IndoDefence 2018: Damen Unveils 6000 Tons 'Omega' Frigate

November 2018 Naval News
POSTED ON WEDNESDAY, 07 NOVEMBER 2018 17:05

By Xavier Vavasseur - Editor in Chief

At IndoDefence 2018, the tri service defense exposition currently held in Jakarta, Indonesia, Dutch shipbuilding group Damen unveiled the new 6,000 tons class 'Omega' Frigate design.

Talking to Navy Recognition at the event, Bob De Smedt, one of the naval architect who worked on the Omega project, explained that the scale model on display is representative of an early concept for the future Royal Netherlands Navy (Koninklijke Marine) and Belgian Navy (Marinecomponent / Composante marine) M Frigate replacement. However the main reason the new Omega class of frigates was unveiled at IndoDefence (and not Euronaval for example which was held two weeks ago) is because Damen is now ready to answer Indonesia's potential need for a large frigate (hence the 'FFI' name on a Damen image, standing for Future Frigate Indonesia).

Omega is actually set to be a new family or product line by Damen, that will come in addition to (and above) the famous Sigma product line. The main difference however is that there will be no "standard Omega lines": Omega designs will always be fully tailored to customer requirements.

For this reason, a future Indonesian Navy (TNI AL) Omega frigate design is likely to look different to the future M Frigate replacement... unless Indonesia is willing and able to team up with the Dutch and Belgian order. The Netherlands and Belgium are jointly procuring four frigates(two each) to replace their M frigates. Navy Recognition learned from various sources during IndoDefence that TNI AL has an "emerging need" for a 6,000 tons class of frigates as a follow on to its third and fourth PKR frigates (also a Damen design, of the Sigma family).

While this design could be proposed to other navies (New Zealand comes to mind), Damen stressed that this is not the design they are offering for Germany's MKS 180. Damen could not elaborate further about MKS 180.

Weapons and other sensors

The weapons and sensor suite depends on customers requirements as usual. However the scale model on display at Indodefence shows the Omega frigate fitted with a 127mm main gun by leonardo, a 76mm secondary gun (non penetrating variant) by Leonardo on top of the helicopter hangar, a Rheinmetall Millenium CIWS, 2x Leonardo Hitrole remote weapon stations, 8x Kongsberg NSM anti-ship missiles, 4x Rheinmetall MASS decoy launchers, a Thales Kingklip hull mounted sonar and a Captas-4 variable depth sonar, 4x satellite link antennas and 2x Thales Mirador EO systems. For air defense, the scale model shows 24x VLS cells (likely VL MICA NG for Indonesia or ESSM Block 2 for Netherlands and Belgium).