The Knud Rasmussen-class is a class of offshore patrol vessel

Patrol boat

A patrol boat is a relatively small naval vessel generally designed for coastal defense duties.There have been many designs for patrol boats. They may be operated by a nation's navy, coast guard, or police force, and may be intended for marine and/or estuarine or river environments...

 operating in the Royal Danish Navy

Royal Danish Navy

The Royal Danish Navy is the sea-based branch of the Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish, Greenlandic and Faroese territorial waters...

 from 2008. Built to replace the Agdlek-class patrol cutters on a one-by-one basis, the Knud Rasmussen vessels are significantly larger, enabling patrols further offshore.

The ships' normal tasks include fisheries inspections, environment protection, search and rescue, sovereignty enforcement, icebreaker assignments, towage and salvage operations and general assistance to the Danish and Greenland governments (Including police tasks). The class has a helicopter deck aft behind the superstructure but lacks an aircraft hangar. However, it can perform Rotors running refueling

Rotors running refueling

Rotors running refuelling is the act of refuelling a helicopter, while the helicopter keeps rotors running. Unlike Helicopter in-flight refuelling, RRR can only be performed on ships or helipads, which can support the given helicopter....

 and can thus increase the endurance and the range of the helicopter.

Armament

The standard armament consists of two 12.7 millimetre (0.5 in) heavy machine guns. This is supplemented by the two Stanflex

StanFlex

StanFlex is a modular mission payload system used by the Kongelige Danske Marine ....

 modulary mission payload slots (one on the foredeck, the other aft of the superstructure), which can be fitted with a multi-purpose gun, surface-to-air missile

Surface-to-air missile

A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...

s, or ASW

Anti-submarine warfare

Anti-submarine warfare is a branch of naval warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, or other submarines to find, track and deter, damage or destroy enemy submarines....

 torpedoes, along with other non-weapon payloads. Another two container positions are "prepared for" but not installed; one stb. and one port on the heli deck.

List of ships

Pennant number Pennant number In the modern Royal Navy, and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth, ships are identified by pennant numbers...	Name	Int'l c/s	Shipyard Shipyard Shipyards and dockyards are places which repair and build ships. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes associated more with initial...	Laid down	Launched	In service	Christened by	Decommissioned
P570	Knud Rasmussen HDMS Knud Rasmussen (P570) HDMS Knud Rasmussen is a Royal Danish Navy patrol vessel. Knud Rasmussen and her sister ships normally operate in the waters around Greenland....		Karstensens Skibsværft	2005-11-21	2006-10-19	2008-02-18		-
P571	Ejnar Mikkelsen HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen (P571) HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen is a Royal Danish Navy patrol vessel.Launched in November 2007, she is the second vessel of the Knud Rasmussen class. The normal patrol area of the Ejnar Mikkelsen, and her sister ships, will be the waters around Greenland....		Karstensens Skibsværft		2007-06-01	2009-01-16		-

External links

• http://forsvaret.dk/sitecollectiondocuments/smk/projekter/if/pr%C3%A6sentation_af_skib_-_if_-_endelig_version.pdf (Official presentation (Danish))