Community Vessel Mine Warfare Craft

This is the smallest combattant boat in the entire Naval Service of the Community Defence Forces of Sober Thought, measured by crew. It is similar to the British Royal Navy’s Waveney class of minehunters and Abdiel type of minelayer. Its superstructure is taken directly from the fast patrol boat, while its beam is disproportionately wide to provide a good platform for launching submarine mines.

The mine warfare boat is designed to lay and clear marine mines, mainly in coastal waters. Its four launchers are placed on either side of the stern, and the boat carries up to 48 mines in the hold and in racks above deck. For air defence and light surface defence it has one twin 20 mm guns in the bow and another pair in the stern.

A Vice Lieutenant is the commanding officer and a Vice Warrant Officer acting as a Boats Petty Officer is the latter's deputy. Between them, they control a crew of 28 others. In turn they often report to the Chief Lieutenant on a small craft tender based on the hull of a frigate. One tender may have under its control a task detachment of many mine warfare craft, fast patrol craft or both.

Nine minelayers/sweepers are built for each one hundred million people in Sober Thought. Because there are so many of them and they are inconsequential in the great scheme of things, they bear numbers only rather than names as well. The first batch is named M-1 through M-9, the second batch M-10 through M-18, etc.