Yea i know, this cutters were practically a gift from the USA, we paid around 1-2mil for each of them. I however, disagree with your points.
1. No we don't need extra vessels to guard our territory. the Maritime boundary is only 200nm. Most of our ships can easily cover that distance. Even our padma class patrol vessels have a range of 1500nm and currently padma class is used for our EEZ patrol.
2. Low cost is one thing, but maintenance may be an issue as the ship is really old and big and has seen action in all kinds of weather, think how much it is worn out by now and how much will it coast to refit and maintain them.
I wouldnt mind spending if the ship is a force multiplier for our navy, but, do we seriously want to spend money on upkeeping an old ship that is only used for patrol and has almost zero combat capability?
3. We received them like a couple of years apart with 2 years of separate negotiations for the both of them, with like 6-8 months of training in the US. I dont think the problem with poaching is/was serious, if it was, we wouldn't have taken such a long time to purchase the vessels.
My point is, patrol frigates in our navy is a waste of our limited resources. Unless they add teeth to these ships, i think that they will not be much beneficial than a padma class patrol boat.
1. The "Padma" class patrol boats are short endurance boats that can't stay out at sea for longer then 7 days and not at high sea states. The "Hamiltons" can stay on station for more then 45 days, and at high sea states.
2. We need vessels that can be used to evacuate large groups of people from abroad. We learned a strong lesson when all the problems happened in the middle east and we didn't have the resources.
3. The actual running costs of these 2 are quite reasonable considering their age and recent refit. you cant expect to pay such low cost and expect latest tech. They were bought for a reason, and they fulfill them....you need to stop thinking about them as combat ships...they are not.
I spoke to senior BN officers when they bought the first "Hami", I thought what a stupid idea to buy old coast guard cutters and try to convert them to frigates....made no sense....it would be better to buy a single modern frigate then these. But when they explained what they were going to be used for it made sense.
I will condense as much as possible what they said to my questions...I had 2 worries a) Why buy the "Hamis"? b) Why are the Durjoy's so lightly armed? Why not just buy the same boats as Pakistan?
a) They wanted long endurance patrol boats that could be used to patrol the maritime territory at high sea states. The fact we got them cheap and can be used for evacuations was a bonus.
b) If you look at the Durjoy class you will notice that they are essentially cut down versions of the type 056 corvettes. The plan has always been to build up KSY, and the durjoys have been designed so they can be built at KSY and with the idea that this will help in building the type 056 at KSY too.
The Padma's are used for short endurance patrol (7 days) and close to the coast. The Durjoy's are meant to mid term endurance patrol's (2 weeks) and light combat. The Hami's and for long endurance patrols (over a month).
The planned actual combat vessels are, Durjoy, type 056, new frigates (either chinese or korean), future subs....etc.
