Alliance (A5345) is a research vessel owned by NATO and operated by the Marina Militare as a NATO research vessel and owned by the CMRE – Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, in La Spezia, Italy. Alliance has the status of an auxiliary ship of the Marina Militare.
The function of the Alliance is to conduct a wide range of acoustic, oceanographic research and engineering technology tasks on behalf of NATO, Marina Militare and third party organizations when 'on hire' for charters in global waters. The design and construction of the vessel was done to create a versatile research platform that is adaptable to the Centre's needs and reduce noise output to the lowest possible level in order to minimize interference with research work.

History
Commissioned on 15 April 1988 to SACLANT (Undersea Research Centre – SACLANTCEN, then named NATO Underwater Research Centre – NURC and now CMRE – Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation) of La Spezia, under the German flag.
Alliance was transferred to the Italian naval flag on 9 April 2016. The vessel is crewed and operated on behalf of NATO by the Marina Militare under a Memorandum of Understanding signed on 22 December 2015.
It took part in Nordic Recognized Environmental Picture research mission, a multi-year oceanographic research project that started in 2017 and has been conducted in different parts of the Arctic Ocean. The mission assess the impact of climate change in the Arctic, in particular, how the transformation of the Arctic affects sonar performance.

General information
Source:

primary working area (aft): 200 m2 (2,200 sq ft)
secondary working area (forward): 200 m2 (2,200 sq ft)
maintenance, support and all Labs: 370 m2 (4,000 sq ft)
scientific storage areas: 500 m3
capacity to embark up to 5 standard ISO1C, 20 ft (6.1 m), and up to 3 standard ISO 1D, 10 ft (3.0 m), containers

Sensing devices
multibeam echo sounder Kongsberg SIMRAD EM-302, 30 kHz
echo sounder Atlas Deso 30, 33 kHz
echo sounder Atlas deso 25, 210 kHz
echo sounder FWC, 100 kHz
SMS Sound Velocity Probe C Sonde SVP 10
acoustic tracking system
E.M. Speed Log Skipper DL850, 270 kHz
Acoustic Range and Bearing Indicator, 9–11 kHz
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) RDI, 75 kHz
Conductivity/temperature sensor Sea Bird, 8–12 kHz
Underwater telephone ELAC LAZ5100 Archived 20 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine, 8-11.5 kHz

Communication systems
There are two independent systems for ship communications and for scientific trials (with some overlap).
The ship system, which uses radios complying with SOLAS and GMDSS rules, includes Inmarsat systems (e-mail, fax and phone).

2 x Elmer ST-1075, 1000 watt HF transmitter
2 x Elmer ST-675, 600 watt HF transmitter
2 x Elmer SRT-619, UHF transceiver
Sailor RT144C, VHF transceiver
Furuno FM-2510, VHF transceiver
Kelvin Hughes Band V-Sat SATCOM, Satellite Communication System

See also
Italian ship Elettra (A 5340)
ROCS Ta Kuan (AGS-1601)

References

External links
Media related to Italian ship Alliance (A5345) at Wikimedia Commons