Another milestone has been marked in the replacement Mine CounterMeasures (rMCM) programme, with the keel of the fifth Belgian Navy ship laid in Romania.
As per a Belgian Armed Forces press statement, the keel of the future BNS Antwerpen was laid last week in a ceremony at Piriou’s ATG shipyard in Giurgiu, Romania.
This ceremony marked the official start of construction of the ninth new-generation Naval Mine Warfare vessel, part of the joint Belgian-Dutch rMCM programme.
In total 12 of the 83-metre ships will eventually be built for the Dutch and Belgian navies; the Vlissingen, the first rMCM vessel destined for the Royal Netherlands Navy, began sea trials in the summer of 2025 and is now scheduled to be delivered early next year.
Meanwhile BNS Oostende, the first vessel for the Belgian Navy delivered under the replacement Mine CounterMeasures (rMCM) programme, arrived in Zeebrugge in November last year.
The second, Tournai, is undergoing sea trials; the third, Brugge, is currently being fitted out; and the keel of the fourth, Liege was laid down in January last year. Construction work on two further Dutch rMcM ships is also ongoing.
Naval Group has designed the vessels; and the Belgian ships are being built and assembled by Piriou. Exail is in charge of the UxV mission system for the programme. The ships are designed for fully autonomous remote MCM operations via the use of surface and underwater drones.
For the keel-laying ceremony of the future BNS Antwerpen, an historical medal from the City of Antwerp was welded onto one of the ship’s plates by Lieutenant Commander Jurgen Claus, unit commander of the Group Naval Mine Warfare in the Belgian Navy.
He said: “Being able to weld this symbolic piece onto the Antwerpen is something very special. The way the ship’s hull will then be assembled in Giurgiu is an impressive undertaking.”
Once the hull is complete, it will be towed on a six-week journey across the Mediterranean; the ship’s systems will be fitted out in France.
- You can read more details on the Belgian Armed Forces website