Philippines marks first firing of Mistral missile from Jose Rizal frigate

A file photo of BRP Jose Rizal . The frigate carried out a first firing of the Mistral 3 missile in April 2025. (Philippine Navy)

The Philippine Navy has marked its first live firing of the MBDA Mistral 3 short-range surface-to-air missile (SAM).

This milestone took place on the service's first-of-class Jose Rizal-class guided-missile frigate, BRP Jose Rizal , on 29 April, the Philippine Navy disclosed in a statement issued on the day after.

It was carried out as part of Exercise ‘Balikatan 2025' – the annual US-Philippine bilateral military exercise. As part of the drills, Jose Rizal fired the Mistral 3 from a Simbad-RC launcher mounted onboard the frigate.

A video released by the Philippine Navy indicates that the missile was fired towards a simulated threat on the vessel's portside.

Jose Rizal is one of two Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI)-built frigates operated by the Philippine Navy, with its sister ship being BRP Antonio Luna.

Jose Rizal was commissioned in July 2020, while Antonio Luna was inducted into service by the Philippine Navy in March 2021.

Besides the Simbad-RC system, both frigates have each been armed with a Leonardo 76 mm/62 Super Rapid gun, six 324 mm torpedo tubes, and launchers that can deploy the South Korean-made SSM-700K Haeseong (C-Star) anti-ship missile.

In October 2021 the Philippine Navy received an undisclosed number of Mistral 3 SAM rounds, and the missiles were procured with funds allocated under a programme known as the Frigate Acquisition Project Lot 2B.