The Naval Workhorse

Offshore Patrol Vessels are gaining popularity as a cheaper but increasingly more capable option to more sizeable and expensive ‘grey navy’ warships.

- Tim Fish

The Asia-Pacific region has traditionally been the domain of the corvette as naval requirements were focussed on war fighting ships with a need for a large number of weapons and sensors. But this has started to change with more Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) entering the market.

This is a reflection of the emerging security environment, restricted budgets and recognition of the value of OPVs as a less expensive multipurpose vessel to carry out non-war fighting maritime tasks such as counter-piracy, patrolling, counter drug trafficking, preventing illegal fishing, search and rescue and more.

Piet van Rooij, design and proposal manager at Dutch shipbuilder Damen Naval Shipbuilding told Asian Military Review (AMR) that most of the navies and coastguards in the Asia-Pacific region “had doubts about OPVs and prefer to have corvettes and frigates, but budgets push in the direction of OPVs”. He said the OPV had been budget-driven vessel but it is becoming more mature with better weapons systems to provide greater military capability while retaining cheaper operating costs.

“Taking care of borders and operational areas can be easier done with an OPV than a very costly frigate or corvette.” He added that regional navies are more focused on OPVs “now or in the near future” because of the tensions in the area.

Countries in the region tend to have both coastguards and navies, with the former more inclined towards OPVs while the navies retain the corvette size ships. But the set size of an OPV is vague, with the displacement ranging from 1,400 tons to 4,000 tons depending on the requirements. China is pushing the boundaries of coastguard vessel size by incorporating vessels displacing up to 10,000 tons, triggering a regional reaction to counter this move with bigger ships too.