The German Navy is the navy of Germany and part of the unified Bundeswehr, the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the Bundesmarine from 1956 to 1995, when Deutsche Marine became the official name with respect to the 1990 incorporation of the East German Volksmarine. It is deeply integrated into the NATO alliance. Its primary mission is protection of Germany's territorial waters and maritime infrastructure as well as sea lines of communication. Apart from this, the German Navy participates in peacekeeping operations, and renders humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. It also participates in anti-piracy operations.
HSV-2 Swift is a hybrid catamaran. She was privately owned and operated by Sealift Inc., and was originally built under the JHSV program as a proof of concept. As part of this program, she was directly leased for evaluation from her builders by the United States Navy Military Sealift Command from 2003 to 2013, primarily as a mine countermeasures and sea basing test platform. Later during her official naval career she was mostly used for fleet support and humanitarian partnership missions.
A minehunter is a naval vessel that seeks, detects, and destroys individual naval mines. Minesweepers, on the other hand, clear mined areas as a whole, without prior detection of mines. A vessel that combines both of these roles is known as a mine countermeasures vessel (MCMV).
The Type 333 Kulmbach class is a class of five German Navy ships. Built as Type 343 Hameln class minesweepers, they have been upgraded to minehunters using Seefuchs expendable drones to detonate detected naval mines.
Type 352 Ensdorf-class minesweepers are a class of five minesweepers of the German Navy. They are Type 343 Hameln-class minesweepers that have been upgraded with the Troika Plus system of minesweeping drones
Lürssen is a German shipyard with headquarters in Bremen-Vegesack and shipbuilding facilities in Lemwerder, Berne and Bremen-Fähr-Lobbendorf.
Mühlhausen was a naval ship in service with the German Navy. The ship was launched June 30, 1966 at the Burmester Werft in Bremen with the name Walther von Ledebur. She was a prototype of a new class of ocean-going minesweepers, which however was not accepted by the Bundesmarine. She was commissioned in 1967 and served with a civilian crew as a trials ship for the Wehrtechnische Dienststelle until decommissioning in 1994. She had the pennant number A1410 and was categorized as a Type 742 class ship.
The Huon-class minehunter coastal (MHC) ships are a group of minehunters built for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Following problems with the Bay-class minehunters, a request for tender was issued in 1993 for a class of six coastal minehunters under the project designation SEA 1555. The tender was awarded in 1994 to the partnership of Australian Defence Industries (ADI) and Intermarine SpA, which was offering a variant of the Italian Gaeta-class minehunter.
The Royal Saudi Navy or Royal Saudi Naval Forces, is the maritime arm of the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces and one of the five service branches of the Ministry of Defense of Saudi Arabia. Its primary role is monitoring and defending the Saudi territorial waters against military or economic intrusion, and participating in international naval alliances.
The Osprey class are a series of coastal minehunters designed to find, classify, and destroy moored and bottom naval mines from vital waterways.
The Tripartite class is a class of minehunters developed from an agreement between the navies of Belgium, France and the Netherlands. A total of 35 ships were constructed for the three navies. The class was constructed in the 1980s–1990s in all three countries, using a mix of minehunting, electrical and propulsion systems from the three member nations. In France, where they are known as the Éridan class they are primarily used as minehunters, but have been used for minesweeping and ammunition transport in Belgium and the Netherlands, where the Tripartites are known as the Alkmaar class.
HMS Middleton is a Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel of the British Royal Navy. As of 2021, she forms part of 9th Mine Countermeasures Squadron operating out of HMS Jufair in Bahrain.
The United Arab Emirates Navy is the naval branch of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces. It is small force of about 3,000 personnel. It maintains 12 well-equipped coastal patrol boats and eight missile boats. Although primarily concerned with coastal defense, the Navy is constructing a six-unit class of blue water corvettes in conjunction with French shipbuilder CMN. The UAE maintains a battalion-sized marine force called the UAE Marines equipped with BMP-3 armoured personnel carriers from Soviet union/Russia.
The A class is a class of minehunter vessels in the Turkish Navy. In 1999, the German shipyards Lürssen and Abeking & Rasmussen were contracted to build six Frankenthal-class ships for the Turkish Navy, a purchase worth US$630 million. While the first vessel was built in Germany, later ships were constructed by the Istanbul Naval Shipyard.
The Yemeni Navy and Coastal Defence Forces is the maritime component of the Yemeni Armed Forces. Yemen's navy was created in 1990 when North and South Yemen united.
LKL Kursis (M54) is a minehunter of the Lithuanian Naval Force. Built in West Germany in 1958 as Marburg (M1080), a Lindau-class minesweeper for the German Navy, she was upgraded to a Type 331 minehunter in the 1970s. Germany donated Marburg in 2001 to the Lithuanian Naval Force, which renamed the ship Kursis. The vessel augmented the Squadron of Mine-hunters, which had been established in 1999 with the similar donation of sister ship Koblenz, which became Sūduvis (M52).
Einsatzflottille 1 is one of the three brigade-level units of the German Navy, in addition to Einsatzflottille 2 and the Naval Air Command. It is based in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, and is under the head of the Navy Command, based in Rostock.
The Netherlands and Belgium are doing a joint procurement for the replacements of the Tripartite-class/Alkmaar-class minehunters. Each of the two countries is procuring six new mine countermeasure (MCM) vessels, which makes for a total of 12 MCM ships. The new MCM ships, developed by Naval Group, will include a range of unmanned systems including unmanned surface, aerial and underwater vehicles alongside towed sonars and mine identification and neutralization ROVs.
