Green light for F-110
Vision of the F-110 frigate. It is not the latest, but the differences from real ships will be cosmetic.
Promises made by politicians to Polish seafarers are seldom fulfilled on time and in full, if at all. Meanwhile, when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced in the middle of last year that a billion-euro contract to buy a series of frigates would be concluded before the end of last year, he kept his word. Thus, the program for the construction of new generation escort ships for the Armada Española has entered a decisive phase prior to their production.
The aforementioned contract between the Ministry of Defense of Madrid and the state-owned shipbuilding company Navantia SA was concluded on December 12, 2018. Its cost was 4,326 billion euros, and it concerns the implementation of a technical design and the construction of a series of five F-110 multi-purpose frigates to replace six ships of the F-80 Santa María type. The latter, being a licensed version of the American type OH Perry, were built at the local Bazan shipyard (Empresa Nacional Bazán de Construcciones Navales Militares SA) in Ferrol and entered service in 1986-1994. In 2000, this plant merged with Astilleros Españoles SA, creating IZAR, but five years later, the main shareholder, Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (State Industrial Union), separated from it the military sector, called Navantia, hence - despite the name change - the production of ships in Ferrol was retained. The Santa María frigates are structurally compatible with the latest longer-hulled US Navy OH Perry ships and have an increased beam of less than a meter. The first domestic electronic and weapons systems were also deployed there, including the not very successful 12-barreled 20-mm Fábrica de Artillería Bazán MeRoKa short-range defense system. The six ships were the second fruit of collaboration with the US shipbuilding industry, as five Baleares frigates were previously built in Spain, which were copies of Knox-class units (in service 1973-2006). She was also the last.
Two decades of reconstruction and subsequent exploitation of American technical thought laid the foundations for the independent design of large warships. It soon became clear that the Spaniards were doing more than well. The project of four F-100 frigates (Alvaro de Bazan, in service from 2002 to 2006), to which a fifth joined six years later, won the American and European competition, becoming the basis of the AWD (Air Warfare Destroyer), in which the Royal Australian Navy received three anti-aircraft destroyers. Previously, Navantia won the competition for a frigate for the Norwegian Sjøforsvaret, and in 2006-2011 was reinforced by five divisions of Fridtjof Nansen. The shipyard has also built offshore patrol ships for Venezuela (four Avante 1400s and four 2200 Combatants) and has recently begun production of five corvettes for Saudi Arabia based on the Avante 2200 design. With this experience, the company has been able to begin work on a new generation of ships.
Preparations
Attempts to launch the F-110 program have been made since the end of the last decade. The Spanish Navy, realizing that the cycle of building a new generation of frigates requires at least 10 years - from commissioning to completion - began efforts to provide financial resources for this purpose in 2009. They were initiated by AJEMA (Almirante General Jefe de Estado Mayor de la Armada, Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Navy). Even then, the first technical conference was organized, at which the fleet's initial expectations regarding new escorts were announced. A year later, AJEMA issued a letter in which it substantiated the operational need necessary to initiate the procedure for obtaining military equipment. It indicated that the first Santa Maria frigates would be over 2020 years old by 30, indicating a need to start a new program in 2012 and turn them into metal from 2018. To reassure politicians, the F-110 was designated in the document as a unit between the large F-100 frigates, designed to participate in full-scale armed conflicts, and the 94-meter BAM (Buque de Acción Marítima, Meteoro type) patrols used in maritime security surveillance operations.
Unfortunately for the F-110 in 2008, the economic crisis delayed the start of the program until 2013. However, in December 2011, the Ministry of Defense was able to conclude a contract with Indra and Navantia for a symbolic value of 2 million euros to carry out a preliminary analysis of the possibility of manufacturing the MASTIN integrated mast ( from Mástil Integrado) for new frigates. Despite the economic difficulties, in January 2013 AJEMA presented preliminary technical tasks (Objetivo de Estado Mayor), and based on their analysis in July
In 2014, technical requirements (Requisitos de Estado Mayor) were formulated. These were the last documents required for the preparation of a feasibility study by the Directorate General of Armaments and Military Equipment (Dirección general de Armamento y Material). During this period, the ship "swollen" from 4500 to 5500 tons. the first proposals for the design of the mast and tactical and technical adjustments, including the power plant. In the same year, the F-110 Design Bureau was established.
Real funds were received in August 2015. At that time, the Ministry of Defense of Madrid signed a contract worth 135,314 million euros with the aforementioned companies for the implementation of eleven more research and development works related, in particular, to the design and manufacture of prototypes and sensor demonstrators, including: an antenna panel with transmitting and receiving modules of the X-band surface observation system of the AFAR class; AESA S-band Air Surveillance Radar Panel; RESM and CESM electronic warfare systems; reconnaissance system TsIT-26, operating in modes 5 and S, with a ring antenna; high power amplifiers for the Link 16 data transmission system; as well as the initial stage of development of the SCOMBA (Sistema de COMbate de los Buques de la Armada) combat system with computers, consoles and its components for installation on the CIST (Centro de Integración de Sensores en Tierra) coastal integration stand. To this end, Navantia Sistemas and Indra have formed a joint venture PROTEC F-110 (Programas Tecnológicos F-110). Soon, the Madrid Technological University (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) was invited to cooperate. In addition to the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism joined the financing of the work. PROTEC has presented several mast-mounted sensor configurations to naval staffs. For further design, a shape with an octagonal base was chosen.
Work was also carried out on the platform of the frigate. One of the first ideas was to use a suitably modified F-100 design, but this was not adopted by the military. In 2010, at the Euronaval exhibition in Paris, Navantia introduced the "frigate of the future" F2M2 Steel Pike. The concept to some extent echoed the Austal project of a three-hull installation of the Independence type, mass-produced for the US Navy under the LCS program. However, it has been found that the trimaran system is not optimal for PDO operations, the propulsion system is too loud, and the trimaran design feature is desirable in some applications, i.e. large overall width (30 versus 18,6 m for the F-100) and the resulting deck area - in this case, insufficient for needs. It also turned out to be too avant-garde and probably too expensive to implement and operate. It should be noted that this was a shipyard initiative, which thus considered the ability of a design of this type to meet the expected requirements of the F-110 (defined at the time very broadly), as well as the interest of potential foreign recipients.
