Butro Class

The Butro Class destroyer was the first surface combatant ships of the Eusko Itsas Gudarostea over 7,000 tons. The ships are named after Euskadi castles, with the lead ship of the class bearing the name of Butro. The ships were Spruance Class Destroyers bough in 1998 from the US Navy. Eight ships were ordered in 1998 and four more in 2000.

Background
After the war, it was clear that to maintain a first level navy would be necessary to maintain the overseas territories and to ensure the presence of Euskadi in international scenaries. With this idea on mind the government ordered IEIA to get a number of ships to be bought in a short time and able to be refitted into national standards.

At the beginning of 1998, the US Navy had started retiring their Spruance Class destroyers and US Government agreed to the sale of 12 units to Euskadi. The first eight units were commissioned by the EIG in February 1999 and the other eight in September 2000 after being upgraded to Mk2 version. The first eight were upgraded between 2001 and 2004 and today all the Butro Class vessels are Mk2 version.

Currently all 12 destroyers are in service and it is planned to retire them in 2018-2020.

Design
The Spruance design was modular in nature, allowing for easy installation of entire subsystems within the ship. Although originally designed for anti-submarine warfare, once acquired by Baltic Union they should be used as multirole vessels. That's why IEIA immediately began working on a series of upgrades (Mk2) that ended up in 2004 with changes in the following parts:
 * A brand new power system with NAtech Hybrid Multi-Gas Power Plant
 * A new total power of 110 MW
 * A brand new fully electrical propulsion system with 2 ABB AZIPODs azimut thrusters mounted externally to the main hull
 * Changes in all electronic systems to fully compatibility with new national standards
 * A new weapon system in accordance with new operational requirements, specially:
 * 2 × 16-cell Mk41 Vertical Launching System w/ 72 &times; RIM-162 ESSM
 * 16 &times; Naval Strike Missile SSMs

Power generation & propulsion Mk2
The power plant of the ship has been redesigned to suit the needs and requirements of the Eusko Itsas Gudarostea and the new systems and elements of the ship. IEIA] chose to equip the ship with a clean fuel cell propulsion system developed by the company NAtech.

The power plant of the ship was designed taking into account the current needs of energy for propulsion and other systems on board, so it was possible to assume an increase in power required if new equipment or systems were installed in the future.

For the propulsion of the ship NAtech has developed a solution combining 2 NAtech Statpower System power plants of 40 MW each with 4 NAsoft ST energy servers with 7MW power each. Aditional 4 NAsoft ST energy servers provide the electricity needed for the ship military and support systems.

The propulsion system is fully electrical with two shafts. The electricity for the motors is supplied by the power system.

Electronic systems Mk2
One of the main design premises was the need to mount Euskadi made electronic systems in order to full integration with other Armed Forces systems and satellite net.

Sensors
 * 1 x Saab 9LV CMS Combat Management System
 * 1 x Saab 9LV FCS Fire Control System
 * 1 x Saab EOS 500 Electro Optical Fire Control
 * 1 x TERMA SCANTER 4100 Surveillance Radar

Electronic warfare
 * 1 x Kongsberg C-Scope Sonar System


 * 1 x Saab SME-200 Tactical EMS / ELINT
 * 1 x Saab NLWS Naval Laser Warning System

Decoys


 * 1 x TERMA DL-12T decoy launcher
 * 1 x TERMA Loki torpedo countermeasure

Armament Mk2
The weapons system of the class are:


 * 2 × 16-cell Mk41 Vertical Launching System w/ 72 &times; RIM-162 ESSM
 * 16 &times; Naval Strike Missile SSMs
 * 4 &times; torpedo tubes for Torpedo 2000
 * Depth charges
 * 2 &times; 57 mm AB BOFORS Mk.3
 * 4 &times; 12,7 mm M2 Browning M2HB HMG Sea Protector
 * 2 &times; spare CIWS gun w/ calibre 40 mm

Air wing
The ships have a fligh deck for:


 * 1 x AS532 Cougar ASUW / ASW