HNLMS Evertsen on patrol off the Horn of Africa
The Dutch Navy has been in the business of fighting pirates for centuries so this is simply an extension of their age-old mission
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HNLMS Evertsen (F805) (Dutch: Zr.Ms. Evertsen) is the fourth De Zeven Provinciën class frigate of the Royal Netherlands Navy.
Commissioned in 2005, the 6000-ton, 472-foot frigate is armed with a 127mm gun forward, a 40-cell VLS with SM-2 and ESSM missiles, harpoons, Goalkeeper, ASW torpedo tubes and a helicopter. For her 2008 and 2009 deployments in support of Operation Atalanta which normally has 4-7 EUFOR ships assigned to patrol off the Somali coast, she also carried nearly a dozen M2 12.7mm and M240 7.62mm machine-gun mounts, you know, for those pesky pirates.