interest in the small surface combatant program, prompting speculation that the United States might join Britain, Australia and Canada in acquiring versions of the Type 26 platform.

On Thursday, however, as the Navy released a final FFG(X) request for proposals, the company confirmed that it will not be submitting blueprints for the 492-foot, 8,000 -ton Type 26 unless the contest is opened up to designs that have not yet been proven at sea. Such a U-turn is not expected.

"Following a detailed assessment of the US Navy's requirements for its FFG(X) frigate, program we chose not to participate and will continue to focus on delivering on our commitments to the U.K., Australian and Canadian navies," a BAE Systems spokesperson said.
"We would be delighted to re-engage with the U.S. Navy should its requirements change."

The Royal Navy is slated to receive eight City-class Type 26s optimized for anti-submarine warfare, with BAE Systems securing an order worth $4.7 billion (U.S. dollars) for the first three ships in July 2017.

Lead ship HMS Glasgow is now under construction in Scotland. Float-out is expected in late 2021, followed by fitting out, acceptance by the Royal Navy in 2025 and entry into operational service in 2027, according to information provided to Parliament.

Such a leisurely schedule – which has been dictated by funding constraints within the UK Ministry of Defence – means the ship has no chance of demonstrating its capabilities within the timeframe required by the U.S. Navy, which plans to select the FFG(X) detail design in Fiscal Year 2020.

Australia is buying up to nine modified Type 26s frigates, to be known as the Hunter class, and in February the Canadian government announced that it would acquire 15 Type 26s, with Lockheed Martin as prime contractor, in a through-life program worth about $45 billion.

Ottawa's decision was engulfed in controversy when one of the losing bidders complained that the Type 26 failed to meet speed and other requirements imposed by the Royal Canadian Navy. Notably, critics accused procurement officials of reversing an earlier commitment to only consider proven vessel designs.

Asked if the U.S. Navy saw any advantages in procuring the same platform as Australia, Canada and Britain, Alan Baribeau, a spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command, told USNI News, "the Navy sees benefit of a competitively awarded design that meets cost, schedule and technical requirements of the FFG(X) program."

"To promote and provide for full and open competition, the Navy will consider any hull form — foreign and domestic — that meets the requirements, will be built in a U.S. shipyard and has a parent design that has been through production and demonstrated (full scale) at sea," Baribeau continued.
"As part of the program, the Navy has specified what combat system elements will be required on FFG(X) to maximize capability, interoperability and commonality, and to reduce development, integration, support and future modernizations costs."

Baribeau confirmed that the FFG(X) Program Office had discussed the Type 26 design with BAE Systems, and that the company participated in an industry day in 2017.

"If the Type 26 can meet the requirements in the FFG(X) Request for Proposal, they [BAE Systems] can submit a bid that will be evaluated as a part of the competition," he added.

Four companies are expected to submit bids – Austal USA, Fincantieri Marine, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Ingalls Shipbuilding – with deadlines of August 22 for technical proposals and September 26 for pricing proposals.

https://news.usni.org/2019/06/21/bae-systems-quashes-hopes-of-type-26-entry-in-ffgx-contest

[Parera]

(Wat is voldoende?)

Dat hangt af van welke invulling je geeft aan de VLS en daarmee welke taken het fregat krijgt. Als je het hele VLS vult met ESSM's dan is die 32 cells x 4 = 128 ESSM's. Maar wil je het ook vullen met bijvoorbeeld SM-2 + VL ASROC's dan zit je misschien met ;
- 16 cells ESSM (64 ESSM's)
- 8 cells SM-2
- 8 cells VL-ASROC

Nog geen verkeerde vulling als je het mij vraagt maar het hangt allemaal af van de taken die de fregatten gaan krijgen. Als je ze ASW taken gaat geven is het nog maar de vraag of je SM-2 nodig hebt. Voor AAW hebben de Amerikanen de DDG's al rondvaren dus dat lijkt mij overbodig, ik verwacht dat ze als mixed task gaan rond varen net als de DDG's. Om die reden ga ik uit van ESSM, SM-2 & VL-ASROC. Aangevuld door een kanon, RAM, torpedo's en een set ASuW's.

32 cells is in mijn ogen genoeg voor een fregat voor de USN, bij andere kleinere marines is het misschien weinig omdat die niet de beschikking hebben over escorte schepen met 96 of meer VLS cellen.

