Vietnam is capable of converting Hamilton into a rocket ship?

CSB 8020, a Hamilton-class WHEC 722 Morgenthau of the US Coast Guard, is on its way to Vietnam and is expected to dock at the end of December.

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According to the most recent photo, the patrol boat 8020 of the Vietnam Coast Guard has only one weapon left, the 76.2 mm Oto Breda naval gun and the Mk 92 fire control radar.

Two other pieces of equipment, the 20mm Phalanx close-in weapon system (CIWS) and the AN/SPS-40E airborne reconnaissance radar, were removed.

Patrol boat CSB 8020 was photographed in Hawaii, shortly before it set sail back to Vietnam.

But it should be noted that the Hamiltons were built for the USCG at the height of the Cold War, so their design is very open, easily integrating anti-ship missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, sonar and anti-submarine torpedoes to coordinate operations with the US Navy.

There has been at least one converted Hamilton ship with a weapon configuration no less than a 3,000-ton frigate, the WHEC 717 Mellon with 2 Harpoon launchers located right in front of the command cabin.

Patrol boat WHEC 717 Mellon has a weapon configuration not inferior to the US Navy's missile frigates.

The question that will probably be asked now is, after returning to Vietnam, if necessary, will we be able to convert the CSB 8020 into a missile frigate like the US has done? To answer the above question, we should probably look back at a similar project, which was to install P-15 Termit anti-ship missiles on the captured destroyer.

According to "History of the Vietnam People's Navy's Engineering Industry", after the complete liberation of the South, the Navy Command had a policy of researching and improving the installation of P-15 missiles on the HQ-01 ship, which was the destroyer HQ-15 Pham Ngu Lao before 1975.

Warship HQ-01 when it was still HQ-15 of the Republic of Vietnam Navy

In 1976, "Unit 173" began to bring the entire command system and missile platform onto the ship, and installed an additional American SPS-53 radar on the main deck to collect firing element data. In addition, the ship was also expanded with a room on the central deck to place control equipment, and reinforced the skeleton and deck surface...

By the end of 1977, the construction work was completed. On the 30th day of the Lunar New Year of Mau Ngo 1978, the Command organized a test firing.

As a result, after the missile was fired, the bullet hit the target. Commander Giap Van Cuong highly appreciated the results of the research process to improve the P-15 missile with good results and awarded certificates of merit to the officers and engineers participating in the implementation of the above project.

Thus, since the 1970s, Vietnam has been capable of upgrading anti-ship missiles for gunboats. Now that it has been able to build many modern warships domestically, especially the Molniya 1241.8 class of fast attack missile boats, Vietnam is capable of integrating new weapons for Hamilton-class patrol boats.

We can install 2 clusters of 4 KT-184 launchers of 3M-24 Uran-E missiles right in front of the command cabin of CSB 8020 ship similar to WHEC 717 Mellon, adding Garpun-Bal guidance radar to the top of the tower where the AN/SPS-40E station used to be located.

The above solution is not too complicated but will bring superior power to this 3,000-ton patrol ship. However, this is only a backup plan that Vietnam can consider and deploy when necessary.

According to Baodatviet