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among the navies of various countries, the mission intensity of the french navy is obviously not comparable to that of the first-tier us and soviet navies. it mainly performs regional tasks, protects trade routes, and demonstrates its presence in overseas territories. therefore, the air defense pressure faced by the french navy is significantly smaller than that of the us and soviet navies, especially those frigates and patrol ships that show their presence. they only need the most basic self-defense and air defense capabilities, and there is little point in configuring a complex and advanced multi-level air defense system.

the french "flora moon" class frigate, although called a frigate, is actually a patrol ship that performs low-intensity cruises and demonstrates its presence in overseas territories. this is also an important task of the french navy. in the french navy, this type of ship is defined as a "notification ship."

for large and medium-sized ships, in addition to longer-range air defense weapons, they also need a short-range air defense missile or anti-aircraft gun to fill in the gaps. france has limited national strength and demand, and it is too costly to develop multiple models of high-performance close-in defense weapons from scratch. therefore, a ready-made solution is to use the existing "mistral" portable air defense missiles to install them on naval ships, turning them into a cheap short-range ship-to-air missile that can be fired and forgotten, just to meet the needs of the ship.

there are many types of short-range ship-to-air missile systems developed from the mistral portable air defense missile. the simplest one is called simbad, which is transliterated as "sinbad". this system installs two mistral missiles on a simple single-person launcher, and the rotation and pitch are all manpower. unlike the portable tripod of the land-based mistral, the simbad launcher is operated in a standing position, and the shooter holds the launcher from behind instead of carrying it on his shoulders.

a simple twin-mounted "mistral" ship-to-air missile launcher, named simbad, "sinbad".

in fact, this simbad can be regarded as a replacement for the 20mm anti-aircraft gun that was commonly seen on ships in the past. the 20mm anti-aircraft gun also fires while standing, and the launcher looks very much like the bracket of the 20mm anti-aircraft gun. moreover, the integration degree of this simbad with the ship's sighting and electrical equipment is also very low. it cannot receive target indications from the search radar, and can only rely on the shooter to wear a headset to listen to the air situation information broadcast by the command center. the missile seeker continues to use its own thermal battery and argon gas cylinder for cooling and power supply, and cannot be powered by the ship's power supply.

does this thing look like a machine gun? very much like it... it really is a missile mounted on an iron frame, the shooter wears a headset to listen to air situation information, and the missile is powered and cooled by its own thermal battery argon gas cylinder.

therefore, simbad can only be regarded as a minimum self-defense air defense weapon, which only meets the need of having something to shoot. the level of equipment is very low. it is either installed on auxiliary ships, such as transport ships and landing ships, or an installation position is reserved on the main ships. if necessary, a set can be inserted upwards, just like installing a large-caliber machine gun on a reserved gun mount.

such ship-to-air missiles can only meet the minimum self-defense and air defense needs, and no more can be expected.

simbad currently has an improved version, called simbad-rc, which replaces the simbad's manned launcher with a fully automatic, gyro-stabilized twin-mounted launcher with a camera and thermal imager. this launcher does not take up space under the deck and can be installed directly on the deck. it is connected to the ship's command center with a cable and the shooter operates in the cabin, which can adapt to high sea conditions and "three-defense" combat environments.

simbad-rc is the unmanned remote-controlled version of simbad. the shooter operates in the cabin, using the tv camera and thermal imager on the right side of the launcher to search and aim.

rear view of the simbad-rc launcher

in 2019, mbda, the manufacturer of the mistral missile (formerly matra and several defense companies from britain, france, germany and italy jointly established the european missile group, mbda), announced that the simbad-rc missile system had successfully conducted a test of attacking an unmanned boat on the sea surface. a mistral missile hit a small, fast-moving semi-rigid unmanned boat 3 km from the coast, indicating that the optoelectronic detection equipment of the modified weapon can accurately identify small targets at sea. the passive infrared seeker of the mistral missile can also capture the infrared radiation emitted by the boat's engine and is not disturbed by the infrared reflection waves from the sea surface.

simbad-rc system test strikes surface boats

another variant of the mistral is more complicated, called sadral, which is a six-pack mistral missile launcher. unlike simbad, it is more integrated with the ship's air defense system. the launcher is a gyro-stabilized electrically controlled gyro, and the shooter searches and aims through a tv camera in the cabin. the power supply and cooling of the missile seeker are also freed from the built-in thermal battery and argon gas cylinder, and the ship provides power and cooling gas.

sadral, the "sadral" short-range ship-to-air missile system, the missile is a six-round "mistral".

since the french navy does not have close-in rapid-fire guns like the phalanx, the short-range air defense of surface ships is actually made up of weapons such as the sea sidewinder and 100mm compact naval guns. therefore, sadral has actually become the french navy's terminal interception missile, installed on large and medium-sized main battleships, becoming an air defense weapon with a closer slant range and a more inner layer than the sea sidewinder and 100mm naval guns.

the french navy's f70 georges leger-class destroyer has a sea sidewinder ship-to-air missile on the top of the rear deckhouse, and a six-barrel sadral ship-to-air missile on each side of the rear bridge cab.

close-up of the sadral ship-to-air missile on the right side of the f70 bridge

but the missile part of the sadral system, the "mistral" air defense missile, is, after all, a portable air defense missile developed in the late 1970s and put into service in the 1980s. although it is more reliable than those close-in defense missiles modified from shoulder-fired air defense missiles, with greater killing slant range and warhead power, its point-source passive infrared seeker is only "quasi-omnidirectional" and there is still a conical dead zone in the direction of the target aircraft, which cannot be compared with the thermal imaging seeker. what's more, the ship's terminal interception is aimed at anti-ship missiles and other low-altitude and high-speed targets flying head-on. it is actually very unreliable to use a missile like the "mistral" to intercept them... it can only be said that the french navy saw through the impossibility of performing high-intensity tasks and then gave up.

including the first-class battleships such as the "charles de gaulle" aircraft carrier, the close-in defense weapon is also this sadaral.

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