Turkish Ministry of Defense has ceremonially handed over the first Babur-class corvette (PN MILGEM), PNS Babur (280), to the Pakistan Navy at the Istanbul Naval Shipyard.
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Güler and his Pakistani counterpart Anwar Ali Hayder attended the ceremony, along with other senior officers from the Turkish and Pakistani navies and representatives of Turkish defense companies.
The Babur-class corvette and Hisar-class OPVs were delivered as part of the MILGEM Project, a warship development program that aims to develop multipurpose seacraft for both nations.
In addition, the first two Hisar-class OPVs for the Turkish Navy were launched during the same ceremony.
Source: https://www.navalnews.com/
About Babur-class corvette
The Babur-class corvette, also known as the PN MILGEM class, is a class of four heavy corvettes under construction for the Pakistan Navy.
This class is a subclass of the Turkish MILGEM project.
The corvette class is heavier and larger than the Turkish Ada-class corvette and are also equipped with VLS.
Noteworthy, PN MILGEM Program consists of 4 ships, 2 ships are being built in Istanbul Shipyard Command and another 2 are being built in KS&EW.
Turkish Ministry of Defence owned ASFAT Inc. is the primary contractor of the project.
The program started on 11 March 2019.
And, the deliveries of the ships, which will be able to perform all kinds of military duties from air defense to submarine defense, are expected to be made at six-month intervals starting from August 2023.
The exact configuration of the PN MILGEM-class ships has not been made public yet.
Key data:
- Displacement: 2,926 tonnes
- Length: 108.2 m
- Beam: 14.8 m
- Draft: 4.05 m
- Propulsion: CODAG
- Max speed: 31 knots
- Range: 3500 nautical miles
- Endurance: 15 days at sea
- Crew: 93+40
