France joins Belgian-Dutch mine countermeasures program – marineforum

At the end of August – as the defense ministers of Belgium and the Netherlands announced on their social media channels on the sidelines of the EU defense ministers’ meeting in Toledo – France finally joined their joint minesweeper program rMCM. The development was not entirely unexpected: the navies of the three countries have been operating mine warfare units as part of the TRIPARTITE program since the 1980s and had already come a long way on the issue of a successor program last year. Paris had originally intended to develop its future SLAM-F mine countermeasures system together with London and in cooperation with Thales and Saab. During the Euronaval 2022 trade fair, however, there was a decisive rapprochement between the navies of Belgium, France and the Netherlands – probably also due to Brexit. An order for the French Navy should come as early as 2023, which is now assumed to include six mine countermeasure systems.
The complex Belgian-Dutch program is off to a good start and the delays caused by Corona appear to have been made up. At the end of March 2023, the Belgian OOSTENDE (M 940) was the first unit to be launched at Piriou in Concarneau. The VLISSINGEN (M 840), the first boat destined for the Netherlands, is being prepared for launch at Kership in Lorient. The bow and a 40 meter long fuselage section of the TOURNAI (M 941) arrived in Concarneau from Gdynia at the beginning of September. The hull of the SCHEVENINGEN (M 841) is manufactured in Georgu, Romania. In Belgium, the new minesweeping mother ships with a length of 83 meters and a displacement of 2,800 tons are called the CITY class, and in the Netherlands they are called the VLISSINGEN class. Hardly anything was heard from France!