Pirates seized after threatening French navy ship

[Questor]

Well, I stand corrected regarding the identification issue.

This ship seems pretty small, where does it fall in terms of capability? Is it the equivalent to a OHP?

[weemadando]

Well, I stand corrected regarding the identification issue.

This ship seems pretty small, where does it fall in terms of capability? Is it the equivalent to a OHP?

It's more of a corvette kind of design. Falling somewhere between patrol boat and frigate. It doesn't have any missiles or real "warfighting" capability and exists mainly to patrol territorial possessions.

And it wouldn't have a great shot against a Perry. The Florealclass have 2 exocets and a 100mm gun as their offensive weapons. The ability for an OHP to salvo Harpoons would probably give it the edge.

[Stuart]

This ship seems pretty small, where does it fall in terms of capability? Is it the equivalent to a OHP?

The French call her a patrol frigate but that's stretching the definition of a frigate quite a bit. Really, she's the modern equivalent of a colonial sloop, she's designed to be cheap to build, cheap to run yet with some sort of limited capability in as many areas as possible. She isn't a master of any particular trade but she can turn her hand to most things. The design even has cargo space built into it so she can (for example) carry emergency aid or simply do a little trading. One role the French Navy doesn't publicize is that the cargo space is sometimes used to move specie such as gold bullion. She's armed with a 3.9 inch gun that's good for anti-ship work (it throws a 30 pound shell as opposed to 13 pound shell of the OTO 76mm), a pair of MM-38s and two 20mm guns. The ships carry shoulder-fired SAMs for air defense. They can do around 20 knots but the trick is they can hold that in really bad weather. Their endurance is around 9,000 nm.

How do they compare with a Perry? Well, with the current U.S. Navy Perry (no missile system forward), very well indeed. They out gun it, have anti-ship missiles and they can operate in rougher weather. They cost about a quarter of the price, have twice the endurance and have a crew of 90 as opposed to 200. They're no comparison to a fully-armed Perry of course but then, they were never designed to be. I've always liked the Floreals, they were really good offshore patrol vessels (and they're near-ideal for anti-piracy work) and the French never got the credit for the design that they deserved. I think the problem was that the Floreals looked like trawlers and navies wanted an OPV that looked more like a small frigate, even though the frigate hull was actually less suitable for the job in hand.