The meeting of five Spanish frigates of the Santa María Class in the Gulf of Cádiz

@DefAviation ES 1·26·2024 · 20:27 0

The Spanish Navy has six frigates of the Santa María Class, based on the American frigates of the Oliver Hazard Perry Class, in active service.

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Those six frigates, also known as F-80, entered service between 1986 and 1994. Within the Navy, these six frigates are framed in the 41st Escort Squadron, based in Rota (Cádiz). This week, five of them have met in the waters of the Gulf of Cádiz on the occasion of the MAR 41 escort ship exercise.

Yesterday the Spanish Navy published two series of photos of this exercise. In the first series four of the frigates appear: the "Santa María" F-81, the "Numancia" F-83, the "Reina Sofía" F-84 and the "Navarra" F-85, taking part in the aforementioned exercise.

Here we see the frigate "Numancia" F-83, sailing in parallel with one of its sisters.

A shot from the 76 mm OTO Melara Mk.75 main gun of one of the frigates during this exercise.

An SH-60B helicopter from the Tenth Squadron during a fast rope descent exercise on the flight deck of one of these frigates.

Members of a Marine Corps Security Operational Team (EOS) aboard one of the frigates. These teams belong to the different units of the Protection Force (FUPRO) of the Marine Corps (Northern Tercio, Southern Tercio and Levante Tercio) and provide security to the ships, in addition to training the Visit and Registration Teams (TVR), whose mission is to inspect all types of vessels.

Members of the Control and Rescue Team of one of the frigates, with their equipment to deal with fires on board.

The frigate "Santa María" F-81, in the foreground, with another of the frigates of its class in the background (I think it is the F-83, the number is not very clear).

In addition to the previous photos, yesterday the Spanish Navy published a second series of images in which we see the four frigates mentioned together with the frigate "Victoria" F-82, which joined the exercise during an outing to sea for equipment and systems tests , prior to its future deployment to Atalanta in the Indian Ocean.

The five frigates formed a V formation in honor of the frigate "Victoria", which this year celebrates 15 years of its first mission in Operation Atalanta. She was the first Spanish ship deployed in that anti-piracy operation in the waters surrounding the Horn of Africa.