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Pak-China friendship: Pakistan to get four more F-22p Frigates
By Abdullah Zafar - May 8th, 2012 (1 Comment)
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Karachi: Pakistan is going to obtain four F-22P Frigates to be built in Pakistan in collaboration with China as part of countrys efforts to strengthen its navy.
Recently Pakistan was has got three frigate from China while fourth is being built. Previously, China also handed over four frigates to Pakistan.
According to a report, published in Daily Jang, the leading Urdu daily of the country, Pakistan was happy over getting the fighters at low price and got booked orders for four new ships.
The report said that the Chinese frigate costs 200 million dollar while the US LCS ship having similar qualities and technologies costs 600 million dollars.
According to the report, the F-22P Frigate is laced with modern missile technology. The first ship, PNS Zulfiquar, was handed over to the PN on 30 July 2009 and the second, PNS Shamsheer, on January 23, 2010. The third is undergoing sea trials, The Fourth and Last Frigate of F-22P series for the PN was launched on 17 June 2011.
Pak-China friendship: Pakistan to get four more F-22p Frigates | The News Tribe
why we are not getting great type-054a
Kuala Lumpur, KLS: Pakistan’s Navy is looking at expanding its F22P frigate fleet, either construct the exactly same F22P or improved variant of F22P.
Chief of Naval Staff of Pakistan, Admiral Noman Bashir told KLS that because of geographical factor, Pakistan needs more ships to cover the vast area.
“We need to expand F22P, whether we do exactly the same as F22P or we make some upgrade, make it even better. Because of the technology is changing every year, in order to keep it up to date, you have to keep upgrading what you have.”
Pakistan ordered four F22P frigates from China in 2005, the first three ships will be built in China while the last in Pakistan. The first F22P was delivered to Pakistan in mid 2009.
Apart from that, there are reports saying that procuring Chinese Type 054A Frigate is part of Pakistan Navy’s expansion program. Type 054A is a 4000+ ton missile frigate, installed with vertical launch missile launchers and advanced radar and fire control systems.
F22P frigate is an improved version of Chinese Type 053H3 frigate, its full load displacement is 3000+ton but without any vertical launch system.
“Type 054A is a bigger ship than F22P, but we may not acquire 054, but we need to upgrade F22P, to become closer to 054,” Admiral Noman Bashir said.
He commented that Type 054A is a very successful ship for PLA Navy.
He said F22P can be modified to become closer to Type 054A, but not exactly like that. Pakistan Navy is discussing with Chinese counterparts about its future frigate upgrading program.
He added for the time being, Pakistan Navy is engaging with F22P program, only once they have finished it then goes to second.
“The fourth F22P will take about a year for construction, then we will talk about that.”
He not ruled out the possibility of naming the next generation frigate as F23P
Type 054A XuZhou is installed with 32 cells vertical launcher system.
Pakistan needs more F-22Ps, not Type 054A