Anti-mine defense
ships are being serially built as part of the efforts to develop and rearm the
Navy’s minesweeping forces.
MOSCOW, April 30.
/TASS/. The Russian Navy plans to operate about 40 Project 12700 mine
countermeasures vessels by 2030, Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Vladimir
Korolyov said at a meeting on surface shipbuilding on Tuesday.
"Anti-mine
defense ships are being serially built as part of the efforts to develop and
rearm the Navy’s minesweeping forces. Before 2030, the Russian Navy plans to
operate about 40 Project 12700 mine countermeasures ships," the Navy chief
said.
The third newest ship
of this series, the Vladimir Yemelyanov, will be floated out until the end of
the second quarter of 2019.
The minesweeper is
under construction at the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard in St. Petersburg in northwest
Russia. Two more warships of this Project, the Georgiy Kurbatov and the Yakov
Balyayev, are at the Shipyard’s slipways featuring a different extent of their
readiness.
Russian Navy
Shipbuilding Chief Vladimir Tryapichnikov earlier said that the Fleet expected
to get 40 Project 12700 fiberglass minesweepers by 2030-2050. The capacities of
the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard allow it to build two minesweepers a year and
subsequently three mine countermeasures vessels annually for the Navy.
Project 12700
minesweepers
The Sredne-Nevsky
Shipyard is using the most advanced Russian technologies unrivaled in world
shipbuilding to construct these minesweepers. The ships of this Project have a
unique and the world’s largest hull made of monolith glass-fiber reinforced
plastic. The hull weighs considerably less compared to its metal version while
its strength increases significantly. This hull is completely unsusceptible to
corrosion while its service life is practically unlimited, given compliance
with the standards of its operation.
Project 12700 has
been developed by the Almaz Central Marine Design Bureau for the Russian Navy.
The warships of this type are referred to the new generation of minesweeping
forces and are designed to fight sea mines, which the new ships can encounter
in the sea and at the seabed without entering the dangerous zone. The
minesweepers can employ various sweeps, as well as remotely controlled and
autonomous underwater drones to fight mines. The minesweepers of this Project
displace 890 tonnes, are 62 meters long and ten meters wide and have a crew of
44 men.
Source: ITAR-TASS
03-05-2019
