FDI Belh @ rra remains the most effective choice for Greece

The competition is raging in Athens as the Greek authorities announced that they would decide on the winner of the competition for the acquisition of 2 + 2 new frigates before the end of the summer. A few days ago, London announced that it was ready to give up 2 of its Type 23 frigates free of charge if Athens compromises in favor of Babcock's Arrowhead 140 model, while Fincantieri presented its offer on the basis of the FREMM Bergamini accompanied by two Maestrale class frigates, and that the Netherlands offered their two Karel Doorman class frigates alongside Damen's Sigma 11515 HN. The decision seems to be taking shape between these 3 offers and that of Naval Group on the basis of the FDI Belh @ rra and the transfer of two Type 70 frigates, the D646 Latouche Tréville for anti-submarine warfare, and the D615 Jean Bart for anti-aircraft defense. On paper, the offers appear balanced, but the French offer seems to be slightly down because of the age of the replacement vessels and the price of the FDI equivalent to that of the FREMM for a much more compact vessel. In fact, the Hellenic press, and especially the public opinion of the country, are very divided on the model and the offer to be retained, with sometimes simplified reading grids, and very approximate data gleaned on social networks.

This is the reason why Colonel of the Hellenic Air Force Konstantinos Zikidis wrote 3 articles to objectively and factually compare the capabilities of competing ships, and more specifically in the key area of ​​anti-aircraft defense and air defense systems. weapon of these frigates. The Greek officer, moreover very respected in the Hellenic peninsula as an aeronautical engineer has and for his many writings, thus compared 3 key elements of the device of the proposed frigates: the radar, the vertical launch system and the missiles them themselves. And the conclusions are clear: whether it is the Sea Fire 500 radar from Thales, the VLS SYLVER from Naval Group, or the Aster 15/30, Mica VL, VT1 and MdCN missiles from MBDA and Thales, all of them surpass the performance of their equivalents which equip Italian, American, Dutch, German or British ships offered to Greece under this contract.

Thus, in a first article published academically, Panagiotis Touzopoulos, aeronautical engineer and Colonel Zikidis have analyzed the comparative performance of the LW08, DA08, MW08, TRS-4D and SeaFire 500 radar for the detection and monitoring of several types of target according to various engagement scenarios, and more particularly for detecting targets with a low radar equivalent area such as the Roketsan Atmaca anti-ship missile which equips the new Ada corvettes of the Turkish Navy. While many in Greece tended to consider the Seafire as equivalent to the TRS-4D, analysis shows that this is not the case, and that the French radar very clearly exceeds, especially against stealthy targets, the capabilities of its competitors in all areas of flight. This capability is decisive in more than one way: not only does it allow the frigate to detect a threat aimed at it as soon as possible, offering longer timeframes to deal with it with the appropriate response and therefore without wasting ammunition unnecessarily, but it also makes it possible to detect threats targeting other targets early enough to be able to initiate an interception, which is much more difficult with other radars, with very small or non-existent interception windows in this type of scenario.

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