TenCate Advanced Armour has been awarded a contract by the Royal Danish Navy to provide a ballistic protection system for small calibre gun mounts operators onboard the second Absalon-class support ship Esbern Snare (L17).
Under the contract, the company will supply advanced armour for use by the Danish Navy during naval anti-piracy operations along the Horn of Africa.
Designed to be lightweight and deployable by two personnel within 15 minutes, the ballistic protection features mission specific equipment with modular capabilities and can be configured to meet the high number of threats encountered in counter-piracy mission areas.
The advanced naval vessel armour system provides protection level from Nato STANAG 4569 level I to IV, and can also be customised to meet specific requirements.
The TenCate Advanced Armour protection solution has been developed to meet user requirements; it can be installed on the new vessel structure or deployed on an ad-hoc basis to provide additional protection for existing ships.
The Royal Danish Navy currently operates two Odense Steel Shipyard-built Absalon-class vessels for naval warfare, land attack, strategic sealift missions or as a command platform.
Capable of cruising at a top speed of 23k, the 137m-long Absalon-class vessels are equipped with six Terma decoy launchers and are powered by two MTU 8000 diesel engines in a combined diesel and diesel configuration.
The 6,300t ships are armed with Harpoon Block II surface-to-surface missiles, RIM-162 Raytheon evolved sea sparrow missiles (ESSM), Eurotorp MU 90 lightweight torpedo and a twin or triple torpedo launcher on both sides of the weapons deck.
Image: HDMS Esbern Snare conducting mission at sea. Photo: courtesy of FMT/Koninklijke Ten Cate nv.
