Two Coastal Patrol Boats Waiting for Russian Main Gun

26 Agustus 2022

Recent photos of new 2 Coastal Patrol Craft T.997-class : T.997 and T.998 (both of them in the background) for Royal Thai Navy at Marsun Public Company Limited, Thailand (photos : Marsun)

Facebook page Marsun Shipyard or Marsun Public Company Limited, a private Thai shipyard, has published the construction progress. Maritime patrol boat Customs 1202 for the Customs Department during July-August 2022 which is one of the many maritime law enforcement agencies that continuously choose to procure boats built by the Thai private sector with long experience and work. Photos of Marsun's shipyard area also show the latest progress of a series of offshore patrol boats, two T.997 boats in the background.

The two coastal patrol boats of the T.997 boat series, the T.997 boat and the T.998 boat, had a keel laying ceremony on 14 November 2019 at Marsun Shipyard, Tai Ban Subdistrict, Mueang Samut Prakan District Samut Prakan Province, and later, there was a ceremony to launch the boat into the water on June 21, 2021, according to the information published by The Royal Thai Navy (RTN) series boat T.997 is scheduled for delivery by 15 July 2021.

Coastal patrol boats, T.997 boat sets, are based on the same boat model with 3 coastal patrol boats, T.991 with 3 boats, T.991, T.992 and T.993 boats, and the T .994 with 3 boats, namely, T.994, T.995 and T.996, which were also built by the Thai Marsun shipyard.

According to the strategy of the Royal Thai Navy 2015-2024 that stipulates the need for all 16 landing ships, when combined with Coastal Patrol Boats of the 3 T.81 series of boats (T. 81, T. 82 and T. 83 ships), 3 T.111 boat sets (T.111, T.112 and T.113) and 2 T.114 boat sets (T.114 and T.115) when receiving the T. 114 boat sets T.997 2 ships will be complete

Different from the T.991 series and the T.994 series which are equipped with a 30x173mm MSI DS30M machine gun from the UK as the main gun, the T.997 series is the first warship of the Royal Thai Navy to be equipped with an AK-306 machine gun with six-barreled swivel 30x165mm from Russia.

The AK-306 machine gun with Antares Mod.9 Fire Control System will be the ship's main gun mounted on the raised deck base at the bow and has a secondary gun is a heavy machine gun, cover .93 M2 .50cal, two platforms on the starboard - right side of the ship.

However, in the latest set of images released, the exact time has not been specified. Understand that it should be within 2022 that while the T.997 and the T.998 boat seem to have complete fitting inside and outside of the ship, the main armament is no machine gun AK-306 30mm Russian anyhow.

This could be due to the Covid-19 pandemic since 2020 or the Russian-Ukrainian war that started in late February 2022 causing delays in the delivery of weapons and fire control systems. However, the delivery of the two T.997 boat sets should not be delayed more than the year 2023.

If the final delivery of the AK-630 machine gun and Antares Mod.9 fire control system from Russia for the T.997 series can't happen for any reason. The Thai Navy may need to modify the ship design to use other weapons such as the MSI 30mm machine gun, the same as the T.991 boat set and the T.994 boat set.

In this regard, Marsun Thai Company will attend the Defense and Security 2022 arms exhibition at Impact Exhibition Center, Muang Thong Thani, Bangkok, Thailand from 29 August - 1 September 2022. Let's know the latest progress.

(AAG)