The Danish frigate Iver Huitfeldt, which was recently active in the Red Sea, suffered serious technical problems while the ship was under fire. Technical problems prevented the ship from launching missiles for a while and there were also problems with the cannon’s grenades. The Danish website Olfi reports this based on a leaked message from the commander of the frigate. According to the report, the problems had been known for a long time and nothing was done about them. The ship is currently sailing through the North Sea and is on its way home earlier than expected.
This article has been updated with a statement from Thales.
KDM Iver Huitfeldt (Iver Huitfeldt class) in the Red Sea. The two 76mm guns are in front of the bridge and on the bridge is the large square mast that houses the APAR. The black radar on the back is the SMART-L, also from Hengelo. The ship is on its way back, today it sails between England and the Netherlands on its way to home base Korsor. (Photo: Danish Navy)
In a NATO Restrictedmessage of March 13, which was published by Olfi, expressed some frustration in the words of the commander of the Danish frigate. (Restricted is the lowest level of the five levels for secret documents) The Danish Defense has not yet confirmed the reporting.
A few days earlier, on March 9, the Iver Huitfeldt had suffered an attack by four drones. That Saturday night around 4:00 am, the Iver Huitfeldt spotted a drone heading towards the ship and nearby ships. The Danish frigate shot down the drone and in the hour that followed, managed to shoot apart three more drones.
The ship’s commander, Kommandørkaptajn Sune Lund, was quoted as follows by the Danish Defense Force afterwards: “I feel a lot of enthusiasm and relief from my crew that they could act professionally against a serious threat like this, and as ship’s commander I am very proud on their efforts. It gives me confidence in the future handling of tasks here.”
Problems in central
It was not at all certain that night that Iver Huitfeldt would successfully repel the attack. According to the commander’s message that Olfi published, an issue between the Dutch APAR radar and the Danish C-FLEX Combat Management System (CMS) prevented the ship from launching the ESSM missiles. The problems were said to have been caused by a “token issue”, but the exact cause was not known. The problems lasted for half an hour.
The Danish frigates have two Dutch radars: the SMART-L for long distances and the APAR to detect targets on the horizon, for example, and to guide the missile (ESSM) to the target. The Dutch Air Defense and Command Frigates such as Zr.Ms. Tromp, which is now sailing in the Red Sea, uses a modernized APAR and the new SMART-L MM/N. The Danish ships have a Danish CMS in the command center. C-FLEX is Terma’s software, which ensures, among other things, that the radars and missiles are ‘linked together’, the information from the sensors is shown on the screens and the people in the center can deploy the weapons via this system . Guardion, a CMS from Defense, is used on Dutch ships.
FMI, the organization within the Danish Defense that is responsible for equipment and purchasing, has investigated the problems. FMI does not want to respond to questions, writes the Danish public broadcaster DR.
Thales has sent DR a short statement following the investigation by FMI: “Thales has been informed that the preliminary investigation by FMI, based on the available data from Iver Huitfeldt’s systems, on the event during a combat situation in the Red Sea, does not indicate a problem with the APAR radar.”
Terma, DR writes, does not want to respond. The Danish Defense has not yet responded to questions from Marineschips.nl.
The Iver Huitfeldt command center in the Red Sea. (Photo: Danish Navy)
30 year old grenades
Other problems came to light when the cannon was deployed. The Iver Huitfeldt has two Oto Melara 76mm cannons on the forecastle (the same cannon as the Dutch M-frigates and patrol ships). No doubt to the horror of the crew, half of the shells exploded soon after leaving the barrel. “Without having any effect on enemy targets,” the message states.
“All the grenades in the standard war equipment are more than 30 years old, they have been retrofitted [achteraf voorzien van] with a ‘2005 proximity fuze’ [ontsteker die de granaat vlakbij het doel moet laten ontploffen]which proves unfit for actual combat,” the commander wrote.
