The two frigates, with a contract of P18 billion and now being bidded out by the Department of National Defense (DND), will be the most capable and versatile ships of the Philippines (PN) once commissioned.
And to live with this billing, these ships will be armed with a variety of sensors and weapons capable of detecting and neutralizing air, surface, and submarine threats.
The brand-new frigates will also be capable of electronic warfare.
Aside from this, the frigates, according to their technical specifications, must be capable of performing of extended maritime patrol with an embarked naval helicopter and extended maritime surveillance capability through air-and-surface-search radar, and sound navigation and ranging (sonar) for sub-surface search.
In addition, the frigates must be able to have the capability to perform exclusive economic zone protection roles while being able to operate up to Sea State 6 (wave height maximum of six meters) in accordance with the World Meteorological Organization Sea State Code.
The ships must be capable of covering a minimum of 4,500 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 15 knots and a maximum continuous speed that should be, at the minimum, of 25 knots.
It must be able to sustain operational presence at sea for a minimum of 30 days in tropical conditions.
The vessels must able to quickly launch and recover, in a maximum of 10 minutes, while underway a minimum of two rigid-hull inflatable boats that can carry at least ten persons each.
In addition, it has to accommodate in an onboard hangar at least a medium-sized naval helicopter that weighs up to 10 tons.
The specifications also requires the ships to be designed, constructed, and fitted out with a steering arrangement compliant with applicable conventions to ensure the safety of the crew while fitted with twin rudders of suitable size and shape sufficient to effect a complete turn five times the length of the ship as the minimum tactical diameter for manoeuvrability.
These new ships should be controllable and capable of performing maneuvers essential to its safe operation up to critical design conditions.
The frigates shall have a tactical diameter not longer than five ship lengths in either direction at an initial speed corresponding to the maximum speed.
For its navigation systems, the ships must have two navigational radars, one X-band and one S-band, and at least one radar should be of solid state design and make.
The system must be capable of automatic radar plotting aid, automatic identification system, and automatic tracking aid.
The vessel must also be provided with a GPS with electronic chart display and information system, depth sounding set, magnetic compass, and a navigational gyro system with appropriate numbers of repeaters located at the bridge, emergency steering room, navigational telex, and combat information center that can be interfaced with the necessary systems.
The navigational telex must be must be capable to display and generate data weather forecast information.
For search-and-rescue communications, an emergency position indicating radio beacon and a search-and-rescue-radar transponder are required as a minimum.
Aside from this, the frigates must be fitted with naval guns that will provide a 360 degree sector of fire.
This includes a 76mm main naval gun at the forward section and capable of engaging both air and surface targets, one stabilized secondary gun for close-in-weapon systems (CIWS), and four .50 caliber heavy machine guns.
These weapons must be installed and integrated to a combat management system to ensure a common operating picture among sensors tracks, weapons availability and responsive battle management.
The DND requires that the vessels must have surface-to-air and surface-to-surface capabilities.
The surface-to-surface missile system should be a capable of launching surface-to-surface missiles with two double launchers, cover a minimum range of 50 kilometers, possess minimum subsonic speed, be a fire-and-forget type, all-weather, and have an active homing seeker with an electronic-counter-counter measures capability.
In addition, the surface-to-air missile system is required to be capable of launching surface-to-air missiles with a minimum quadruple launcher; it must also have a minimum range of six kilometers.
The frigates must also have a torpedo system that is capable of launching a torpedo that is capable to engage sub-surface targets at a minimum range of 2,000 meters and a minimum depth of 500 meters
The torpedo provided should be able to operate at a depth from 22 meters to 100 meters in shallow waters, and 100 meters to 500 meters in deep waters and should have acoustic countermeasures capability.
Once the bidding process is completed within this year, the two frigates are expected to be delivered by 2017.
"The frigates (now undergoing bidding) will be the most capable vessels in the PN inventory once constructed and commissioned into service," PN spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Gregory Fabic earlier said.
At the moment, the two most capable ships in the PN are the two Gregorio Del Pilar class frigates acquired from the US Coast Guard.
These vessels are armed with 76mm Oto Melara auto-cannon, a variety of light weapons and capable of handling, launching, and maintaining a helicopter, in this case, the three brand-new AgustaWestland AW-109 "Power" helicopters, and capable of speeds up to 29 knots.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=642355
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