Saturday, May 13, 2017

Pakistan's Agosta 90B - Still Potent And Upgrading

Pakistan operates three Agosta 90B diesel-electric submarines ordered in September 1994. The first submarine, Khalid (S137), was commissioned in 1999. The second, Saad, assembled at Karachi Naval Dockyard, was commissioned in December 2003. The third, Hamza, was constructed and assembled in Karachi, and commissioned in September 2008. All three submarines were retrofitted with MESMA (Module d'EnergieSous-Marin Autonome) air-independent propulsion (AIP) system by 2011. The AIP allows the submarine to remain submerged three times longer than before.

In June 2016, Pakistan awarded the Turkish naval vendor Savunma Teknolojileri Mühendislik A.Ş.  (STM) with a $350 million contract to upgrade the Agosta 90B. The submarines will have their search and attack periscopes upgraded to the Airbus Defence and Space (DS) Optronics SERO 250 periscope and OMS 200 optronic mast. The SERO 250 is night-vision capable while  the OMS 200 has electro-optical and infrared acquisition and tracking capability.



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Naval Technology

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