The ''Cassiopea'' class is a heavy series of four

patrol boat A patrol boat (also referred to as a patrol craft, patrol ship, or patrol vessel) is a relatively small naval vessel generally designed for coastal defence, border security, or law enforcement. There are many designs for patrol boats, and the ...

s of the Italian Navy. They were built in the late 1980s on civilian standards. They are designed for patrol in safe areas.

Development and design

In the early 1980s the Italian navy developed two classes of corvettes to replace older vessels. The were fully combatant ships to serve as coastal escorts, and equipped with modern sensors and armament, while the ''Cassiopea'' class were simpler offshore patrol vessels intended to replace the old s used for fisheries patrol.Gardiner and Chumbley 1995, p. 197. Vega P404

Construction of four ships (out of eight originally planned) was authorized in December 1982, with funding from the Ministry of Merchant Marine. Orders were placed in December 1986, with construction starting the next year at

Fincantieri Fincantieri S.p.A. () is an Italian shipbuilding company based in Trieste, Italy. Already the largest shipbuilder in Europe, after the acquisition of Vard in 2013, Fincantieri group doubled in size to become the fourth largest in the world (2014 ...

shipyard,

Muggiano Lerici ( lij, Lerxi, locally ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of La Spezia in Liguria (northern Italy), part of the Italian Riviera. It is situated on the coast of the Gulf of La Spezia, southeast of La Spezia. It is known as the plac ...

. The ships were built to mercantile standards, and the first ship entered service in 1989. A further two ships were cancelled in 1991, prior to the start of construction.Grove 1990, p. 95. The ships' main gun armament is a single

76mm/L62 Allargato The 76mm/L62 ''Allargato'' is a single barrel, medium caliber, dual purpose automatic naval cannon designed and produced in the 1960s by the Italian defence firm of OTO-Melara as the cannon armament for all medium and large warships built for t ...

gun; both gun and fire control systems came from scrapped s. Each ship is fitted with a flight deck and fixed hangar to accommodate a helicopter type Agusta-Bell AB-212 ASW of the Italian navy. Each also carries equipment for dealing with pollution. Between 2012 and 2014 all units were fitted with

Selex ES Selex ES was a subsidiary of Finmeccanica S.p.A., active in the electronics and information technology business, based in Italy and the United Kingdom, UK, and formed in January 2013, following Finmeccanica's decision to combine its existing SE ...

br>Janus-N
IR optronic system. As of 2014 the ships, starting with ''Libra'' were fitted with new dual-band navigation (X/Ka
Gemini-DB
radar systems fro
GEM Elettronica

Ships

''Source:''

Notes

References

* Baker, A.D. ''The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World 1998–1999''. Annapolis, Maryland, USA. . * Gardiner, Roger and Stephen Chumbley. ''Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1947–1995''. Annapolis, Maryland, USA. . * Grove, Eric J. ''NATO Major Warships – Europe''. Tri-Service Pocketbook. London: Tri-Service Press, 1990. .

External links

Cassiopea (P 401)
Marina Militare website {{Ship classes of the Marina Militare, noshipclass=yes Ships built by Fincantieri Cassiopea-class patrol vessels Patrol ship classes