Anti-Submarine Warfare Frigate (ASWF)

Damen Naval’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Frigate, known in the programme documents as the ASWF, is a class of four ships under construction for the Royal Netherlands Navy and the Belgian Navy. Two ships are destined for each fleet, replacing the Karel Doorman-class (M-frigates) that have carried the bulk of Dutch and Belgian anti-submarine work since the early 1990s. The programme is jointly managed by the Dutch Defence Materiel Organisation and the Belgian DG MR under a single design, with shared logistics and a coordinated build at Damen Naval ’s Vlissingen yard. First-of-class delivery is planned for the back end of this decade, with the remaining hulls following into the early 2030s.

The hull is built around the submarine-hunting mission. Machinery is rafted on resilient mounts, the propulsion train uses electric drive at quiet speeds, and the engineering spaces carry acoustic damping treatments to push the radiated-noise signature well below the predecessor class. A bow-mounted sonar pairs with a Thales variable-depth towed array, and an NH90 anti-submarine helicopter operates from the stern flight deck and hangar to prosecute contacts at range. Below the flight deck sits a reconfigurable mission bay sized for unmanned surface vessels and unmanned underwater vehicles. These off-board systems extend the acoustic search radius, run mine reconnaissance, and persistently survey choke points without putting the frigate itself in the threatened water. The Thales-supplied combat system fuses the on-board sensors with feeds from the helicopter and the unmanned platforms so a single operations room manages a much larger acoustic picture than a conventional frigate of comparable size.

Crew sizing is the other distinctive feature. Where the Karel Doormans put roughly 150 sailors to sea, the ASWF is being designed for a complement closer to 117, with automation absorbing a great deal of the routine watchkeeping in propulsion, damage control, and sensor management. The ships are not single-mission platforms despite the name. A Mk 41 vertical launch system carries ESSM Block 2 surface-to-air missiles, and Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile canisters give them an anti-ship reach beyond the horizon, alongside a 76 mm main gun and short-range self-defence weapons.

The four-ship contract was signed with Damen in June 2023 after several years of conceptual and design work. Once delivered, the frigates will operate in the North Atlantic and around the GIUK gap, where Russian submarine activity has climbed sharply since 2014 and where Dutch ASW frigates hold a long-standing NATO assignment.