De voorgaande USN fregatten hadden:

- OHP's : 1 mk13 GMLS met 40 raketten (SM-1 + Harpoon)
- Knox : 1 mk16 GMSL met 8 raketten (ASROC + Harpoon) + 8 cell mk29 NSSM launcher
- Garcia: 1 8 cell mk16 ASROC launcher (ASROC + 8 reloads)
- Brooke: 1 mk22 GMLS met 16 raketten (SM-1) + 1 8 cell mk16 ASROC launcher (ASROC + 8 reloads)

[Sparkplug]

The U.S. Navy's Newest Frigate Can't Carry Enough Missiles (Wat is voldoende?)

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-navy's-newest-frigate-can't-carry-enough-missiles-63936

[Parera]

Gezien de onvoorspelbare toekomst in een multi-polaire wereld, zorgt de mogelijkheid om ook SM-2 Standard raketten af te kunnen vuren voor meer flexibiliteit, beter gezegd aanpassingsvermogen in een ASW fregat.

Om die zelfde flexibiliteit heeft de KM bij het LCF ontwerp al gekozen voor de strike lengte van de mk41 VLS, we hadden het met ESSM + SM-2 makkelijk afgekunt met een tactical length mk 41.
Maar omdat er toen waarschijnlijk al gedacht werd aan grotere raketten zoals de TLAM is toen gekozen voor de langste variant waarbij we makkelijker dingen konden toevoegen door wat kleine aanpassingen.

Het vMFF moet volgens de bekende info weer de beschikking krijgen over de strike lengte VLS's, voor de ESSM block 2 zouden we zelfs genoeg hebben aan een Self Defence Module lengte maar omdat er ook gesproken is over het toevoegen van de VL-ASROC en bij de Belgen over de wens om SM-3 te integreren ligt de keuze voor strike lengte ook voor de hand. Ook komt dit overeen de LCF's.

Wist je dat het oorspronkelijke MF X1 ontwerp, dat uiteindelijk het M-fregat zou worden, ook in eerste instantie voorzien zou worden van een 57 mm kanon.
De reden hiervoor ken ik niet, misschien goedkoper, want toen moest er ook beknibbeld worden.  De KM koos toch voor het OTO Melara 76 mm kanon, want de S-fregatten waren hiervan ook voorzien (standaardisatie) en de KM is nogal traditioneel / behoudend ingesteld betreffende haar leveranciers.  Want daarmee weten ze wat voor vlees ze in de kuip hebben.

Ik ga er vanuit dat de keuze inderdaad gevallen is op 76 mm ivm met standaardisatie met de S en L Fregatten en natuurlijk ook met de toen net uit dienst gaande Van Speijks.

Artikel uit 1988 over de ontwikkeling van het M-Fregat.
http://www.swzonline.nl/system/files/archive//198806.pdf

De US Navy kan natuurlijk wel het 57 mm kaliber toepassen, want die hebben al een RAM-systeem aan boord.  Terwijl wij het gaan doen met de Pharos + 76 mm kanon combi.

Opvallend want de wat oudere impressies van het vMFF waren de schepen wel uitgerust met een RAM op de hangaar maar wel een 76 mm + pharos op de boeg. Maar het schijnt dat de KM het bedrag per raket van de RAM te duur vind en daarom niet voor dat systeem kan/wil gaan.

De beste met RAM die ik kon vinden via het Kijk magazine.

[Sparkplug]

Ik kan 76 mm munitie vs 57 mm ALaMO munitie niet vergelijken want over die laatste is niets bekend.
Wat ik wel weet, het Australische Defense Science and Technology Organization (DSTO), hun TNO, heeft onderzoek verricht naar de effectiviteit van Air Bursting Munition (ABM) in de calibers 30mm, 35 AHEAD, 40mm L70 en 76 mm.   Er werden ook scenario's gedraaid met non-Air Bursting munitie.  Deze bleek alleen effectief tegen non-manoeuvrerende anti schip raketten.  De ABM's werden ingezet in diverse scenario's tegen zowel non-maneouvring als wel met 5 G (versnellingskrachten) en 10 G manoeuvrerende frontaal en crossing (kruisend) in-, en langskomende anti schip raketten op een afstand van 3.000 meter.
Hierbij bleek het 76 mm kaliber het beste te presteren. 

De US Navy kan natuurlijk wel het 57 mm kaliber toepassen, want die hebben al een RAM-systeem aan boord.  Terwijl wij het gaan doen met de Pharos + 76 mm kanon combi.

Bedankt voor de uitleg. Ze zullen in de VS er inderdaad over hebben nagedacht om toch voor 57mm te kiezen.