Ukrainian Navy receives four new boats
A ceremony was held in Odessa on the occasion of four small armored artillery boats being inducted into the Ukrainian Navy. They are the Vyshgorod, Kremenchug, Lubny and Nikopol, reported the press service of the Ministry of Defense.
“In addition to these boats that were just inducted into the Navy, we expect patrol boats from our partners – from the United States,” Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said.
He also noted that in the near future, the Defense Ministry plans to complete the construction of assault boats and to continue work on the construction of a corvette as well as small armored artillery boats.
The Gurza-M MBAC was developed by the State Research and Design Center for Shipbuilding (Mykolaiv) and is a further development of the 58150 boat (Gurza), two of which were built by the Leninskaya Kuznitsa in 2004 for the Uzbek border service.
The Gurza-M is larger than its prototype, and has a total displacement of 50.7 tons, a length of 23 meters, a width of 4.8 meters, and a draft of 1 meter.The maximum speed of the Gurza-M is 25 knots, the cruising range is 700 miles, and it can remain at sea on its own for five days. It has a crew of five.
The armament of the 58155 consists of two BM-5M.01 Katran-M remote-controlled marine combat modules produced by the Mykolaiv Repair and Mechanical Plant. This is a variation of the BM-3 Sturm combat module for armored vehicles.
Each Katran-M module includes a ZTM130-mm automatic cannon, a 30-mm automatic grenade launcher, and a 7.62-mm QD machine-gun, as well as two Barrier anti-tank missiles with a laser guidance system.
Today in Odessa, Navy Day was observed, during which the Defense Minister appointed two deputy commanders of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.