With the RapidFire, the French Navy finally has its CIWS close protection system

From the middle of the 60s, the new Soviet combat ships were equipped with close protection systems AK-630, a 30mm hexatube cannon with radar guidance intended to intercept combat planes, helicopters and anti-ship missiles threatening the building, and having overcome its long and medium range defense provided by surface-to-air missiles and naval artillery. About fifteen years later, the US Navy began to deploy the now famous Phalanx system on its new buildings, a 20 mm cannon also hexatube capable of very high rates of fire beyond 4000 rounds per minute, to intercept inbound air threats at very short range. This is how the notion of Close-In Weapon System, or CIWS (pronounced If-yes-s) to ensure the ultimate protection of surface ships against missiles, rockets, aircraft and even artillery shells.

Since then, the system has been widely democratized, and several systems now equip Western navies, whether artillery systems like the Phalanx or the Goalkeeper, or based on very short-range missiles, like the SeaRam American and the French Simbad, but also in Russia with Kashtan and the new Naval Pantsir-M, and in China with the Type 730 (30 mm heptatube artillery) and the HQ-10 (missiles). And the vast majority of so-called 1st rank surface combat ships entered into service since 1990 were equipped with them. Only one major world navy did not use this type of system, the French Navy. For Paris, in fact, these systems were considered superfluous, knowing that the French ships had a large and effective panoply of electronic warfare and decoys to supplement the surface-to-air missiles and naval artillery to face the reality of threat during this period. The fact is, between 1990 and 2010, the risks that a French frigate was actually targeted by a large number of anti-ship missiles exceeding the defense capabilities offered by the defensive panoply at its disposal, were very low.

But in recent years, the risk has evolved considerably, and now it is far from excluded that a French ship is targeted by missiles and enemy drones. It therefore now became essential to protect against this type of threat not only the frigates and destroyers already equipped with electronic warfare systems and surface-to-air missiles, but also the support and second-tier ships, such as the new Supply Ship of the Fleet, or BRF, of the Jacques Chevallier class, or the new Ocean Patrollers which will replace the A69 aviso in the years to come. For this, the Thales and Nexter groups have joined forces to develop the RapidFire system, a naval turret armed with the Franco-British 40 CTA 40 mm cannon with telescoped ammunition which already equips EBRC Jaguar armored vehicles, and thus play the role of CIWS to Navy ships. While the final version of the RapidFire was presented at the Euronaval 2022 exhibition, it is clear that the new French CIWS does indeed offer very promising performance, both to protect second line units and to reinforce the survivability of large surface units. front line.

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