Egypt to Build Naval Combatants, Offshore Patrol Vessels

Egypt revealed details about first of its domestic naval vessels projects for surface combatants and Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV) at the EDEX 2021 exhibition in Cairo.

The First naval vessel is a 60-meter Compact Combatant CC-60 which has a full load displacement of approximately 750 tons. The second one is a PV-43 HRM 43-meter OPV which has a displacement of 270 tons, Egypt’s Defense Blog reported Saturday. The vessels are built by Egypt in cooperation with Germany’s Naval Vessels Lurssen (NVL) shipbuilding Group. The latter has opened recently a regional branch in Egypt under the name of NVL Egypt.

The CC-60 Patrol Combatant / OPV will have a 3D surveillance radar from Thales Group, Fire-control system, electro-optical surveillance system and an Electronic Warfare Support Measures system. The main armament configuration will be as following: 1× 76mm primary gun or laser-gun, 2× DS30M RWS equipped with Marte short-range laser-guided missiles to deal with short-range/attitude aerial threats as UAVs and missiles, 4× Launchers for Extended Range Improved Marte Anti-ship missiles, 8× Vertical Launch Systems (VLS) for MICA Surface-to-Air missiles. The OPV/Corvette will also have Anti-submarines Warfare (ASW) capabilities with the possibility of attaching either Hull mounted sonar or towed array sonar, also it will be fitted with Dual Torpedos launcher. The CC-60 has a helipad designed mainly for UAVs and it can accommodate lightweight choppers.

The PV-43-HRM Naval Vessel Project is based on the Croatian Navy OOB-31 patrol vessel design with an approximate displacement of 270 tons. It has been showcased with two different configuration, the first for a patrol boat, equipped with 2× 12.7mm guns and a light naval gun which is mainly  a remotely-controlled 30mm gun, electro-optical surveillance system, 1× RHIB for 6 crew, launch and recovery system, also it has NBC protection, while the second configuration for the Egyptian Navy will be as a missile boat, which has the same specifications of the patrol boat but with some more additions and special modifications as a surveillance radar, ECM system, a digital combat management system C4I, 4× Remotely-controlled Stations (RWS) to offer close protection from aerial threats and two launchers for Anti-ship missiles, probably Exocet or Marte missiles.