DCNS Exhibits New Gen BELH@RRA Digital Frigate

DCNS has unveiled BELH@RRA new-generation digital frigate at  Euronaval Exhibition in France.

The BELH@RRA front-line digital frigate renews the heavily-armed 4,000-tonne frigate segment, the company announced today.

DCNS has positioned a latest-generation vessel between the 6,000-tonne FREMM multi-mission frigate segment and that of the 2,500- to 3,000-tonne GOWIND corvettes. With the BELH@RRA frigate, DCNS responds to the expectations of navies looking for a compact frigate, capable of ensuring long-range missions, operating alone or embedded in a naval force, on the high seas or as part of coastal surveillance missions in a dense and hostile environment.

Thanks to the architecture and versatility of DCNS’s SETIS combat-management system, the BELH@RRA frigate will respond to the specific needs of client navies in all areas of warfare, whilst at the same time offering significant platform modularity to increase vessel payload or autonomy.

The new frigate will offer an unprecedented aircraft detection capability and strengthened air-surface warfare capacities. Even a multi-mission foundation to which capacities responding to new threats such as asymmetric warfare or cyber-defence will also be added.

The development of digital technologies guarantees the upgradeability of the vessel throughout its life-cycle. For a period of almost forty years, the equipment and systems will be incrementally modernised to adapt to evolutions in the operational context,future threats and the arrival of new technologies.

DCNS already offers a French-Navy version of the new BELH@RRA frigate in the frame of the FTI (intermediate-size frigate) programme conducted by the French Procurement Agency (DGA) on behalf of the French Navy. It also integrates Thales SeaFire four flat antenna radar and is equipped with ASTER 30 missiles from MBDA.