WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. State Department approved the sale of up to eight MH-60R multi-mission helicopters to Spain in a deal potentially worth $950 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sale would also include a range of weapons and systems \u2014 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles, Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) II guidance sections, communications equipment, Airborne Low Frequency Sonars, sonobuoys and more \u2014 to enable surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare and electronic warfare by these ship-based helicopters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to a State Department notification released March 15, \u201cThe MH-60R Multi-Mission Helicopter will provide the capability to perform anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare missions along with the ability to perform secondary missions including vertical replenishment, search and rescue, and communications relay and will bolster the Spanish Navy\u2019s ability to support NATO and remain interoperable with the U.S. and the NATO alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain has previously flown the older SH-60B Seahawk model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A growing number of countries are buying and fielding Lockheed Martin\u2019s MH-60R. Current Romeo customers include the U.S. Navy, Royal Danish Navy, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Saudi Naval Forces and the Hellenic Navy. In 2021, South Korea and India placed orders for the helicopters as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The helicopter would be particularly useful to Spain because of the built-in integration between the Romeo and Lockheed Martin\u2019s Aegis Combat System, which Spain\u2019s \u00c1lvaro de Baz\u00e1n-class air-defense frigate is equipped with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The eight MH-60R helicopters would be interoperable with the Aegis Combat System-equipped \u00c1lvaro de Baz\u00e1n-class frigates the Spanish Navy already fields.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,11,12,16,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3354],"class_list":["post-55901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-global","category-industry","category-naval","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"TTD6THQOXZHTXK577LUYAQIWLE","arc_canonical_url":"\/naval\/2022\/03\/15\/state-department-approves-possible-mh-60r-sale-to-spain\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n