Chartered by the U.S. Navy along with her crew and attached to Special Boat Squadron Two at Little Creek, Virginia, until September, the 260-ton Royal Norwegian Navy rigid-sidewall surface-effect guided missile patrol craft Skjold ("Shield") averaged 49 knots while under way en route to U.S. waters last fall. Currently unarmed, the craft and five sisters authorized last year to be built by Umoe Mandal A/S will be fitted with a low-reflectivity 76-mm OTOBreda gun mount forward and eight NSM antiship missiles launched though ports near the stern in the sides of the catamaran hull. The Skjold reached 57.1 knots on trials on the 16,320 shaft horsepower provided by two Rolls Royce-Allison 571-KF9 gas turbines, which drive two waterjets. Two 985brake-horsepower MTU diesels are mounted forward to power the lift fans, and two 500-brake-horsepower MTU diesels provide auxiliary power for low-speed operations. The extraordinarily smooth exterior finish to the spacious hull of the Skjold is derived from the ship's easily repaired, lightweight foam-core, glass-reinforced plastic construction; interior electronics are protected by Faraday shielding buried within the structure. The design can be scaled up to about 600 tons full load and is being studied intensely by the U.S. Navy during the current charter.
The 3,292-ton survey ship Beautemps-Beaupre was launched for the French Navy by Alstom at St. Nazaire on 26 April 2002 and is to be delivered this December. Propelled by a single 12,000-shaft-horsepower electric motor and with an endurance of 45 days, the 264-foot ship is to be joined by a slightly larger sister, the oddly named Porquoi Pas? in 2004. The Porquoi Pas? is to be operated by the French Navy for 150 days a year and by the civilian agency IFREMER (Institute Francais de Recherches pour l'Exploration de la Mer) for the remainder. Both ships will have multipath, deep-ocean mapping echo sounders and will carry 9-meter survey launches. They are replacing the old survey ship L'Esperance and the oceanographic research ship D'Entrecasteaux. Of the French Navy's four 1,100-ton La Perouse-class survey ships, the Arago returned from a longtime deployment to Tahitian waters in May 2002 and is being reequipped as a home-waters offshore patrol vessel.
British Royal Navy LCU Mk 10 landing craft LCU-03 is the third of ten 240-ton (full load displacement) sisters intended for service on board the two new Albion-class dock landing ships, each of which will be able to accommodate four of the 98-foot-long by 24.3-foot-beam craft within its stern docking well. The first two Mk lOs were completed in November 1999 by a subcontractor that then went out of business, but construction of the others was delayed until prime contractor BAE Systems moved the work to its Govan yard last year. The 16,981-ton Albion and Bulwark are themselves experiencing delays in completion, and with the decommissioning of the Fearless on 18 March, the Royal Navy will be without the services of a dock landing ship until the Albion's delivery next April. The waterjet-driven LCU Mk 10 is capable of carrying one heavy tank or four heavy trucks or 120 fully equipped troops for up to 600 nautical miles at 10 knots.