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Revision as of 07:06, 20 July 2005 by 195.148.253.226 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Flores class sloops, Flores and Soemba, were gun boats in the Royal Netherlands Navy during the second World War. They were in several ways the most successful surface ships of the Dutch navy during the war.
They were squat ships with a relatively heavy armament for their size (3 x 5.9 inch Krupp guns, the same type and calibre as for the cruisers Java and Sumatra). Their main asset was an advanced fire control system that made them very accurate in bombing shore targets, as their sister ship HNLMS John Maurits van Nassau demonstrated during the German attack on the Low Countries when she silenced a German battery from a distance of well over 10 miles.
Flores and Soemba were united in the Mediterranean and played an active and successful role in the landings on Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Gargliano, Gaeta and finally, at the beaches of Normandy in June 1944. British war correspondents referred to them as "the terrible twins".
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