yeas, And one thing that the pro-OPV/corvette people tend to overlook, is that the finnish FACs have suprisingly small draugth, only 1.5 meter in Hamina and Rauma classes. This is essential to operate in finnish archipegalo where the sea routes can be as swallow as >2m....bigger ships are good for navyes that had used FACs as surrogate for larger and (at least when the decissions were made) expensive warships, but poses martime reach not suited for FAC operations. South Africa was good example of this.
But We do need to remember that OPVs and corvettes arent the same ships and its fruitless to both tasks to trying to incorporate into one hull. OPVs are ligthly armed patrol ships for law enforcement agancyes, encomphasis the range and durability to over all other aspects, where as corvettes should be the main element of the coastal defence, therefore needing good ASuW, ASW and AAW plus associated electronics, and good enough speed...
But unfortuanetly modern trend for corvettes (like meko A100) is tend to be a mini-FFG desing, that tryes to pack SAM, SSM and Helicopter+hangar into on >100m, >2,000tn hull. Also, those ships are usually overlooked as some sort of 2nd class Frigates in order to operate in low-intensy conflicts, but the question is wheter they are suitable enough for their task
....Where has the "FAC-leader" or simply bigger FAC-lookalike corvette desing gone???
But We do need to remember that OPVs and corvettes arent the same ships and its fruitless to both tasks to trying to incorporate into one hull. OPVs are ligthly armed patrol ships for law enforcement agancyes, encomphasis the range and durability to over all other aspects, where as corvettes should be the main element of the coastal defence, therefore needing good ASuW, ASW and AAW plus associated electronics, and good enough speed...
But unfortuanetly modern trend for corvettes (like meko A100) is tend to be a mini-FFG desing, that tryes to pack SAM, SSM and Helicopter+hangar into on >100m, >2,000tn hull. Also, those ships are usually overlooked as some sort of 2nd class Frigates in order to operate in low-intensy conflicts, but the question is wheter they are suitable enough for their task
....Where has the "FAC-leader" or simply bigger FAC-lookalike corvette desing gone???