The Ministry of Defense, through the General Directorate of Armament and Materiel (DGAM), plans to develop a missile-based point defense system for what are known as valuable units of the Navy, that is, the LHD Juan Carlos I, the amphibious ships Galicia and Castilla, and the supply ships Patiño and Cantabria.
The release of the project’s technical specifications will take place shortly, according to the latest issue of the General Marine Magazine. This year, as Infodefensa.com published, the annual contracting plan of the Ministry of Defense already includes a first part of 12.5 million for the development of this system.
Although no decision on the system has yet been made, “interesting alternatives” have been ruled out ASMD, systems that allow the direct destruction of the threat, due to “the high associated costs” During the technical feasibility studies carried out to date, the frigate captain Juan Manuel de Santiago points out an article in the RGM this March on anti-missile defense.
“The general solution proposed for valuable units (LHD, LPD and BAC) is based on missiles”, confirms the officer. At the national level, remember, There is a proposal called Saeta (Spanish Tactical Anti-Aircraft Weapons System) for the development of a completely national launcher system, integrated into the combat system and using a short-range missile.
Point defense missile systems aim to protect a given unit against enemy missiles. For this they use machine gun systems with a high rate of fire and automatic aiming or, as would be the case, light anti-aircraft missiles with high acceleration and precision.
This is not the first attempt to equip Navy ships with a missile-based defense system. The DGAM already awarded the company MBDA Spain a contract in 2019 to study the feasibility of installing a system of these characteristics equipped with the Mistral missile.
F-80 frigates
Besides, the F-80 frigates, at the end of their useful life, will also receive point defense systems. In this case, it is a rapid artillery ASMD system with a medium caliber (25mm) gun, associated with an IRST infrared target search and tracking system. The Escribano M&E company has been working on a solution, the Sentinel 25RFG, since the middle of last year and the first prototype is expected to be available in 2023.
Both programs (missile-based system and cannon-based system) have been on the table for some time, although until now the Navy had not made express reference to the ships that will receive these solutions.
a priority
Currently, the LHD Juan Carlos I is only defended by four 12.7 mm Browning M2 model machine guns and another two 7.62 mm MG3 model manufactured by Santa Bárbara Sistemas under license from Rheinmetall.
Point defense or close defense has been one of the pending subjects of the Navy for years. Their ships do not currently have systems to deal with the threat of a very low-level missile once the long-range and area defense barriers have been overcome.
The objective is to provide Navy ships with close defense systems to improve their response capacity to traditional aerial threats such as missiles or more modern ones such as drones. The aim is also to increase the response capacity against attacks from small surface vessels.
Regarding the artillery-based system, the R&D program is already underway. The DGAM signed a contract with Escribano in July of this year for the development of the CIWS system for Navy ships based on the Sentinel 25 RFG tower of the Madrid company, which has a GAL-12/ rotary cannon as its main weapon. U of 25 mm and five tubes.
The contract, with a budget of almost 250,000 euros, covers everything from design to integration and tests on board a ship. The execution period is just over a year and a half, until October of next year. The Sentinel 25 RFG is a CIWS system proposed by Escribano that has as its main armament a 25mm GAU-12/U rotary cannon and five tubes, with the option of also incorporating the 25mm GAU-22/A four tubes, the new version of this barrel manufactured by the American General Dynamics.
The solution is designed on the same pedestal – stabilized gyro platform – that the Sentinel 30 remote towers have, installed on the Serviola class patrol boats of the Navy. In addition, it has an electro-optical system with a thermal and daytime camera, as well as a laser rangefinder. The Sentinel 25 RGF could also operate together with an Oteos IRST (infra-red search and track) system, also developed by Escribano, with greater missile detection and tracking capabilities.
The DGAM has awarded this file to Escribano for being “the only company technically qualified for the development of the project from a technical point of view” and after negotiating “improvements of interest to the administration.”
program schedule
The contract covers the qualification, validation, integration, installation and testing of the Sentinel 25 RFG system. “This system will be installed in the FFG defined by the Navy,” according to the clauses of the contract to which Infodefensa.com has had access. The budget is divided into two annual installments: 100,000 euros for 2022 and 150,000 euros for 2023.
The contract includes several milestones. The company will work, first of all, on a feasibility study for the development of a remote weapon station adapted for the GAU-12 weapon. and will then develop a series of plans: environmental testing, security management, installation and verification, validation and testing.
After, The company will draw up the protocols for environmental tests, factory tests, port tests, and sea tests and, according to the scheduled schedule, will then proceed to install the system on a ship and evaluate it, Delivering at the end of 2023 the results of the different tests (environmental, factory, port, and sea), the program documentation and the report on inventoriable assets.
Navy ships already have escribano naval remote weapon stations (RWS). The 12.7 mm Sentinel is in service on the F-80 frigates and the LHD Juan Carlos I, among others, and the 30 mm Sentinel on the Serviola patrol vessels.. The latter will also be installed on future F-110 frigates. The Navy is committed to equipping its ships with close defense systems with the aim of improving their response capacity to air threats such as missiles and also to attacks from small surface vessels.
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