The French shipyard Kership (joint-venture between Piriou and Naval Group), prime contractor for the construction of Belgian-Dutch rMCM vessels has launched the third vessel ‘Brugge’ intended for the Belgian Navy at the end of April.
For the record, Belgium Naval & Robotics was awarded contract in May 2019 by Belgian Defence – acting on behalf of Belgium and the Netherlands – to produce next generation of MCM systems for both nations. It includes the construction of 12 mothership vessels: 6 for each navy, plus 10 MCM toolboxes based on unmanned/autonomous systems drawn from Exail’s own UMIS offboard MCM suite, and a training system.
Although there is still much of work to be performed, the hull of the M942 ‘Brugge’ has been launched in order to be transferred to another shipyard located further West of its original construction, to Concarneau where it will be completed with all the necessary superstructure and systems and where she will conduct her trials. A few days after her launch, the fifth-vessel of the class reached Concarneau docks and joined her three sisterships, all at different levels of outfitting according to pictures from a local ship spotter that Naval News was able to obtain.
Meanwhile, the first-in-class ‘Oostende’ is still pursuing her sea trials. As expected and reported by Naval News last year, Exail announced that the vessel conducted a few days ago deployments and recoveries tests of the Inspector125 USV, centrepiece of the programme since each vessel will be equipped with two of these systems. The deployment of the latter is performed thanks to the floating dock specially developed by Naval Group, which contrasts with the attachment points normally used by a LARS to recover RHIBs. According to current available information, trials is expected to continue until this summer, before the vessel is due to enter service in August 2025.
“An Inspector 125 USV, produced by Exail for the deployment of mine-hunting drones, was successfully deployed and recovered using the Oostende’s standard floating dock from NAVAL GROUP, as part of ongoing joint sea trials in Lorient.
This success demonstrates the vessel’s ability to act as a mother-ship, in order to conduct dronized MCM missions, marking a breakthrough in naval mine warfare. Trials will continue over the coming weeks to validate the full system ahead of its planned delivery later this year.”Exail via LinkedIn
In addition to Belgium and the Netherlands, France inked a letter of intent to cooperate in the mine warfare domain during Euronaval 2022, and inked agreement to adjust rMCM vessel to French needs on February 2025. The mothership design of the Belgian-Dutch rMCM program will be used as a basic design for the French Navy’s “Bâtiments de guerre des mines” (BGDM) program.
French BGDMs will be ordered as part of stage 2 of the SLAM-F/MMCM program. Naval News previously reported that the first BGDM vessel was expected to be ordered by the DGA in 2023, but was postponed a first time for 2024 and then a second time. It now appears that the vessel will be ordered in 2025, according to the released draft finance bill.
