According to reports, the lead next-generation mine countermeasure ship M 940 Oostende of the joint Belgian-Dutch Mine Counter Measures (rMCM) program will embark on sea trials from Concarneau, France, on July 17, 2024. This ship, designed for the Belgian Navy, has not yet been installed. It will be commissioned in August 2025 after outfitting and completing the whole testing program.
In May 2019, the Belgium Naval & Robotics consortium, consisting of the French shipbuilding group Naval Group and the French group ECA Group (renamed Exail in 2022), signed a contract worth around 2 billion euros with the Belgian Ministry of Defense (also acting on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Defense) for the construction of 12 new-generation mine countermeasure ships (six for each Navy) under the rMCM program to replace the currently operational Tripartite-class mines. The 600-ton Tripartite-class minehunters, a joint Franco-Belgian-Dutch project, were built in the 1980s, with 15 for the Dutch Navy and 10 each for the French and Belgian Navies.
In March 2019, the Belgian and Dutch Ministries of Defense signed a preliminary contract for this program with the winning consortium, Belgium Naval & Robotics. The Belgian and Dutch governments reached an initial agreement in November 2016 to acquire 12 new-type mine countermeasure ships and four new frigates (two for each side, to replace the M-class frigates), which was finalized in early 2018, with Belgium leading the mine countermeasure ship program.
Naval Group, the major contractor for the mine countermeasure ships in the Belgium Naval & Robotics consortium, will build the ships through the joint venture Kership with the French shipbuilding company Piriou. Piriou subcontracts the shipbuilding at its Concarneau and Lanester shipyards. Naval Group oversees ship design, system integration, testing, commissioning, and post-launch technical support.
The new mine countermeasure ships for the Belgian and Dutch Navy, built under the rMCM program, are extremely big, with a total displacement of 2800 tons. They are 82.6 meters long and 17 meters wide, with a range of more than 3500 miles, a top speed of 15.3 knots, and an endurance of 30 days. The crew consists of 63 people. Standard weaponry comprises a BAE Systems Bofors Mk 4 40mm cannon and two FN Sea deFNder 12.7mm remote-controlled machine guns.
The ships will be outfitted with various remotely operated mine countermeasure equipment from the UMIS complex, which Exail invented and Robotics manufactures. This includes autonomous underwater vehicles (A18-M), towed sonar (T18-M), and mine countermeasure vehicles (Seascan and K-ster C), which will be deployed from two onboard Inspector 125 USV unmanned surface vessels. The 12 ships will get 10 mine countermeasure system sets, including 100 underwater vehicles. The mine countermeasure system is intended to combat all naval mines at depths of up to 300 meters, both ahead of the ship and beyond the horizon. Additionally, the Inspector 125 USVs will employ towed magnetic and acoustic sweeps.
The mine countermeasure ships will be equipped with integrated MCM Umisoft mine action management systems linked to Naval Group’s I4 Drones unmanned systems management system. They’ll also be outfitted with UMS Skeldar V200 helicopter-type drones.
All twelve ships in the Franco-Belgian rMCM program are named after Belgian and Dutch cities. Belgian ships are named Oostende, Tournai, Brugge, Liège, Antwerpen, and Rochefort, whilst Dutch ships are named Vlissingen, Scheveningen, Ijmuiden, Harlingen, Delfzijl, and Schiedam. Beginning in 2025, the Belgian and Dutch navies are slated to receive one ship each year. The Belgian Navy will get the lead ship, M 940 Oostende (construction number C371). It was built at Piriou’s Concarneau plant, officially put down on November 30, 2021, and launched on February 22, 2023, with an official launch ceremony on March 29, 2023. It has now begun trials.
The hull of the Dutch Navy’s flagship, M 840 Vlissingen, was built at Piriou (Kership) at Lanester near Lorient, put down on June 14, 2023, launched on September 29, 2023, and towed to Concarneau for completion. The ceremonial “launch” ceremony took place on October 19, 2023. The delivery date is set for late 2025. The next five hulls for the Dutch ships will be manufactured at the Romanian Shipyard ATG Giurgiu in Giurgiu and delivered to Concarneau. As a result, all 12 ships will be completed in Concarneau before being transferred to the Naval Group’s arsenal in Lorient for final outfitting and trials.
The second Belgian ship, M 941 Tournai, was formally put down on March 29, 2023, and launched on June 24, 2024, with delivery scheduled for March 2026. The third Belgian ship, M 942 Brugge, was officially laid down on December 31, 2024, and work has already begun on the fourth, M 943 Liège. The second Dutch ship, M 841 Scheveningen, was laid down on July 19, 2023, while the third, M 842 Ijmuiden, was set down on June 11, 2024.
France signed a memorandum on August 30, 2023 to join the combined Belgian-Dutch rMCM program. According to the memorandum, the basic design of the Belgian-Dutch rMCM program mine countermeasure ship will serve as the foundation for developing the projected mine countermeasure ship under the French Navy’s Bâtiments de guerre des Mines (BDGM) program.
According to reports, the French ships, which are scheduled to be built under the rMCM/BDGM program, will have different mine countermeasure systems than the Belgian and Dutch ships. While the Belgian and Dutch ships are equipped with Exail mine countermeasure systems, the French ships will be outfitted with Thales’ MLCM system as part of the Franco-British Future Mine Warfare System (SLAM-F/MMCM) program, which also includes a combination of underwater and surface remotely operated and autonomous systems. The mine countermeasure ships for the French BGDM program, equipped with the MLCM system, will be ordered in the second phase of the SLAM-F/MMCM program, with the lead unit ordered in 2024 and delivered to the French Navy in 2028. The French Navy plans to replace the surviving Tripartite-class minehunters with six ships in total. The first phase of the SLAM-F/MMCM program will see the deployment of four land-based containerized MLCM systems to safeguard French naval stations between 2023 and 2024.
