Russian newspaper: Vietnam replaces Tarantul ship

According to Sputnik, the Tarantul missile boat in the Vietnam Navy is gradually becoming outdated and needs to be replaced by a more modern type of warship.

Tarantul is a missile boat with high speed and quite strong firepower. The main weapons of the ship include 4 P-15M Termit anti-ship missiles with a range of 80 km, 1 AK-176M gunboat with a range of 15 km and 2 AK-630M super-fast anti-aircraft guns at the stern.

Besides the advantages, Tarantul also has many limitations such as the ship's air defense capability is very low because it is not equipped with professional interceptor missiles but only has the naval version of the Igla-1M shoulder-fired missile and the reliability of the 2 AK-630M rapid-fire guns is also not highly appreciated.

Tarantul often takes advantage of the element of surprise, relying on the high speed and power of anti-ship missiles to attack the target. However, with the strong development of long-range reconnaissance technology, the element of surprise is very difficult to happen, if it does happen, it must rely on terrain and stealth features.

Tarantul missile speedboat of Vietnam Navy.

Meanwhile, the hydrodynamic design of the Tarantul high-speed missile boat itself is from the 1970s, is old and has no stealth capabilities, so it is difficult to exploit the element of surprise. Another limitation of the Tarantul is its relatively limited operating range and short time at sea.

According to Russian newspapers, there are currently three candidates that can replace the Vietnamese Tarantul ship: the Russian Buyan-M missile ship and the French Gowind-class corvette. So which is the most suitable candidate?

- Buyan-M Ship:This class of warship is designed for anti-surface ship combat missions, with that requirement, the weapons on board include: 1 A-190E 100mm naval gun with an angular turret to increase radar scattering, the gun has a firing rate of 80 rounds/minute, maximum range of 20 km. The ship's main weapon is the 14UKSK vertical launch system with 8 Kalibr anti-ship missiles with a range of 220 km.

Defensive weapons include 1 AK-630M2 Duet dual-barreled rapid-fire anti-aircraft gun with much higher performance than the single-barreled AK-630M, 2 3M-47 Gibka low-altitude air defense missile systems using Igla-1M missiles, 2 14.5mm heavy machine guns and 3 7.62mm machine guns.

The ship's electronic systems include: Pozitiv-ME1.2 air target search radar, MR-231 navigation radar and 5P-10 Laska fire control system with 2 PK-10 jamming missile launching systems.

The ship is equipped with a Zvezda M520 diesel propulsion system, which drives two injection pump engines to help the ship operate more smoothly and maneuverably. The maximum speed of the ship is 25 knots, with a range of about 2,500 km.

- Gowind-class frigateis a product of DCNS group, France. This is a class of warships designed in modular form including OPV offshore patrol vessel and multi-mission escort vessel. Gowind is an extremely modern class of warships designed with optimal stealth features.

With a multi-purpose escort configuration, it is equipped with an extremely powerful and diverse weapon system including: 1 Bofors 57 mm rapid-fire gun, 16 vertical launch tubes (VLS) using VL MICA air defense missiles with a range of 20 km, 8 MM40 Exocet anti-ship missiles with a range of 180 km.

Defensive weapons include two 30mm automatic guns and two 324mm lightweight torpedo launchers. The ship's electronic systems are extremely sophisticated and operate on a highly automated platform.

The main sensors are the SMART-S Mk2 air and sea target search and recovery radar, the STING EO Mk2 fire control radar, the TMX/EO Mk2 optical fire control system. The SETIS combat data system, and the Thales Captas 2 sonar system.

The Gowind-class multi-purpose corvette can perform most missions from patrolling, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare and air defense. The ship has a full displacement of 3,000 tons, a range of up to 5,000 nautical miles, enough to operate for long periods throughout Vietnam's seas.

However, in the role of replacing the Tarantul high-speed missile boat, the Gowind-class corvette does not seem to be a suitable choice because its size, configuration and cost are too high compared to the requirements of replacing a simple small-sized missile boat.

Therefore, of the two candidates above, the most promising candidate to replace the Tarantul high-speed missile boat is still the project 21361 Buyan-M corvette, Sputnik website commented.

According to Baodatviet