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Royal Danish Navy purchases Thales Anti Air Warfare suite

21 December 2006

On 19 December the Naval Materiel Command of the Royal Danish Navy and Thales Nederland have signed a contract for the delivery of three Thales Anti Air Warfare (AAW) suites.

Each AAW suite consists of one APAR Multifunction Radar, one SMART-L Volume Search Radar and one Fire Control Cluster. The suites are to be installed on the new Patrol Ships for the Royal Danish Navy. The Patrol Ships, each displacing about 6000 tons, will be built by the Odense Steel Shipyard Ltd. in Denmark. The three ships are scheduled to be handed over to the Royal Danish Navy in the period between 2011 and 2013.

The Danish Naval Materiel Command selected the Thales AAW suite because of its track record and proven performance. The integration with US missiles was considered a major factor just as the positive experience gained with Thales in the procurement of the SMART-S Mk2 radar systems. With this choice, the Royal Danish Navy, one of the world's leading navies, will be able to successfully fulfil its current and future missions.

The AAW suite has imbedded capability growth potential in Tactical Ballistic Missile Defence. The first demonstrations of this capability have already been given with the same AAW suite on board the Royal Netherlands Navy frigate participating in recent US Navy TBMD tests in November and December this year near Hawaii. The selection of Thales means that the Naval Materiel Command of Denmark will be at the forefront of technological developments in this field.

By selecting Thales, the Royal Danish Navy will be able to cooperate closely with the two other users of this AAW suite: the Federal German Navy and the Royal Netherlands Navy. This cooperation, including logistics and future update programs, will be highly beneficial to all parties involved.

The Royal Danish Navy will join Germany, Japan and the Netherlands as first users of the revolutionary Interrupted Continuous Wave Illumination (ICWI) principle that gives the APAR Multifunction Radar its unparalleled performance. It also enters the long list of navies using the SMART-L technology for their Volume Search capability, i.e. France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and now Denmark.

About APAR
APAR is a multi-function radar capable of performing various tasks simultaneously; automatic detection and tracking of low altitude targets (e.g. seaskimmers), detection and tracking of air targets and the support and guidance of a wide range of missiles. It is particularly designed to cope with the terminal guidance requirements of SM-2 and ESSM missiles by means of the ICWI principle.

About SMART-L
SMART-L is a long range 3D Volume Search Radar system capable of automatic detection, track initiation and tracking of up to 1000 air targets, up to a range of 400 km. Its performance has already been tested and the system has proven to be capable of detecting stealth targets in land clutter environment. Furthermore, SMART-L has proven to be able to detect and track outer atmosphere objects for future TBMD tasks.