The Oto Melara Compact has a rate of fire of 85 rounds per minute and the Super Rapid has a fire rate of 120 rounds per minute. The ship has two guns and the threat consisted of one drone at a time. This is probably why the ship managed to repel the attack even though half of the shells did not even come close to the target.
The commander emphasized that the ship needs a lot of ammunition to eliminate targets and will quickly run out of ammunition supplies. He also reported that this “severely reduces combat effectiveness and also reduces the ship’s survivability.”
No solution
A problem had arisen in the command center of the Danish frigate, which meant that the missiles could temporarily not be launched. Images distributed by the Danish Navy today show that the problems did not prevent an ESSM from being launched at all. So a drone was definitely downed with ESSM, but the causes of the problems were unclear and could not be resolved on board.
The frigate, which left for the Red Sea at the end of January and subsequently joined Operation Prosperity Guardian, contacted the Danish equipment organization DALO following the problems. DALO advised to use the APAR only for searching and tracking targets and therefore no longer as fire control. In contrast to the Dutch LC frigates, the Danish frigates also have classic rotatable fire control radars in addition to the APAR, in this case Ceros fire control radars from Saab.
The ship had to use these Ceros radars, which were actually installed in front of the guns, for air defense. That meant a huge decrease in capacity, because the frigate with APAR can illuminate many more targets for the missiles at the same time.
The commander added in his message: “Our clear understanding is that the issue has been known for years without the necessary sense of urgency to resolve the problem. This sense of urgency is critical to building confidence in both the frigates’ weapons and sensor suites and the combat management system to ensure. A description of the various problems encountered will be sent as soon as possible.”
Regarding the problems with grenades, after which Commander Lund concluded that they proved unsuitable for combat, he wrote: “Pending a (better) explanation for this occurrence, I must emphasize the critical and unacceptable nature of sending a frigate to a enemy environment with ammunition consisting of these types of unstable grenades.”
Images of a successful deployment with ESSM and the cannon.
Other ships
Not only the Dutch and Danish frigates use APAR. The German ships also have this radar. They all do this in their own configuration, which is why the problems experienced by the Danish frigate do not directly say anything about the other ships. For example, the Netherlands does not use C-FLEX as a CMS and a different CMS has been installed on the German frigates.
The first problem surrounding launches with a ship that also sails with the Dutch APAR-SMART-L combination also seems different. The German frigate Hessen (Saxony class) spotted an unknown drone on February 26, and after consultation with allies it was decided to launch missiles. Afterwards it turned out that it was an American MQ-9, but what is more important for now is that the missiles did not reach the target. In a https://twitter.com/AlexLuck9/status/1763885971790283148 from the German Navy, which was taken offline again, said: “The missiles could not reach the target. According to the first estimate, this was due to a technical error on board the frigate. The error was quickly discovered and could be remedied immediately. are no shortcomings in the chain of the weapon system used.”
Danish concerns
The German frigate is still in the region and sails under the flag of the European mission Aspides. The Iver Huitfeldt is on its way back. This was earlier than initially reported by the Danish Ministry of Defense. An English-language message dated January 30 about the frigate’s departure stated: “The frigate will operate in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden from early February to mid-April 2024.”
It is not known why the frigate sailed back at the end of March, but the technical problems may have something to do with it. After all, with problems involving missiles, radar and the cannon, the ship is vulnerable. Especially if the ship is faced with a combined attack by drones and cruise missiles.
Danish politicians have reacted with shock and anger to Olfi about the turn of events. Before departure, when there were already rumors about technical problems, they had asked if there were any issues. They were then told that the ship was fine and could defend itself well.
The Danish Minister of Defense says he has not heard of any problems and has asked for further information.
| | Author: Jaime Karremann Jaime is the founder of Marineschappen.nl and has written more than 1,500 articles on various naval topics. In 2017, he published his non-fiction book In the utmost secrecy out and later a submarine thriller Orca. Before Jaime started working on this site full-time, he worked in the Navy for over 12 years, most of which in a civilian position. Jaime studied Communications in Groningen. |
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