Vietnam receives additional Pohang ships with stronger weapon configuration?
The Egyptian Navy has just received from South Korea a Pohang-class multi-purpose frigate of the latest generation with almost intact weapon configuration.
On the information pages about the Middle East military situation, images have been posted about the Egyptian Navy officially receiving a Pohang-class light frigate donated by its Korean partner.
It is known that the original ship is the Sokcho with registration number PCC-778, the most modern 5th generation (Flight V) of the Pohang class. It is armed quite strongly and comprehensively with 4 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, 6 Mk 46 light anti-submarine torpedoes 324 mm in size along with 2 Oto Melara Compact 76.2 mm guns and 2 Dardo rapid-fire guns 40 mm in size.
After the Egyptian Navy received it, the ship was given a new number, 1000. From the outside, it can be easily seen that although the missile launchers and torpedoes are no longer there, it still retains all four cannons and a guidance radar.
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| The Pohang-class frigate Sokcho (PCC-788) is now in service with the Egyptian Navy. |
Thus, it can be seen that the Egyptian Navy has been greatly favored by the Korean side when providing it with a Pohang-class frigate, the most advanced variant and the youngest in service. The ship joined the fleet from 1991 until the end of 2017 when it retired.
In addition, when compared with the PCC-761 Gimcheon of Flight III of the Pohang class that Korea transferred to Vietnam and is currently numbered 18, our ship only has 1 Oto Melara Compact gun in the front, 1 Dardo gun in the rear and an additional 20mm Sea Vulcan gun in the front.
In addition, the Vietnamese warship (and the one Seoul donated to the Philippine Navy) were both built between 1987 and 1988, much older than the Sokcho.
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| Vietnam's 18th ship was originally the Gimcheon (PCC-761) of Flight III of the Pohang class. |
It is unclear why the Egyptian Navy was retained by South Korea with almost all of its weapons configuration before handover, however, through this event we can hope that in the future, if it receives more Pohang ships, it will have a similar weapon system to the Egyptian ships.
In the near future, the Republic of Korea Navy is expected to gradually retire its entire Pohang-class fleet and they will be donated to Seoul's partner countries in Asia and Africa.
After receiving ship 18, Vietnam expressed its desire to receive a number of more Pohang ships to replace the old Petya II/III ships. Even if they were only used as patrol gunboats, it would still be a significant addition to the force.
