Denmark Buys Rheinmetall MASS for Five Frigates in $116 Million Deal
Denmark is reinforcing the self-protection layer of its surface fleet. The country’s armaments and procurement agency has contracted Rheinmetall to supply its Multi Ammunition Softkill System to five frigates, in a seven-year deal worth around 745 million Danish kroner ($116 million). The surrounding framework agreement, extendable to 20 years, carries a ceiling of up to 1.275 billion kroner ($198 million).
The ships
Five decoy-launching systems will equip two Absalon-class anti-submarine warfare frigates and three Iver Huitfeldt-class air defence frigates. Installation is planned at the naval bases at Korsør and Frederikshavn, and the contract covers ammunition supply and maintenance services alongside the hardware — a structure designed to keep decoy stocks flowing across the ships’ service lives.
The Iver Huitfeldt class, with Mk 41 vertical launch cells and a SMART-L/APAR radar suite, is among NATO’s more capable mid-sized air defence platforms in the North Sea and Baltic.
How MASS works
MASS is a soft-kill system: rather than destroying an incoming missile, it aims to break the seeker’s lock and pull it away from the ship. Configurations extend to six launchers, each holding up to 32 decoys.
The Omni Trap rounds it fires are multispectral, generating false signatures across radar, infrared, laser and electro-optical bands simultaneously — so one cloud can work against radar-guided and heat-seeking missiles alike. The system reads wind conditions, the ship’s navigation data and the characteristics of the incoming threat to decide autonomously which decoy to fire and on what bearing.
Why now
Missile and drone attacks on shipping in the Red Sea forced navies to re-examine the close-in defence layer, and Danish frigates were among the units deployed there. The operational lesson was blunt: interceptor magazines empty quickly.
Decoys answer that on two fronts. They cost a fraction of an interceptor round, and they can be stowed far more densely than vertical-launch missiles. Pairing hard-kill and soft-kill layers has become the standard formula for modern surface defence rather than an optional refinement.
Regional framing
The contract forms part of a broader Danish naval renewal aimed simultaneously at critical infrastructure protection in the Baltic and North Sea and at a stronger Arctic presence around Greenland. For the wider European market, it signals steady demand for shipborne self-protection systems in the years ahead.
Sources
- Danish Ministry of Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation announcement, 12 August 2026
- Naval News, 12 August 2026
- The Defense Post, 12 August 2026
