The Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) has used its Navy@Vivo display this past weekend to take the wraps off the anti-torpedo defence system installed aboard its Formidable-class stealth frigates.
The system is believed to be the Morpheus (as in the Matrix?) countermeasure supplied several years ago by Italian armaments company, Leonardo Finmeccanica.
The Navy@Vivo display ship, RSS Tenacious, went on show with the covers taken off the eight-barrelled launchers that form part of the WASS C310 countermeasure launching system. All six stealth frigates carry a pair of trainable launchers atop the hangar roof.
This blog gave readers a heads-up four years ago on the possibility that the stealth frigates had been upgraded with an anti-torpedo countermeasure system. Click here for the 2012 report and here for the 2013 update.
Morpheus is made up of three components. These are:
* The Black Snake towed sonar that is streamed aft to detect and classify incoming torpedoes.
* The software that builds upon alerts furnished by Black Snake to recommend an evasive course while directing the launchers to deploy anti-torpedo countermeasures in a pre-planned pattern in the path of the incoming torpedoes.
* The eight-barrelled acoustic countermeasure launching system. This ejects dummy mobile targets and jammers that work in tandem to spoof torpedoes. The decoys will attempt to pull the torpedo away from the bearing of the real targets, with the game of bluff designed to carry on until the torpedo's propulsion is spent.
Senang Diri understands that the acquisition of the system, thought to be Morpheus, is complemented by new CONOPS for evasive manoeuvres executed at a recommended speed and course depending on the threat vector of underwater projectiles.
The unveiling of the anti-torpedo defence system marks a major capability jump for the stealth frigates, which are the RSN's premier anti-submarine warfare vessel. The warship's primary ASW asset is the embarked S-70B Seahawk, which can be deployed in the hunter-killer role with its dipping sonar and torpedoes to give the parent warship standoff distance while performing ASW sweeps.
A Leonardo Finmeccanica video describes how the system works. We join the attack/defence sequence from the point at which a hostile submarine zeroes in on friendly warships.
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