The Holland class Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs)will fullfil patroland intervention tasks against lightly armed opponents, such as piratesand smugglers.
A contract between the Royal Dutch Navy and Damen Schelde NavalShipbuilding in Vlissingen, the Netherlands was signed in 2007 for theconstruction of four vessels at a total cost of ??467.8m.
The vessels resulted from the Dutch Ministry of Defence's Marinestudie 2005(pdf download, Dutch language only). The study proposes the sale offour existing Karel Doorman class frigates, and using the proceeds andsavings of the sale to commission four dedicated patrol vessels, allowthe building of a more capable Joint Support Ship to replace the AORHNLMS Zuiderkruis, and reintroducing a minesweeping capability to theDutch Navy.
The ships are designated offshore patrol vessels, however, considering their size and sensor/radar capacity they are close to corvettes or even frigates,the limited planned armament, however, does not justify thisdesignation. These ships are armed for low to medium combat activityand patrolling shores, but can also be tasked to patrol in deeperwaters like the North Sea or the Caribbean. Their speed is lower thanthat of the current Dutch frigates (22 knots vs 30 knots), this ishowever supplemented with two RHIBs,with a speed of about 40 knots, for interceptions. An importantadvantage of this class over the current frigate class is that its crewis much smaller (about 50 compared to 200 and 150 for the frigateclasses in operation) while it allows relatively much space foradditional troop transport (40). This limited crew makes the operatingcosts of this class of ships much lower
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