New Minesweepers to Join Russian Navy since 2015

29.10.2012 In 2013, it is planned to kick off batch production of new countermine ships developed by Almaz Design Bureau for Russian Navy, said Vladimir Seredokho, director general of the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard.

"The lead minesweeper has been already built. In the next year we start batch production of these ships. The first one will be delivered in 2015. We plan to hand over one minesweeper to the Navy every year", Seredokho said at the 23-rd international exhibition Euronaval-2012, reports Interfax.

The shipyard's director expressed hope that the new ship would have pretty good export prospects.

"As soon as batch production for Russian Navy is launched, we will work on export version of the minesweeper. We're going to begin construction of such ships for export in 2016-2017. Our potential clients want the new minesweeper to be run by Russian mariners at first", pointed out Seredokho.

He declined to specify the project number and technical characteristics of the new minesweeper, but mentioned that the ship had radically new mine detection and sweeping systems, integrated control system, and the hull made under unique technology. Experts say the question is Project 12700 Alexandrite minesweeper.

The shipyard director said that some particular elements of the ship's countermine system were mounted even on new multirole frigates.

Deputy Director General of the Almaz Design Bureau Igor Zakharov specified that the hull of the new minesweeper was made by the vacuum infusion method.

"Earlier, the world technology allowed to build such ships half as large as ours one. We are the first to make this kind of a ship twice larger. So far, our foreign counterparts make vessels displacing 1.5 times less. To reach our level, they have to work on that several years more", Zakharov said.