Monday, 20 August 2012

Mystery frigates in Øresund (were Danish!)


There has been a lot of military marine traffic in Øresund recently. Only yesterday the Russian tank landing ship Aleksandr Shabalin entered the Sound from Kattegat, and during the weekend the Danish Navy has been testing its new frigates HDMS Ivar Huitfeldt and HDMS Peter Willemoes  in the vicinity of Helsingør.


Esbern Snare (L17)
Absalon (L16)

This evening, just after 6 PM, these two frigates (?) sailed southwards in the Sound. The haze made it impossible to recognize signs or numbers, but they were definitively not the two new Danish frigates. An expert on navy ships would probably easily recognize the ships from the silhouettes. I would be grateful for any information about the type and nationality. 


PS 
(August 22) 

The "mystery" has been solved! A good friend, who lives in Copenhagen, informs me that the two ships are the Royal Danish Navy´s two Absalon class support ships - the Absalon and the Esbern Snare, which are based on a frigate-like design. Wikipedia has more information on these interesting ships: 

The Absalon class are support ships of the Royal Danish Navy. Two ships in the class, built by Odense Steel Shipyard, were launched in 2004.
The class is based on a frigate-like design, but built with an internal multipurpose deck (flex deck) and a stern vehicle ramp. The ships can serve as command platforms for a staff of 75 persons (naval or joint staff) with a containerized command and control centre, transport and base of operations for a company-sized landing force of some 200 men with vehicles. Alternatively, the flex deck can be used for mine-laying operations with a capacity of some 300 mines, or be fitted out for mine-clearing operations and launch and recover mine detecting and clearing equipment via a retractable gantry crane, adjacent to the stern ramp, which also is used for launching and recovering the fast landing craft. Furthermore the flex deck can support a containerized hospital or simply transport a number of ISO standard containers or some 55 vehicles including, up to 7 MBTs. The ships carry two LCPs (Storebro SB90E), two rigid hull inflatable boats and two medium helicopters.

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