Vietnamese fisheries surveillance ships are equipped with automatic gun platforms.
A remote-controlled weapon station has just appeared on a 750-ton patrol ship of the Vietnam Fisheries Surveillance Force.
Currently, Vietnam's coast guard and fisheries surveillance ships are mainly armed with hand-operated weapons such as 23mm 2ML cannons, 25mm 2M-3 cannons or 14.5mm KPV heavy machine guns.
However, with the trend of modernizing law enforcement forces at sea, equipping patrol boats with remote-controlled weapons systems to improve law enforcement efficiency is extremely necessary. Currently, the general trend is that countries have also widely integrated this weapon into their patrol boats.
The advantage of equipping an automatic controlled artillery platform is a good aiming system (equipped with modern optical systems to ensure aiming day and night), simple control and ensuring safety during combat...
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| The automatic weapon station was seen appearing in front of the fishing control ship KN-472. |
Recently, images of the fishing control ship KN-472 undergoing upgrading and modernization have appeared.
It is known that KN-472 belongs to the medium-sized patrol ship class with a length of 56 m, width of 8.2 m, full displacement of 770 tons, maximum speed of 18 nautical miles/hour, and continuous operation time at sea of 60 days.
Since this is one of the modern and quite large ship classes in Vietnam's patrol fleet, it is understandable that priority is given to equipping it with new weapons and equipment.
According to the photo above, the KN-472 ship has a very modern modular remote-controlled gun mount mounted in front of its bow, possibly the Typhoon weapon module manufactured by Rafael Group.
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| The Typhoon system mounts the 2A14 gun barrel of the ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun. |
The Typhoon system is designed to be suitable for installation with cannons of up to 30 mm caliber. All optical equipment, cannons, and ammunition boxes are arranged on the same remote control platform (the system's control equipment is located inside the ship's combat room) with a weight of only 690 - 750 kg, compact and suitable for equipment on patrol boats.
The optical and aiming systems installed on the Typhoon can be CCD/FLIR/LRF, helping the gun mounted on the Typhoon fire with an accuracy of up to 0.25 mrad, which means it allows keeping the weapon firing accurately within a range of 250 mm with a target located 1,000 m away (completely beyond the ability to take aim with the naked eye).
In addition, having modern optical and aiming systems helps weapons operate accurately even in night conditions, something that manually controlled artillery cannot do.
In addition to the Typhoon system for guns under 30 mm caliber, Rafale also introduced the Mini Typhoon system for 12.7 mm heavy machine guns, 7.62 mm machine guns, and submachine guns. This system can be installed with the KPVT 14.5 mm heavy machine gun.
After integrating the remote-controlled weapon station for the 750-ton fishing control vessel, it is entirely possible that the DN-2000 vessels will be supplemented with this weapon to enhance deterrence while on duty.
