| The Ukrainian naval forces will be replenished with one more minesweeper. Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder said that a mine hunter of the Tripartite project will be transferred to our country.Last Friday, the Belgian cabinet approved a €412 million aid package for Ukraine, which includes armored medical vehicles, ammunition and the Narcis (M923) mine hunter.It was built in 1990 and became part of the Belgian Air Force in 1991. Upgraded in 2003, receiving new electronics, sonar and autonomous unmanned vehicles for searching for mines.Let us recall that in the 1980-90s, France, Belgium and the Netherlands began designing mine hunters, calling the joint project Tripartite (“Tripartite”). Over twenty years, 35 hulls were launched. Each country built ships with its own characteristics, which is why in France they are known as the Éridan type, in Belgium – the Aster, and in the Netherlands – the Alkmaar.Externally, all three types are almost no different – the difference is in displacement, armament, radio equipment and a set of tools for searching for mines.The Dutch Alkmaars have a larger displacement. So, late-built minesweepers have 660 tons, while the French have up to 600 tons, and the Belgians have about 540.The ships are 52 meters long, nine meters wide, and have a draft of 3.8 meters. Powered by a diesel engine with a power of about 2,000 horsepower, the ship accelerates to 15 knots. For combat search for mines at low speed there are two 180 kW electric motors.This is already the third mine hunter of this project; the delivery of the first two (Alkmaar type) was announced exactly a year ago by the Minister of Defense of the Netherlands, Kaisa Ollongren. Today it is known that the mine action division of the Ukrainian Naval Forces will consist of five NATO minesweepers – two former British “Sandown” – “Chernigov” and “Cherkassy”, two Dutch and one Belgian.It is interesting that Ukrainian sailors have already become familiar with ships of this class. One of them visited Odessa exactly five years ago – at the end of March 2019. The French minesweeper M653 “Capricorn” stood at the 16th berth of the Odessa sea terminal for several days.Unfortunately, we will not be able to receive minesweepers until the end of hostilities – the Turkish straits are closed to the passage of ships.Archive photo of Sergei Smolentsev DEATH TO THE RUSSIAN OCCUPANTS! |
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