Sea Toby said:
Its an 8 cell box launcher for the Aspide missile similar in many respects to the Nato Sea Sparrow Mk 29 launcher.
Yes exactly, and it can launch the Sea Sparrow (it is the case on the Lupo FFGs just sold to Peru). Though normally the launcher is built for Aspide (13km, Mach 2.5) or Aspide-2000 (21km, Mach 2.5) installed on Brazilian Niteroi FFGs during modernization.
The launcher exists with manual reload or automatic reload facilities requiring approx 10 meters behind it for the reloading facility.
The system has been built in big numbers : 30 for the Italian Navy (Garibaldi, DDG De la Penne, Mimbelli, Audace, Ardito, 8 Maestrale, 8 Lupo, 8 Minerva,...), 6 for Venezuela, 6 for Brazil, 8 for Peru, 2 for Thailand, etc
A 4-SAM version has been developed and installed on the corvettes sold to Iraq and Malaysia.
cheers