THE MILGEM FRIGATE: PAKISTAN’S NAVY FUTURISTIC WEAPON?

Pakistan Defence ministry had signed in 2018 a deal with Turkey’s Military factory and Shipyard Corporation (ASFAT A.S) for four MILGEM frigates for the Pakistan Navy. It is expected that these ships will arrive by 2024 with two ships built in Turkey and the remaining two ships to be built in Pakistan.

The contract is worth 1.5 Billion US dollars. But the important thing is that this deal will provide the Pakistan Navy to design and have intellectual property rights for this frigate in the future. This will allow Pakistan Navy to built additional frigates of this type at will in the future with the help of ASFAT A.S.

MILGEM FRIGATE

The reason for the selection of MILGEM frigate was that it contains high tech integrated systems. It has situational awareness to munitions to electronic warfare, with Type 054/A this will become the main stay asset for the Pakistan Navy in the future.

Most of the sub systems will come from turkey which has a reason to be selected by the PN. First and foremost is that loan facility which Turkey is providing to PN. Secondly, most of the sub systems which Turkey has comes from the western countries since Turkey is a member of NATO. Due to this Pakistan has an option to upgrade its Navy with western systems using this channel. Thirdly, these subsystems have already been integrated into this frigate by the Turkish Navy, so it will be a lot easier for the Pakistan Navy to upgrade and integrate its Data links and other configurations into the new frigates.

Radar Selection

The radar to be used will be the SMART-S Mk2. This design belongs to Thales Group (Nederland’s) and it is manufactured by Aselsan under license. Aselsan has been able to produce most of its components domestically so it is easy for it modify it. The radar is an active phased array radar with an active range of 250 Km. It can detect 500 targets at a time including surface and airborne targets. It can track missiles at 50 km and maritime patrol aircraft at 200 km with electronic counter measures.

Electronic support measures suite

PN has selected Aselsan ARES-2NC as an electronic support measure suite for the MILGEM. The suite will allow to monitor as well as categorize and record enemy radar communication. It also has an additional capability to jam the enemy radar. It has the following subsystems,

Marine Electronic Support (ED) System

Marine Electronic Attack (ET) System

Decoy Shot System

Laser Warning System (LWR)

Infrared Search and Tracking System (IRST)

Disposable Active Deceptive Mixer System (SAK)

EH Suite Operator Console.

MILGEM frigate for the Pakistan Navy with help from Turkey

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