The Canadian Armed Forces is expanding the capabilities of the MASS countermeasure system installed on Halifax-class ships. MASS (Multi Munitions Softkill System) is an automatic decoy system that protects surface targets from advanced anti-ship missiles.

As part of the upgrade, systems with two launchers already installed on Canada’s Halifax-class frigates will be converted to systems with three launchers.

MASS and related special munitions is a decoy target launch system developed at the Rheinmetall plant in Fronau and specially designed to counter the threat posed by anti-ship missiles. It can be installed on surface ships of any type, integrated into existing weapon control and engagement systems, or operated as a stand-alone system.

The navies of thirteen countries currently use 224 MASS launchers to protect their ships primarily against radar-guided anti-ship missiles, as well as infrared threats and rocket-propelled grenades in asymmetric threat scenarios.

The Rheinmetall company presented two technical achievements that once again confirm the operational versatility of the product. MASS OCR (which stands for “outer corner reflector”) uses a special radar signature to reconstruct a ship’s silhouette at a safe distance and deflects the latest generation of anti-ship missiles from the intended target. Equipped with its own dedicated sensor unit, the autonomous version of MASS is ideal for upgrading large surface warships and small ships.

The system can quickly detect a missile threat, radar and laser pointers or laser rangefinder measurements, and then take the necessary measures to stop it – fully automatically. System-initiated countermeasures create a false target that the incoming missile then interprets as more valuable, ultimately causing the projectile to deviate from its course. MASS autonomously initiates these countermeasures, taking into account the ship’s wind and navigation data, as well as information about the nature of the threat.