Thanks for the article LEE...
via Navy Times...read the entire article at their site.
SAFE Boats International has won a competition to build a new class of patrol boats for the Navy’s Naval Expeditionary Combat Command, the company announced Thursday.Well well.
The 85-foot-long Mark VI patrol boat is intended to expand the operating area of Navy patrol craft farther off shore, supplanting and replacing existing craft such as the 68-foot Mark IV and 34-foot Sea Ark patrol boats.
The $30.5 million SAFE Boat contract award is for five new patrol boats, with an option for a sixth — which, if exercised, would add another $6 million to the contract’s value.
Ultimately, the Navy intends to buy 48 Mark VIs.
Looks like those quiet guys in the Maritime Expeditionary Security Force are about to get not only an expanded mission but also some new toys.
This is a proper patrol boat, it seems adequately armed and should get the job done. Its a SAFE Boat so you know its tough and will operate in almost any but the absolutely worst sea states.
I like it.
MESF to be disestablished and combined with Riverines into Coastal Riverine Force effective 01 June. New command will be Coastal River Group Two with similar to follow on the West Coast.
ReplyDeleteI labelled this boat as a "Super Swift"
Mission is an overlap between MESF harbor focus and VBSS done sort of by riverines. Key word is expansion into real offshore waters neither brown nor green~
ReplyDeleteso long story short, the Special Boat Units got Riverines out of the Riverine business?
ReplyDeletethis looks a great boat to counter the swarm boat attacks we fear from iran, i think a few of these could take out multiple times more swarms of small pissy boats iran would throw at us.
ReplyDelete