The location of the Spanish frigate Blas de Lezo F-103, one of the star ships of the Spanish Navy, is now a secret. The ship left the El Ferrol arsenal a month ago for an area of the eastern Mediterranean where the Meteoro and Sella minehunters also sail to join the NATO SNMG-2 device, deployed near the Black Sea.
The frigate, which cost 600 million euros, has 190 crew members on board, in addition to personnel from the fleet of aircraft necessary to maintain the helicopter and Marines who joined the Rota base.
Due to the Ukrainian crisis, the ship left three weeks ahead of schedule. In doing so, it turned off ordinary civilian location systems and switched to military location codes, typical of exercises or combat actions. “Not many people know its location. The personnel assigned to the Operations Command, the Fleet Headquarters…”, military sources point out.
The Ministry of Defense maintains the greater secrecy on the operations of the Spanish Army in the vicinity of the scene of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. It is therefore unknown if the ship is already in the Black Sea, where Russia has twenty warships deployed and an undisclosed number of auxiliary and landing ships to block the Ukrainian coast.
The Blas de Lezo, the third frigate of the “Álvaro de Bazán” class, is 146 meters long, 50 meters high, and belongs to the 31st Escort Squadron. She is a relatively modern frigate, since she was built in 2004. The main feature of her is that she has one of the “best radars in the world”.
The AEGIS combat system uses four fixed antennas of the AN/SPY-1 multifunction radar, which has 360-degree coverage. This radar is capable of detecting up to 200 targets (and also approaching projectiles) simultaneously in a distance greater than 200 miles (321 kilometers). When tracking a threat, whether aerial, surface, or underwater, it can respond instantly with missiles or torpedoes.
“This combat system allows for a ability to react very quickly to any attack“, specify military sources about AEGIS, which was created for the United States Navy after the Cold War, but is also used by the Japan Maritime Force, the Royal Norwegian Navy, the Navy of the Republic of Korea and the Navy Spanish.
“The F-100 frigates that mount the AEGIS system allow us to have in these ships a of attack similar to the destroyers of the USA”, points out a middle position in the Navy who has been stationed on the ship on several occasions. The operation of this defense system was very plausibly reflected in the post-apocalyptic series ‘The Last Ship’.
In an ordinary situation where he joined the NATO operation in that area of the Mediterranean, the Blas de Lezo mission would last two months, but given the war in Ukraine it could take much longer. “His crew don’t know when he’s coming back and they were already away for a long period before Christmas”, values a position from the Navy, which details that such a frigate is “like a small city, because there are always people on guard, on the machines, at the rudder… , in addition, with a bakery, hairdresser, laundry, workshops, gym”.
The destination of the Blas de Lezo is the Black Sea area of operations, but it does not necessarily have to be there at the moment. Naval traffic in the Black Sea is governed by the Montreux Convention. This old treaty limits passage through the Turkish straits to countries not bordering the Black Sea, even if they are NATO allies of those, such as Bulgaria and Romania, that do have a coastline on that sea: only ships can pass through the Bosphorus Strait guarded by Turkey. foreign military of a certain size and only for 21 days.
According to this convention, which could be a dead letter given the ongoing war in the area, a foreign fleet cannot exceed 15,000 tons while sailing in the Black Sea. Aircraft carriers, in fact, are prohibited, which places frigates like the Blas de Lezo very much in the forefront.
United States has in the area to the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, presumably in the Aegean Sea. It is the closest thing that has been able to bring it closer to the Russian theater of operations.
Frigates such as the Blas de Lezo have the capacity to carry an embarked helicopter, the LAMPS MK-II, equipped with modern sensors and weapons that allow detection and also attack on surface ships and submarines. The helicopter crew is made up of 18 soldiers, and the crew includes a Security Operations Team whose main mission is to contribute to the protection of ships, as well as to provide the security element for carrying out Maritime Interdiction Operations ( MIO), which seek to prevent the access of goods or people to certain geographical areas.
Inside the ship is the Information and Combat Center (CIC), where all the data is processed and the AEGIS combat system is managed. It is that dark cabin that usually appears in war movies and where there are numerous screens with bright greens.
Before joining the NATO operation, the frigate and its crew had to pass their Operational Qualification period, where it is certified that the ship is working at full capacity. This testing period has to last at least a month, but in this case the off-base period was extended for several additional weeks due to the frigate’s participation in various national and international exercises. Specifically, he was out from October 23 to mid-December.
The motto of the frigate, which until this mission had participated in 16 operations, the majority within the NATO framework, is ‘Ornatus mei arma sunt requies mea pugnare’: “My tack is weapons, my rest is fighting”.