HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën (F802)
HNLMS "De Zeven Provinciën" (F802) is the first ship of the air defence and command frigates in service with the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN). There are three other ships in this class, , , and . "De Zeven Provinciën" is the eighth ship in the Royal Netherlands Navy to carry this name. The name refers to the original seven Dutch provinces which together formed the Union of Utrecht. She was built by Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding (formerly the Koninklijke Schelde Groep) in Vlissingen. Her design incorporates stealth technology, as well as advanced radars of Dutch design such as  SMART-L and APAR. As of December 2009, Commander Hugo L.J. Ammerlaan is "De Zeven Provinciën"s commanding officer. Live Missile Firings. "De Zeven Provinciën" carries the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) and the SM-2 Block IIIA missile systems. The primary sensor used to guide these missile systems is APAR. In November 2003, approximately from the Azores, "De Zeven Provinciën" conducted her first live firings of these missile systems. The firings involved a single ESSM and a single SM-2. These firings were particularly significant in that they were the first ever live firings involving a full-size ship-borne Active Electronically  Scanned Array (i.e., APAR) guiding missiles using the Interrupted Continuous Wave Illumination (ICWI) technique in an operational environment. As related by Jane's Navy International: Further live firings were performed by "De Zeven Provinciën" in March 2005, again in the Atlantic Ocean approximately west of the Azores. The tests involved three live-firing events including firing a single SM-2 at an Iris target drone at long range, a single ESSM at an Iris target drone, and a two-salvo launch (with one salvo comprising two SM-2s and the other comprising two ESSMs) against two incoming Iris target drones. The long -range SM-2 engagement apparently resulted in an intercept at a range of greater than from the ship, with a missile-target miss distance of (the warhead's proximity fuze having been disabled for the purposes of the test). In May, 2021 during At Sea Demonstration/Formidable Shield 2021 frigate De Zeven Provinciën detected and tracked ballistic missile with SMART-L radar and relayed the target information to . The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer intercepted and destroyed the ballistic missile with SM-3 surface-to-air missile.