Minesweeper ARA Chaco — The Last of Us
✅ Name: ARA Chaco (M-3)
✅ Type: Minesweeper (dragaminas)
✅ Class: Bouchard class (US-built Admirable class minesweepers, transferred to Argentina)
✅ Origin: Originally built in the United States as part of the Admirable-class minesweepers used during WWII; transferred to the Argentine Navy postwar.
✅ Commissioned in Argentina: Late 1940s–early 1950s period
Specifications
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Displacement: ~625 tons (full load)
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Length: ~56 meters
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Beam: ~10 meters
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Draught: ~3 meters
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Propulsion: Diesel-electric engines
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Speed: ~15 knots
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Crew: ~100 personnel
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Armament: Typically light guns (40 mm, 20 mm), plus minesweeping gear
Operational Role
The ARA Chaco’s primary mission was to clear naval mines, ensuring safe passage for military and civilian vessels — a key function in wartime and peacetime operations. Minesweepers like the Chaco were particularly important in southern Argentine waters, where maintaining navigable routes around bases and ports like Puerto Belgrano, Ushuaia, or Río Gallegos was essential.
Serving as a specialized vessel for detecting and clearing naval mines, the ARA Chaco contributed to Argentina’s maritime security, protecting shipping lanes, naval bases, and coastal waters. While it did not play a front-line role during the Malvinas conflict, its presence reflects Argentina’s organized naval posture, ensuring operational safety and maintaining sovereign control over national waters.
Though it was part of the Argentine Navy’s inventory during the Malvinas era, the ARA Chaco was not one of the ships directly deployed in the South Atlantic conflict in 1982. Nonetheless, vessels of its class played vital support roles in Argentina’s naval strategy, particularly in home waters, ensuring that potential mine threats did not hamper maritime movements.