GERMAN MKS 180 CONTRACT SIGNED

On Tuesday 17 November, Hein van Ameijden, the CEO of Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding in Vlissingen, and Gerben Edelijn signed the MKS 180 contract. This makes us now formally subcontractor to Damen for the delivery of four MKS 180 ships to the German Navy.

This is the conclusion of a long process in which we worked very hard, in a team that grew bigger and bigger, on winning this contract. Damen was selected in January of this year and that meant that we would also get the contract. From that day on we have been busy with Damen to discuss and stipulate all details Federiko Krommendijk, project manager MKS 180

​ What is MKS 180?

MKS 180 is a new class of ships for the German Navy. There will be four ships, but the contract contains an option for one or two more. The customer has defined a great number of requirements for the ships which made it quite a challenge for Damen and us. For instance, the Navy require the ships to remain at sea for long periods of time with alternating crews. The ships need to be able to defend themselves and other units in a group against all present and future threats and they will need to be able to be used in humanitarian missions after natural disasters and such. This vast range of requirements also affects our products.”

What is Thales going to deliver?

Federiko: “In the first place we will, of course, deliver our Tacticos Combat Management Systeem. To enable the crew to put up a defence against all threats, the new AWWS fire control cluster will be on the ship. This cluster consists of a software package for the optimal deployment of defence systems and APAR Bl2, the evolved version of our APAR multi-function radar. Our electr-optical Mirador and Gatekeeper will be installed and our colleagues from Germany are bringing the full naval communication suite. Of course we are going to integrate all sensors and defence means, also the systems that are not Thales. We are going to do this for four ships and for two land-based training and test sites. Further, an extensive package of services and spare parts is included. In all of the above, cyber security plays a vital role. The customer has laid down challenging requirements fort his and it was quite a job to meet them.”

This is by far the largest contract in Thales Nederland’s history Gerben Edelijn

What does MKS 180 mean to us?

Gerben Edelijn: We can be very proud to have won it and happy with the huge volume of high-tech work it entails. The contract reinforces the relation with the German Navy, which has been our biggest export customer for many years. And, especially in combination with the other big contracts we landed in the past two years, Type 31 for the UK and the development of AWWS for the Netherlands, it strengthens our position on the European market.

But the sheer size of the contract is also a challenge. We cannot do all this work by ourselves. About 70% of the work will be done in Germany, at the Thales plants in Kiel and Wilhemshaven. That is why we are recruiting new personnel, together with our German colleagues, to help us with this huge amount of work. We can safely say that MKS180 will certainly make its mark on our company and will yield enourmous development opportunities.