Back to sea. HMNZS Te Kaha sailing past the historic Fisgard Lighthouse as she commences the first of her intensive sea trials off Canada’s West Coast. A welcome return to sea after a period at CFB Esquimalt where she's been undertaking a significant systems upgrade. RNZN picture.

Royal New Zealand Navy’s Te Kaha Frigate Starts Post-Upgrade Sea Trials

The Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN)'s frigate HMNZS Te Kaha started sea trials in Canada following a mid life upgrade. It is the first of two Anzac-class frigates set to receive the Frigate Systems Upgrade (FSU) at Seaspan shipyards with Lockheed Martin Canada acting as prime contractor.

Xavier Vavasseur  09 Sep 2020

The Frigate Systems Upgrade (FSU) project is upgrading the frigates’ surveillance, combat and self-defence capabilities to match current and future threats and address obsolescence of some current systems. This will deliver a new combat management system, new radars, electronic detection and other above water sensors, the self-defence missile system, decoys against missiles and torpedoes, and an upgrade to the hull-mounted sonar.

New Zealand’s government approved an initial project budget of $446 in April 2014, followed by an additional $148 million in December 2017 to accommodate increases in installation costs of the combat system equipment into the Anzac ships.

Lockheed Martin Canada was selected as the prime system integrator in April 2014 and is supplying the new combat management system. Contracts for the equipment followed, including:

• MBDA for the Sea Ceptor surface to air missile to replace the Sea Sparrow.
• Thales Australia providing the Broadband Sonar Advanced Processing System (BSAPS) for the Spherion B hull-mounted sonar and the TUUM-6 multi-channel Digital Underwater Communication System (DUWCS).
• Airborne Systems Limited providing anti-ship missile defence soft kill subsystems.
• Ultra Electronics Limited providing torpedo defence systems.
• Northrop Grumman providing new inertial navigation system.
• OSI Maritime Systems providing navigation radar systems based on two Furuno 3000 series X band radars.

ANZAC Frigate HMNZS TE KAHA at CFB Esquimalt in Victoria, B.C. Lockheed Martin picture.

HMNZS Te Kaha was delivered to Seaspan’s Victoria Shipyards, located inside Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt (CFB Esquimalt), to begin the upgrade work in April 2018. Te Kaha‘ sistership, HMNZS Te Mana is also being upgraded and is currently at CFB Esquimalt.

The New Zealand contract award represents Lockheed Martin Canada’s first export sale of its Canadian developed Combat Management System (CMS 330). The CMS is the backbone of the technical solution that will integrate the various legacy and new subsystems for the ANZAC Class ships.