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New mine countermeasures vessel enters service in Japan

19th March 2025 - 09:38 GMT | by Giovanni Rasio, Tony Fyler

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The JS Nomi at its naming ceremony. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Government of Japan)

The new vessel, JS Nomi, is the fourth countermeasures vessels in the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force's Awaji class, and a fifth and sixth have been costed.

The Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) has commissioned the fourth of its Awaji-class mine countermeasures (MCM) vessels in Yokohama City.

Built as an improved variant of the three-vessel Hirashima-class which entered service with the JMSDF in 2008, 2009 and 2010, the Awaji-class will actually replace the ageing Yaeyama-class minesweepers built in the early 1990s.

Of the six Yaeyama-class vessels that were planned, only three were ever made, and all those have now been retired, leaving a considerable competence gap in the defences of the JMSDF, and prompting the building of the Awaji class.

The Awaji class

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