Sea Eagle System on Second Samuel Beckett Class Passes Firing Trials

Ireland’s Naval Service (INS) has selected the Chess Dynamics Sea Eagle fire control system for its new Samuel Beckett class of offshore patrol vessels.

INS has accepted the Chess Sea Eagle system installed on the LE Samuel Beckett and has recently completed live firing trials on the LE James Joyce, the second vessel in the class.

The new class, which was built by Babcock Marine, is a 90 metre vessel designed to be used for fisheries protection, search and rescue and maritime protection operations, including vessel boarding.

The Chess Sea Eagle FCEO (Fire Control Electro Optical) controls the main 76 mm Oto Melara gun mounting.  It is optimised for naval fire control against air, surface and shore targets, and is capable of controlling all in-service naval guns.

The Chess Sea Eagle is designed to provide 24hr automatic target detection, acquisition, identification and tracking, using a long range thermal imager and daylight TV camera. It can be fully integrated with the ship’s radar displays, so that it can slew to search radar contact indications.  Sea Eagle has been designed to be operated through a dedicated standalone console or as a fully integrated element of a multi-function console based combat system.

The system uses a mid-wave (3-5µ) thermal imager with zoom optics, a colour TV camera, also with zoom optics and an eye-safe, high repetition rate laser range finder.
In addition to being taken into service with the Irish Naval service, Sea Eagle is also in service with the Royal Navy, Royal Thai Navy, Royal Navy of Oman,  and Iraqi Navy, and is on order for the Royal Malaysian Navy.