The Spanish Navy shows the SRBOC, one of the anti-missile defenses of its frigates

One of the main threats to surface ships of various naval forces today are missiles.

The heavy weapons carried on board by the Spanish frigates of the 'Santa María' class
The Spanish-German naval missile defense system CIWS Meroka in pictures

One of the most effective methods to end this threat is surface-to-air missiles. At closer range, there are other elements that make it possible to end possible missile attacks against a ship: electronic countermeasures (ECM, which disrupt the missiles' radar by flooding it with electromagnetic signals), anti-aircraft artillery guns (such as the American Phalanx CIWS and the Spanish Meroka, designed to physically destroy the missile), and decoys, the purpose of which is to deceive the missile by generating an alternative target.

This Wednesday, the Spanish Navy published this spectacular photo of the frigate "Méndez Núñez" F-104, of the "Álvaro de Bazán" class, firing its chaff decoy system.

Last year I showed you here this photo of the decoy launchers of the "Santa María" F-81 frigate. This system, manufactured in the USA, is called Mark 36 SRBOC (Super Rapid Bloom Offboard Countermeasures Chaff and Decoy Launching System) and is mounted on both the "Santa María" class (F-80) and the "Álvaro de Bazán" class (F-100) frigates, as well as on the "Meteoro" class maritime action ships and the "Galicia" class amphibious assault ships.

The decoys are fired by 130 mm Mark 137 launchers, placed in groups of six tubes. Each ship carries four of these groups of launchers, distributed on both sides of the ship in two groups facing in different directions. Here you can see the starboard Mk 137 launchers of the frigate "Blas de Lezo" F-103, in two photos that I took during the visit of this ship to Vigo last July.

Below these lines we can see two crew members of the frigate "Méndez Núñez" loading these launchers, in a photo published yesterday by the Spanish Navy. If I'm not mistaken, the black charges are infrared decoys (i.e. flares to fool heat-guided missiles) and the metallic-looking ones are chaff (decoys aimed at deceiving radar-guided weapons have been known since World War II, a decoy consisting of small metal strips).

Here we can see the magazine for this ammunition, along with the petty officer who supervises it. The charges in each tube vary between 12 and 36, depending on the variant. You can find more information about this system here.

The Spanish Navy has also published this photo of the Combat Information Center (CIC) of the frigate "Méndez Núñez", in which we see the console from which these countermeasures are controlled during a combat situation (reason why the crew members wear fireproof hoods and gloves).

Finally, today the Spanish Navy has published a video of a launch of these countermeasures from the frigate "Navarra" F-85, during an anti-missile defense exercise:

La fragata #Navarra pone en practica su defensa antimisil mediante el lanzamiento de señuelos, a los que conocemos como chaff. ¡Entérate de cómo se vive el lanzamiento en nuestro vídeo! 👇📽️#DefendemosEspañaEnYDesdeLaMar#SomosLaArmada pic.twitter.com/s7UcQIUBH9

— Armada (@Armada_esp) November 29, 2024

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Main photo: Armada Española. The F-85 frigate "Navarra" during NATO's Dynamic Manta 24 exercise in March 2024.