Belgian Navy's third City-class minehunter floated out

The Belgium Naval and Robotics consortium has launched the third of six City-class mine countermeasures (MCM) vessels ordered by the Belgian Navy under the joint Belgian-Dutch rMCM program.

Twelve ships will be built under the rMCM program with the Belgian and Royal Netherlands Navies receiving six vessels each. For the Belgian Navy, the lead City-class ship is Oostende, which was recently delivered and will enter service this year.

French naval shipbuilding joint venture Kership is in charge of the production of the twelve MCM platforms, which are assembled in Concarneau and Lanester. The ships will be then all armed afloat by Piriou in Concarneau.

The Naval Group, as overall architect and prime contractor, is responsible for the design of the ships, the overall integration, and the testing and commissioning of the mission system, which will include the combat system and the mine countermeasures system.

The maintenance of the ships will be carried out in Belgium as part of a close collaboration between the Belgian Navy and Naval Group Belgium. Assistance will be provided by Flanders Ship Repair.

Like sister ship Oostende, Brugge will have a length of 82.6 metres, a beam of 17 metres, a displacement of 2,800 tonnes, a crew complement of 63, a maximum speed of 15.3 knots, and a range of over 3,500 nautical miles. Space will be available for two seven-metre rigid inflatable boats and their respective launch and recovery systems.

The ship will be able to launch and recover autonomous underwater vehicles fitted with sonars; towed sonars; unmanned aerial vehicles; and unmanned surface vehicles of up to 12 metres and 19 tonnes each.

The USVs themselves will be able to launch and recover remotely operated vehicles equipped with mine identification/destruction systems.