In a recent meeting in London, Greek Minister of National Defence, Nikos Dendias, and James Heappey, UK Minister of State for the Armed Forces, discussed the potential transfer of British minehunting vessels to Greece.

During their conversation, the officials explored various subjects of mutual concern, including challenges to regional stability.

“In the context of further strengthening our defence relations, we discussed addressing common challenges, such as the situation in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Red Sea,” Dendias remarked.

A significant part of their discussion focused on the prospective handover of minehunters from the UK to Greece. Dendias noted, “We also discussed the potential provision of minehunters from the United Kingdom to Greece,“.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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46 COMMENTS

  1. A sale or a gift?? Either way, is reducing even further the number of vessels in service really a top idea? Why not transfer a few admirals instead?

    • Why not transfer Grant Shapps, Michael Gove, David Cameron and Rishi Sunak? Might be a better idea. In return for taking these people we could include in the Elgin Marbles as a sweetener for the deal.

    • If you followed the story, these vessels were due to be donated to Ukraine but the Turks – as usual – blocked their entry through the Bosphorus. So giving the vessels to a key ally (in order to meet the Turkish threat, the Greeks spend more on defence as a percentage of their GDP than all NATO members except the USA) is putting the vessels to good use and also encouraging the Greeks – who have already placed orders for F-35s and warships from the Americans and warships from the French – might find it in their interest to place additional orders with the U.K. The Greeks are also great supporters of Ukraine (unlike Trump).

  3. It’s seems, that this Government is focusing on dismantling the Armed forces as much as they can, before the next General election….let me guess, because we have no one to crew them!
    Understanding that the mine clearance is going down the remote control route, but surely, we need ships to fly the flag and respond with a presence if needed? I really am shocked, about the Conservative defence lack of understanding of the increased threat were now under.

      • The motherships will be Civilian manned RFA crew with Naval specialists when required it’s a con putting Civilians into a live area of operation doesn’t sit well with the forces that’s if you can now get the crews enlistment into the RFA is low

        • Trouble with their strategy in disposing of all the minesweepers is that 15 minesweepers (if we still had them) could be a presence in 15 different ports at the same time. 4 motherships mean they will have to prioritise which 4 ports are the more important, because that is all they can cover. Maybe only just 2 or 3 ports covered if motherships are in for repair, upgrade etc. Doesn’t seem there are many strategists of merit in their ranks.

          • Had 4 yrs on Hunts Chid and Brecon out the Gulf for a long stretch we had Hms Herald survey ship and RFA Dilliegence acted as mummy never used them apart from their sickbay and holding stores for us whilst we were out Hunting we could put at least 9 Hunts out there as we did for OP Granby now that’s both Hunt and Sandowns combined fleet total if that

          • Do we have any operational Sandowns? Thought the last one totalled itself backing into Chiddingfold. I reckon maybe a half-dozen Hunts left.

          • Bit of 2 nations rivalry Chid had a good Rugby 7s team in the 80ts Can’t let the Welsh get the upper hand

          • Mother ships could be bought in from almost anywhere and OPVs could be repurposed it’s how many sets of mine hinting kit there are that will be the limit not vessels

          • Opvs like River class not very good signature when on a degaussing range too much Steel that’s why the Navy went Tupperware even the tools are Non Ferrous metal

          • Surely the converted mother ships are just steel.and keep away from the danger area. They then send in much smaller vessels to hunt for mines and disable them.

            The discussion though is academic if there are not enough sets of autonomous mine hunting kit.

            Even then the kit or a substantial portion of it could be moved quickly by air allowing rapid deployment if required to far flung places.

          • Not funny losing power in a active field therefore all this Autonomous kits if they breaksdown will have too be Expendable recovery would be tricky at the least

          • OPV are way too small, to use and support the autonomous systems you need internal volume, generating capacity, deck space a large crane and yep more space. They have to be able to lift the Autonomous Boats out of the water for maintenance and transportation.

          • I’ve just spent time looking and the 11 metre boats used by the system weigh 10 to 11 tons and the batch 2 OPVs have a 16 ton crane and a large open area at the back which can be used to land helicopters.

            Two remote boats can be operated from within a 15 metre work boat and reading between the lines don’t need much power to run the computers and coms equipment.

            I seems quite possible to use an OPV given it’s accommodation is sized to cary up to 50 people above it’s own crew.

