IN Brief:
- Saab’s 66-metre MCMV 24 concept is designed for mine warfare in the Baltic and comparable littoral environments.
- The vessel combines a composite GRP hull, 22-knot speed, autonomous mine-countermeasure systems, Giraffe 1X radar, and optional weapons.
- Sweden is a potential future operator, while Saab has confirmed early discussions with Denmark and Germany.
Saab has unveiled a new 66-metre mine-countermeasures vessel concept designed around Baltic operating conditions, combining a low-magnetic-signature composite hull with autonomous mine-warfare systems, higher transit speed, and a more substantial self-defence fit than traditional specialist minehunters.
The MCMV 24 was presented at DALO Industry Days in Denmark and is intended for operations in waters where the mine threat can extend from hostile coastlines into shipping routes, approaches, and friendly ports. Saab’s response is a relatively compact vessel designed to enter the mine-threat area while deploying remotely operated and autonomous systems around it.
That approach differs from mine-countermeasure concepts built primarily around large motherships remaining well outside a suspected minefield while uncrewed craft conduct the hazardous work. Saab argues that Baltic geography can make a pure stand-off model difficult, particularly where narrow waters, ports, islands, and opposing shorelines compress the operating area.
The vessel retains one of Saab Kockums’ established mine-warfare technologies: a glass-reinforced plastic composite hull. Reducing magnetic signature remains important where influence mines can respond to the signatures generated by a passing vessel, while composite construction also draws on experience accumulated through Sweden’s Landsort and Koster classes.
MCMV 24 nevertheless departs from the Koster design in its propulsion arrangement. Saab has selected conventional propellers rather than Voith Schneider units, trading some low-speed manoeuvrability and signature performance for greater transit speed. The concept is intended to reach approximately 22 knots, unusually fast for a dedicated mine-countermeasures vessel.
That speed broadens the potential tasking beyond traditional minehunting. Saab is positioning the ship for patrol duties as well as mine warfare, giving an operator greater scope to move between operating areas or use the vessel for maritime-security tasks when a dedicated mine-countermeasure mission is not under way.
The sensor fit follows the same logic. MCMV 24 is shown with Saab’s Giraffe 1X radar and CEROS fire-control and electro-optical system, adding surface and air surveillance capability beyond what would once have been expected from a lightly armed minehunter.
Optional weapons include a Bofors 40mm gun, lightweight torpedoes, and Nimbrix counter-UAS missiles. The proposed fit reflects the greater range of threats facing vessels operating close to contested coastlines, where drones and small surface craft sit alongside conventional aircraft, missiles, and naval mines.
Mine-countermeasure operations themselves are designed around remotely operated and autonomous equipment. A dedicated bow door can launch and recover systems such as Saab’s Double Eagle remotely operated vehicle, while the aft deck provides space for mission modules and additional uncrewed systems.
The result is a hybrid model in which the ship retains the signature characteristics needed to work inside a mine-threat area but sends smaller systems ahead to detect, classify, identify, and neutralise individual objects. Autonomous equipment can increase the area searched without requiring the crewed vessel to approach every suspected mine directly.
That architecture is becoming more relevant as the ways mines can be delivered expand. Conventional moored and bottom mines remain central threats, but uncrewed surface vessels and other remotely operated platforms offer additional means of placing mines quickly. Mine-countermeasure fleets consequently have to deal with changing threat locations rather than assuming hazardous areas will remain confined to established approaches or choke points.
Saab also sees scope to use the same basic hull for patrol and coastguard configurations. A common platform could allow operators to share maintenance infrastructure, training, propulsion systems, and other support across different mission fleets, although the practical savings would depend on how much equipment remains common between variants.
The concept arrives as several European navies reconsider how they organise mine warfare. Autonomous systems have reduced the need for every detection and neutralisation task to be carried out from a crewed minehunter, but specialist ships still provide command, launch-and-recovery, maintenance, accommodation, and transit capability around those uncrewed systems.
MCMV 24 attempts to combine those requirements without turning the design into a much larger mothership. The engineering compromise will be whether higher speed, additional sensors, and heavier self-defence equipment can be accommodated while preserving the low signatures and mine-warfare performance that justify a specialist vessel in the first place.
Sweden is a potential future user as it considers eventual replacement of the Koster class, while Saab has confirmed early discussions with Denmark and Germany. No customer order, contract value, construction schedule, or final weapons configuration has been announced.
MCMV 24 therefore remains a concept rather than a procurement programme. The significant next step would be a formal national requirement or funded design study, moving the vessel from an exhibition proposition into detailed engineering where cost, signatures, payload, crewing, and autonomous-system integration have to be demonstrated against an actual customer specification.
