Royal Navy accepts Thales sonar

The Royal Navy has accepted Thales UK’s new 2093 mine countermeasures sonar after the successful completion of sea trials on HMS Grimsby, Thales announced on 20 August.

Thales UK developed the enhanced 2093 Wideband variant under the 2093 Capability Sustainment Programme (CSP) for the Royal Navy to improve threat recognition capability and range.

The 2093 Wideband variant is a multi-frequency variable depth sonar system designed to counter the threat of modern mines in both deep and shallow water. Its sonar transmitter and receiver are contained within a towed body which is lowered below the ship by automated winch of armoured cable, penetrating oceanic temperature layers which can block sonar signals.

The system's pulse compression technology allows long range detection and classification of new generation, low target strength mines, while wider fields of view and multiple search and classification frequencies ensure that the critical mine hunting parameters of coverage rate and speed of advance are maximised under any operational conditions.

The remaining six Sandown-class minehunters will all be refitted with 2093 CSP at the Royal Navy’s dockyard in Rosyth.

Related Equipment in Defence Insight

Sandown Class

2093 Variable Depth Sonar