Turkey develops and deploys acoustic deceptor and jammer

The Zargana Countermeasure System has been developed by Aselsan to protect submarines from incoming torpedoes. It does this by launching salvos of acoustic ‘deceptors’ and ‘jammers.’ These are small torpedo-like objects which are launched from tubes under the submarine’s casing. The deceptors imitate the acoustic and movement characteristics of the targeted submarine. This misleads the torpedo into homing in on the wrong target. Meanwhile the jammers emit a broadband high-level noise that drowns out the operating frequencies of most acoustic (sonar) homing torpedoes. This sort of decoy system is known as ‘soft kill’ in defense circles.

ZOKA effectors are capable of operating effectively against any torpedo threat that has acoustic homing capability operating in active, passive or combined modes. Two types of ZOKA effectors, jammers and decoys, are used in HIZIR-Torpedo Countermeasure System for Surface Ships and ZARGANA-Torpedo Countermeasure System for Submarines.

 ZOKA jammers transmit wide band high-level noise to saturate acoustic operating frequency bands of all existing torpedoes. In this way, jammers mask the noise of submarines against passive torpedoes and reduce the detection range of echo signals reflecting from the submarine by increasing the noise level against active torpedoes.

ZOKA decoys deceive and confuse the torpedo by simulating the acoustic and dynamic characteristics of the platform and attract the torpedo to themselves. ZOKA decoys have separate receive and transmit sections. A hydrophone is towed from the stern of the decoy.  Having separate receive and transmit units allow decoy to perform noise generation and echo generation of torpedo active pulses at the same time.

The combined use of ZOKA decoys and jammers has been highly effective against acoustic torpedoes. ZOKA effectors with various lengths have mobile capability in vertical and/or horizontal plane and can be launched from surface ship launchers, submarine signal ejectors and submarine outboard launchers.

TCG Anafartalar is fitted with Zargana acoustic countermeasures

Currently, Turkish Navy submarine TCG Anafartalar (S356), a German designed Type 209/1400 Preveze Class submarine is fitted with Aselsan acoustic countermeasures. It is one of four of the class which was built locally at the Gölcük Naval Shipyard. They are going to be given a Turkish developed mid-life upgrade (MLU) over the next few years so this new defensive system may be part of that.

Turkey is actively marketing the Zargana system. It is known to have been exported to Indonesia for their own Type-209 submarines. And Turkey is upgrading some of Pakistan’s Agosta class submarines with the system. These French designed boats will carry part of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent in the form of the Babur cruise missile.

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