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| Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and the author |
The Yantar shipyard in Russia’s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad on Friday floated out the first in a series of six Project 11356 frigates being built for the Black Sea Fleet, the company said.
The Admiral Grigorovich was laid down in December 2010. Four more ships of the same class are in various stages of construction at the shipyard. All six frigates will be delivered to the Black Sea Fleet between 2014 and 2017 under two contracts with the Defense Ministry.
The Project 11356 frigates, displacing 3,850 tons, are designed for anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare as well as for air defense missions, operating both independently or as part of convoys and naval task forces.
The frigates are armed with an eight-cell launcher for Kalibr and Klub (3M54E) anti-ship and surface-to-surface missiles, a 100-mm main gun, Kashtan gun/missile close-in air defense systems, Shtil vertical-launch air defense missile systems, two torpedo tubes, an anti-submarine rocket system and a Ka-28 or Ka-31 helicopter, according to defense industry sites globalsecurity.org and rusnavy.com.
Deputy commander of the Russian navy, Rear Admiral Viktor Bursuk, said Friday that the vessels of this class are ideal for operations in the Black Sea or in the Mediterranean, where Russia maintains a permanent naval task force.
Bursuk added that these ships could also be used for anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden, between Somalia and Yemen.
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