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BMT VENARI®-85

BMT’s VENARI®-85 platform is a mine warfare and hydrographic ship for the unmanned and information-dominated era. The platform is designed to exploit the next generation of offboard vehicles, mission systems and operational concepts. The underwater shock effect of a mine blast can cause serious damage to a ship at a long range, a phenomenon exacerbated substantially in shallower, littoral waters that are characteristic of a minefield. An MCMV could also be required to operate up-threat from friendly assets within constrained waters, and at a higher risk of attack. Working with leading suppliers of unmanned systems, and research and development organisations such as QinetiQ, BMT undertook studies and design and development research to explore and understand the underlying operational analysis and concepts of minewarfare. The studies produced a platform which can rapidly clear mines over a greater area with less risk to the crew than current conceptual and existing designs.

VENARI-85 provides a navy with a broader utility and a clear development path, allowing future unmanned technologies and operating concepts to be hosted from VENARI-85 as they develop. The inherent features of VENARI-85 provide a wider capability to a navy. The large working deck, mission equipment garage, flight deck and hangar, and the platform’s stability and self-defence capability are employable in roles beyond mine warfare. The survivability features of the design are critical to modern mine warfare operations and enable the platform to be deployed in a variety of locations and in a higher threat environment than is possible with an OPV without accepting substantial levels of operational and safety risk.

Working with the wealth of experience brought by mine warfare and autonomous systems industry leaders, along with lessons from Unmanned Warrior 2016 (including QinetiQ, Atlas Elektronik UK, Northrop Grumman and Leonardo), and drawing on the experience of operators from several navies, BMT established a range of operational concepts that can be employed to clear a minefield or hunt individual mines. BMT’s research identified the advantages, drawbacks and technical limitations of each concept.

As the Mine Counter-Measures Vessel (MCMV) enters the minefield it uses its own sensors, tethered underwater vehicles, divers and small unmanned vehicles to detect, localise, classify and neutralise each threat mine encountered. The ship is able to enter the minefield as its signatures are strictly controlled, making the ship itself largely ‘immune’ to the mine threat, and is able to clear a defined channel through the minefield for other military or commercial shipping to use.

Due to the strict signature controls required, MCMVs employed in Channel Immune operations are built from non-magnetic materials such as glass reinforced plastic or wood. This, together with bespoke low-magnetic signature equipment from the propulsion systems to the galley facilities, leads to platforms that are extremely expensive relative to their size. The ship’s size is limited by the materials used for construction and will therefore struggle to provide the space and stability required to operate the range of modern unmanned systems. Both the Channel Immune and Channel Avoid concepts place personnel inside the minefield, increasing the risk to the crew’s safety.

The Area Standoff concept assumes a suite of unmanned offboard systems hosted in a ship within an expeditionary task group, or deployed from shore. From their launch point, the offboard systems transit a significant distance over the horizon before using a range of underwater, surface and air unmanned vehicles to detect, localise, classify and neutralise each threat mine. This means that any vessel of opportunity or port could be used to host the mine warfare capability, and personnel are positioned further from the risks associated with mine countermeasures operations.

The Channel Standoff concept employs unmanned offboard systems while recognising that, due to the maximum range and communications capabilities of unmanned technology, the host ship will be required to enter and operate within the swept channel once cleared by the unmanned vehicles. The host ship will proceed along the swept area as the mission progresses to fully support and protect the unmanned systems. This concept delivers an effective mine clearance capability with acceptable levels of operational risk for modern naval operations, with the multi-tasking offboard systems able to cover a greater area in a shorter time than current MCMVs.

A ship conducting coastal or expeditionary mine warfare roles requires the fundamental military standard stability, signatures management and survivability provided by VENARI-85 to conduct mine warfare operations. The critical features which enable mine warfare cannot be incorporated within a Frigate without severely impacting higher warfighting priorities and requirements in areas such as Anti-Air Warfare (AAW), Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW); the attributes required to fulfil these Frigate warfighting roles are largely incompatible with the mine warfare requirements.

Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) generally lack survivability and signature management features, even at the most basic level, and are fundamentally unsafe to be employed in mine clearance operations within the Channel Immune, Channel Avoid and Channel Standoff concepts. With a narrower beam, an OPV hullform also lacks the stability required to launch and recover large unmanned vehicles, some of which weigh upwards of 15 tonnes, in all sea-states and weather conditions that are required in the Area Standoff concept. These factors place acute limitations and delays on the operational commander and exclude an OPV design as a viable solution for mine warfare operations.

VENARI-85 is specifically configured to meet the challenges of modern and future mine warfare, and to deliver wider roles within a navy, due to a number of specific design features:

• Mission spaces for optimum operation of the mine warfare capability.
• Hullform and hydrodynamics to ensure capability delivery in a wide range of conditions and locations.
• Efficient and effective propulsion arrangement for speed, accuracy and manoeuvrability.
• Survivability and signatures for crew and mission protection.
• Self-defence and surveillance capabilities scaled to the intended role.

The aft working deck configuration optimises the handling of large unmanned offboard systems, such as Atlas Elektronik’s ARCIMS, and the rapid flow of vehicles on and off the ship. Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) are deployed and recovered using motion-compensated davits, enabling the launch and recovery of systems in higher sea states with an added level of redundancy. The working deck can accommodate containers for additional equipment and stores alongside the USVs and is equipped with a crane for use both at sea and in port. VENARI-85’s facilities allow the ship to stream and recover equipment required for modern mine influence sweep systems operated by the USVs. The flexibility of this area facilitates the removal of the USVs and davits, allowing space for more containers or other large items of equipment and provides a capability growth path to incorporate future new technologies.

The flight deck and hangar are designed to support unmanned aircraft operations providing surveillance and communications to the wider mine warfare system. The flight deck can host a manned helicopter, such as the AW159 Wildcat, with facilities to provide in-flight refuelling of larger aircraft if required. The flight deck and Replenishment At Sea (RAS) facilities allow VENARI-85 to replenish fuel, stores and equipment whilst underway, increasing the ship’s range and operational endurance.

VENARI-85 has a fully redundant diesel-electric propulsion architecture arranged over two independent machinery spaces that, unlike an OPV or commercial ship, meets naval class rules. Four equal-sized shock mounted and acoustically enclosed diesel generators linked to two electric propulsion motors drive the twin propellers via conventional shafts, providing operational flexibility and survivability through a redundant, shock-capable and acoustically quiet configuration.

VENARI-85 is designed with shock features to protect personnel and critical systems from the impact of an attack or mine detonation. Without this protection, a shock event could result in the total loss of propulsion, with the stricken ship and crew becoming stranded and drifting out of the swept area and into the minefield itself. An event like this could place another ship within the fleet at extreme risk when used to recover stranded personnel, the sensitive equipment, and mission systems onboard.

VENARI-85 can be equipped with a 40mm cannon or 57mm medium calibre gun integrated with an all-weather fire control director. Using specialist guided ammunition, this system can provide an anti-surface and limited anti-air defence at a greater range than older generation Close In Weapon Systems (CIWS). The main gun is augmented by two additional remote-operated cannon and mounted smaller calibre weapons to provide overall 360° coverage against surface threats.

Due to the flexibility, survivability and stability in the VENARI-85 design, a separate class of ships is not required to conduct the survey role, as the platform allows both mine warfare and hydrographic survey operations to be delivered from the same ship. The mission space and integral medical facility can be re-purposed to provide shelter if the ship is employed to rescue or evacuate large numbers of civilians. VENARI-85 could be deployed as an ASW surveillance capability in a nation’s own waters to monitor and deter another nation’s submarines, thereby releasing the more expensive Frigates and their higher levels of specialist ASW capability to be employed in more demanding operations globally.

Offering more options to the operational commander and a greater level of safety for personnel, VENARI-85 provides future mine warfare capability at pace, delivering required theater entry conditions or securing a coastline from aggressive or legacy use of mines. The flexibility of VENARI-85 opens up a clear future development path, easily modified to adopt the latest mine warfare technology as it continues to mature and evolve rapidly over the life of the platform.