TSAMTO, April 14. The consortium Belgium Naval and Robotics, created by the Naval Group and the ECA Group, has chosen the SCANTER 6000 radar of the Danish Terma group to equip 12 new-generation minesweeping ships of the Belgian and Dutch navies.
According to a Naval Group press release, the contract for the supply of 12 SCANTER 6000 radars was signed with the Terma Group in January 2021. The first radar station will be delivered in 2022.
The SCANTER 6000 radar is designed to perform surveillance tasks at sea, combat piracy and asymmetric threats, and support search and rescue operations. The radar is specially adapted to detect small helicopter-type targets at a range of up to 15 nautical miles and guide its helicopters to perform a safe landing on board the ship.
As previously reported by CAMTO, representatives of Belgium and the Netherlands signed a formal agreement on the joint purchase of 12 new mine-fighting systems based on minesweepers on July 5, 2019. The contract value is estimated at almost 2.2 billion rubles. euro.
The consortium of Naval Group and ECA Robotics was selected as the winner of the tender, which was also attended by Imtech Belgium with Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding and the consortium of Sea Naval Solutions, which included Thales, STX France, Socarenam and EDR. The governments of the two countries approved the implementation of the project on March 15, 2019.
In total, 12 ships will be purchased under the project, which will replace 5 Tripartit-class minesweepers of the Belgian Navy, as well as the Godetiya support ship and 6 Tripartit-class minesweepers of the Dutch Navy. The operational life of the existing minesweepers exceeds 30 years and expires in 2023.
Each ship will be equipped with modular remote-controlled underwater and surface vehicles that will detect and neutralize enemy mines. Thanks to the new application concept, the mother ship and its crew will be able to stay outside the minefields, using only unmanned systems.
The ships will be used in combination with the remote-controlled / autonomous underwater vehicles from the UMIS kit of ECA. According to the Belgian Naval & Robotics, the program provides for the joint purchase of about 10 on-board sets of mine-clearing equipment, including a total of more than 80 underwater, surface and air remotely controlled vehicles.
It is planned that the design of the ships and the corresponding onboard sets of equipment will take 3 years. The first of the 12 ships is scheduled to be delivered to the Belgian Navy in 2024, and to the Dutch Navy in 2025. The last platform should be delivered in 2030. Maintenance of the minesweepers will be carried out in Zeebrugge in partnership with Flanders Ship Repair.
As planned, in addition to the creation of an industrial center of excellence in the field of combating sea mines in Zeebrugge, a plant for the production of remote-controlled vehicles will also be built there.
