According to information published by the Romanian MoD on March 28, 2022, minister Lorenzo Guerini announced Italy’s intention of sending, in the near future, two maritime minesweepers to act in the Black Sea, together with the Romanian Naval Forces in order to discover and neutralize the mines.
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Gaeta class minehunter Termoli (Picture source: Italian Navy)
The Italian Navy includes two classes of mine countermeasures vessels (MCMV), the Lerici class and the Gaeta class.
The Lerici class is a class of minehunters constructed by Intermarine SpA and owned and operated by the Italian Navy. The class incorporates two subclasses: the first four ships are referred to specifically as the first series of the Lerici class, while eight more ships produced to a slightly modified design are known as "second series Lericis" or as the Gaeta class.
The eight ships of the Second Series Lerici class, more commonly known as the Gaeta class, were all launched in the early 1990s and were commissioned by May 1996.
The Gaeta class is almost identical to the Lerici class: the main structural differences between the ships are that the displacement of the latter is 77 tons greater, the hull is 2.5 meters (8.2 ft) long, and the communications mast was moved from above the bridge to just forward of the exhaust funnel. The Gaetas also used an improved version of the VDS FIAR SQQ-14 (IT) sonar, which was fitted in 1991 to the four Lerici-class ships.
