Philippines new Frigate heading for RIMPAC 2020

[GeoffH]

20 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

I just wonder a bit about this ship. Many years ago, when anchored in a very remote atoll in Kiribati, a patrol boat stopped by for a visit and small resupply for the few residents there. They did not have small scale nautical charts on board !!!!

 

Sounds like one of the 22 Pacific Patrol Boats donated by Australia to various small Pacific nations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific-class_patrol_boat

 

There is a more recent program to replace these with (also donated) Guardian Class Patrol Boats built by Austal Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian-class_patrol_boat

 

These will I suspect be backed up when needed by the new much larger Aussie Arafura class OPV in the near future.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by GeoffH

[Tommy T.]

4 minutes ago, GeoffH said:

Sounds like one of the 22 Pacific Patrol Boats donated by Australia to various small Pacific nations.

 

I think you are correct. I just took a look at your link and those look to be the same. The crew told me that this one was the same as many that were donated by the Aussies to the small island nations. Nice, small ship, but it was essentially toothless. Looked good though!

Edited August 3, 2020 by Tommy T.

[GeoffH]

5 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

I think you are correct. The crew told me that this one was the same as many that were donated by the Aussies to the small island nations. Nice, small ship, but it was essentially toothless. Looked good though!

The weapons that were fitted depended upon which nation accepted the boats, some were fitted with a 20mm gun, some with remote heavy machine guns, some with crew served light machine guns.  It was evidently an issue that lack of funding led to some weapons being removed from service over time even on boats that were originally armed.  This may be why the new Guardian class is so lightly armed (for but not with).

Edited August 3, 2020 by GeoffH

[Tommy T.]

1 minute ago, GeoffH said:

The weapons that were fitted depended upon which nation accepted the boats, some were fitted with a 20mm gun, some with remote heavy machine guns, some with crew served light machine guns.  It was evidently an issue that lack of funding led to some weapons being removed from service over time even on boats that were originally armed.

That could be the case. As it was, this patrol craft had no armament that I saw (don't even know if they even had a hand gun aboard?), no really good charts or tide tables and was basically running on diesel fumes most of the time. If memory serves me well, it was only a year or two old and this was back in about 1997 or so?

And the saddest part is that I could hear Chinese on the VHF radio at times - telling me that they were close by and fishing illegally already. The patrol boat only made one visit and otherwise was moored in Tarawa always...

So this all just makes me wonder about the roll of this very outclassed new frigate of the Philippines. I hope they use it to go out and hassle the Chinese encroachers, but I also doubt what its capabilities really are.

[Jake]

1 hour ago, GeoffH said:

These will I suspect be backed up when needed by the new much larger Aussie Arafura class OPV in the near future.

Now you're talkin' GeoffH!  I love the high water line and apparently has multi-mission capabilities.  Philippines could probably purchase 3-4 of these instead of that showboat frigate.  

[GeoffH]

5 hours ago, Jake said:

Now you're talkin' GeoffH!  I love the high water line and apparently has multi-mission capabilities.  Philippines could probably purchase 3-4 of these instead of that showboat frigate.  

 

Yeah, I like these too, you can't argue with the value for money they offer and being proven off the shelf technology they are planned to be built relatively quickly. *edit* that's $3.5 billion Aussie dollars for 12 ships.

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by GeoffH