The River class was a class of

minesweeper A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of ...

built for the British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...

in the 1980s, designated Fleet Minesweepers (MSF).

Design

The Rivers were built with a traditional steel hull to a design based on a commercial

offshore support vessel A platform supply vessel (PSV) is a ship specially designed to supply offshore oil and gas platforms. These ships range from in length and accomplish a variety of tasks. The primary function for most of these vessels is logistic support and tr ...

. The class was designed to be operated as deep sea team sweepers, to combat the threat posed to submarines by Soviet deep-water buoyant moored mines codenamed "Cluster Bay". The River-class MSF was equipped with the Wire Sweep Mark 9 (WS 9) which was capable of performing Extra Deep Armed Team Sweeping (EDATS). Operating in pairs (or a number of pairs in formation), they towed a sweep between the two ships that followed the profile of the bottom and cut the mooring wires of the mines; these released mines would then be destroyed on the surface with gunfire. The WS 9 was able to be used for "mechanical" sweeping in this manner or "influence" sweeping whereby a transducer was towed through the water generating noise, both acoustic and electro-magnetic, that simulated a larger high value unit. The Rivers were also armed with a single 40 mm Bofors gun on the manually operated

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

-era Mark III mounting, and two L7 GPMGs. The concept was refined in the chartered trawlers HMS ''St David'' and HMS ''Venturer'', and a total of twelve vessels, all named after British rivers, were constructed by

Richards (Shipbuilders) Ltd Richards (Shipbuilders) Ltd was a shipyard in Lowestoft, Suffolk. History The precursor to the yard was started in 1876 by Samuel Richards (as S. Richards and Co), with a boatyard on the south side of the inner harbour at Lowestoft. After Samuel di ...

Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the most easterly UK settlement, it is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and so ...

and

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside resort, seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of ...

at an approximate unit cost of £4.6 million. The class was designed to operate in deep water and ocean environments, if necessary for long periods of time without support. The complement was 5 officers, 7 Senior Ratings, and 16 Junior Ratings, although additional accommodation meant that a total crew of 36 could be borne for training purposes.

Service history

Upon entering service they joined the 10th Mine Countermeasures Squadron based at

Rosyth Rosyth ( gd, Ros Fhìobh, "headland of Fife") is a town on the Firth of Forth, south of the centre of Dunfermline. According to the census of 2011, the town has a population of 13,440. The new town was founded as a Garden city-style subur ...

and eleven were assigned to various

Royal Naval Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

(RNR) divisions around the United Kingdom. The twelfth, , entered service with the regular Royal Navy. Following defence cuts, and were paid off in 1991 and were laid up at

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city status in the United Kingdom, city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is admi ...

. Further cuts followed when the future of the RNR was reviewed in 1993 and as a result the entire class was withdrawn from RNR service. ''Blackwater'', , and were subsequently assigned to the Northern Ireland Squadron where they replaced vessels patrolling the province's waterways and participating in counter-terrorist operations in support of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...

and the

Royal Ulster Constabulary The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the Roy ...

(RUC). replaced , the last Ton-class vessel in service, as the Dartmouth Training Ship in 1994. Ultimately, the entire class was sold to overseas navies.

Ships

References

* ''Britain's Modern Royal Navy'', Paul Beaver, Patrick Stephens Limited, 1996, * ''Rebuilding the Royal Navy : Warship Design Since 1945'', D. K. Brown and George Moore, Chatham Publishing, 2003 * {{Cite Colledge2006
Mentioned in Parliament

Mine warfare vessel classes Ship classes of the Royal Navy