Dupuy De Lome Class French Intelligence Collection Ship

The Dupuy De Lome Class French Intelligence Collection Ship is named after the 19th century engineer Henri Dupuy de Lôme, is a ship designed for the collection of signals and communications beyond enemy lines, which entered the service of the French Navy in April 2006. In contrast to Bougainville, the ship that she replaced, Dupuy de Lôme was specifically designed for sea intelligence, pursuant to the MINREM project (Moyen Interarmées Naval de Recherche ElectroMagnétique, "Joint Naval Resources for Electromagnetic Research"). Dupuy de Lôme was designed and built by Royal Niestern Sander shipyards in Delfzijl, The Netherlands with yard number 816. The Thales Naval France designed the electromagnetic intellegence part of the vessel. She provides a 350-day-operational availability a year, out of which 240 can be spent at sea. The ship is operated by two naval crews, each composed of thirty-three sailors and another thirty-three technicians, and an optional complement of up to thirty-eight specialists, depending on the mission. The specialised personnel operates under the Direction du renseignement militaire. On 21 June 2015, Dupuy de Lôme entered the Black Sea along with USS Laboon as part of NATO's presence missions following the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.