The Beni Abbes is launched, the result of Italian-Algerian synergies

20/01/14

Last Tuesday, at the Fincantieri Muggiano plant (La Spezia), the Kalaat Beni Abbes ship was launched, a BDSL unit (Bâtiment de Débarquement et de SoutienLogistique) destined to become the future flagship of the Algerian Navy.

This is a project that saw the light of day as part of a broad and innovative Italian-Algerian cooperation program which gives the Italian Navy a full and direct involvement in the training of the first crew.

Cooperation that has already seen a further moment of development when an Italian shipyard was commissioned to build a first mine countermeasure unit, a project that marks the intention of that country to start a plan to renew this line of units.

The launch of the BDSL seals an intense construction and set-up work that lasted for about two years in the FINCANTIERI plant in Riva Trigoso to be transferred, in recent days, to the del Muggiano.

The BDSL, a latest generation multifunctional unit with an amphibious vocation, constitutes with its 8800 tons of displacement and the possibility of hosting about 600 people the technological and conceptual evolution of the ship San Giusto, a unit that thanks to its peculiar wide flexibility of use and low operating costs, is providing good proof of itself in the current geostrategic and economic-financial context.

In the coming months, the unit will carry out a series of sea trips to complete the functional check and refine the setting of the various on-board systems, an activity that should allow the unit to be delivered to the Algerian Navy in November.

 

Source: Military Navy