            The kit is air transportable by A400 which with refueling could get to say the Falkland islands pretty quickly and deploy to the OPV on station there.

  4. Slightly off topic, but the War Zone has some rather nice pics of HMS Diamond docking in Gibraltar with some newly applied stencils of its drone scoresheet from the Red Sea cruise.

    • It’s good putting a Score sheet stencil up on the Bridge wing going back a bit we embossed 34 Mines when we returned after OP Granby in 91 makes you feel proud 34 Mines that can no longer cause damage job done well done Diamond

      • If they had any imagination, they should put a photo of the stencils from Diamond’s bridge wing into a recruitment ad with the caption, “This is what we do.”

  5. Honestly what are they thinking of 🙄 minehunters for sale ,government saying spending more on Defence and at the same time selling off our vessels.Are HMG going to sell the sailors has well part of the deal. Greece must be laughing at us .Lord knows what Putin thinks 😕

    • Kaputin says we are irrelevant which is dictator projection speak for we fear you a lot…

      Prisoner trump says he’s a really strong leader and that he encourages RF to invade delinquent NATO members who don’t pay 2% GDP even though that agreement isn’t until 2025.

      Understandable, I mean who else but ruzzian oligarchs will lend #45 money to pay his legal costs and penalties $500,000,000 or so..

  8. On the subject on Mine warfare mother ships, , would it be a good idea for the Uk to join the club regards the City-class mine counter measure ships: France, Holland, Belgium are procuring

    • Maybe not, let’s see how Stirling Castle gets on.
      FYI the City Class Motherships are a purpose built Military spec design @2200 tonnes and cost @€180 million each.
      Stirling Castle isn’t purpose built but has a lot going for her in terms of latent ability. She is over 6000 tonnes and cost £40 to buy. So add on refit costs, adding equipment fit etc say £60/70 million (no repay yet).

      Let’s see if this little MOD Brainwave works, because we need Mass on a limited budget. And funny thing is the RFA have a long history of taking commercial designs and getting great use out of them.

  10. Crewed vessels in RN service entering a Mine Area are going to shortly be a thing of the past. Drones , operated from a couple of containers ashore or aboard a suitable mothership or STUFT …it is the future.
    The kit is Air portable and a C17 or two can deploy it anywhere in the world within a few days. Certainly a lot quicker than chugging along from the UK to the area of deployment that takes weeks.
    There is also No need for a whole ships crew to be put in harms way.

    As for the comments regarding putting ships in 14 ports…yes we will lose that. No using MCMV for MSP anymore because thats what they do most of the time, not MCM tasking but a singleton wouldn’t do MINEX on its own . Its a team effort with a lot of support required from other vessels and the large footprint FSU with all its members, trucks, containers and support infrastructure.

    • Good interview with the Captain of Stirling Castle on Forces Net. She is now on the Clyde and should be IOC later this year.
      I’m actually a fan of this but of “Out of the Box” thinking, it’s just so not Typical MOD and it could be a way quicker and cost effective solution than a purpose built Mothership design.
      It focuses on Mission Capability and a lot of open questions to arrive at a OTS solution that focuses on “what you actually need” and ignores all the “nice to haves”.
      The Ship has to be able to Transport, Deploy, Operate and Maintain small Autonomous Boats and UAV and do so well and just about anywhere.
      So Tough as old boots, commercially available, maintainable, Excellent Sea keeping, a massive purpose built working deck with heavy Crain, internal volume and adaptability.
      So an offshore support vessel fits the bill and avoids the MOD procurement process for a purpose built Mothership.

      One thing I found interesting in the interview was the Captain has returned to the RFA and mentions the very high standard of accommodation on board which aids retention.

      I really hope it works because the cost of 6 of these is about the same as just 2 of the Dutch, Belgian, French Motherships or 1 USN LCS2 (which the US are adapting).

      • A lot of work has been ongoing at Fleet over the past few years regarding RN Transformation. Small to medium changes here and there altering the way the RN does its business. Most have gone unreported, but some have resulted in histrionics from certain quarters.

        The MCM is one of those changes that has been brought in to fundamentally change how the RN worked regarding mine warfare. Some don’t like change and bleat, others have embraced it. On my part the current use of Hunt/Sandowns was not sustainable

  13. We don’t need any naval ships. Our borders are well protected and secure. We have really competent politicians and ministers in charge.

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