The Danish Navy’s Flyvefisken-class multipurpose combatant Gribbeit displays a new facet of the highly adaptable, glass-reinforced plastic-construction design during a September 1995 deployment. The 14-unit, 450-ton full load displacement craft have three dismountable, plug-in module positions to allow them to serve as guided-missile patrol craft, minelayers, mine countermeasures ships (with their own remotely operated submersibles and able to control 38-ton drone minesweepers), and pollution control craft. The 35-knot Gribben was equipped as a hydrographic survey vessel by lifting off the bow 76-mm OTO Breda gun module and installing a charthouse module in the aftermost fantail position.
One of the U.S. Navy’s least successful ship procurements was the two-unit Maury (T-AGS-39)-class survey vessel. The Maury was completed in March 1989 and served under the Military Sealift Command on deep-sea charting duties until deactivated in September 1994; in October 1994. she was transferred to the California State Maritime Academy to serve as a training ship. She is seen here in October 1995. The Tanner (T-AGS-40), completed in September 1990, served three years until deactivated after an irreparable engine casualty; she is now to be reengined to enter service as Maine Maritime Academy’s Stale of Maine. Displacing 15,821 tons full load, the pair required no less than 7,339 tons of ballast water when performing their missions and carried only a few tons of payload in the form of the AN/SQN-17 Bottom Topography Survey System (BOTOSS). They had no wartime mission.
The German Navy's last three steam-powered ships, completed in the United States in 1969-70 as variants of the U.S. Navy’s Charles F. Adams (DDG-2) guided-missile destroyer design, are the Bundesmarine's only area-defense missile ships, carrying Standard SM-1MR missiles. They were planned to be retired after the turn of the century with the introduction of the trio of planned Type 124 air-defense frigates, but concern for the safety of their 1,200-lb. boilers forced their temporary layup in November 1995. The possibility of acquiring Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7)-class frigates as interim replacements was explored briefly, but it was determined that modification to the steam plants on the destroyers was the best expedient. The Liitgens, seen here at Devonport in October shortly before being towed home, shows the 21-cell Mk 49 launchers for RIM-116 point-defense missiles added forward of the pilothouse and on the fantail.