Turkish Century
@TurkishCentury
🇵🇰🇹🇷 Pakistan's Navy has reportedly inked a contract with the #Karachi Shipyard to begin the construction of the advanced #Jinnah-class multirole frigate!

Based on the #ASFAT AS3400 platform with full ToT (Transfer of Technology), the Jinnah-class is the most recent outcome of the extensive Turkish-Pakistani cooperation in #shipbuilding and naval systems engineering that is rooted in the #Milgem-PN program that gave the world the formidable #Babur-class heavy corvettes.

Jinnah is a highly advanced 3300+ton frigate customized for the unique needs of brotherly Pakistan with the goal of complete domination of the seas, as well as the sky above and the depths below. Armed with #antiship, #antiaircraft, cruise missiles as well as heavy torpedoes, it fully covers all aspects of littoral & blue-water operations, anti-ship/air/submarine warfare, and power projection in the high seas.

First steel-cutting is expected within a few months with plans to build a total of six (6) frigates.

https://x.com/TurkishCentury/status/1985985856453120185

Türkiye Delivers Second MILGEM Corvette to Pakistan Navy

https://caspianpost.com/regions/turkiye-delivers-second-milgem-corv...


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced that the second of four MILGEM corvettes were handed over to Pakistan under a 2018 defense contract.

Erdoğan noted that under the agreement, the first two corvettes were to be built at the Istanbul Naval Shipyard, The Caspian Post reports via Turkish media.

“The first ship, PNS Babur, was delivered to Pakistan on May 24, 2024. Today we hand over PNS Hayber, which has successfully completed all trials. The third and fourth corvettes will be built at the Pakistani shipyard in Karachi. PNS Bedir is planned for June 2026, and PNS Tarik in Q1 2027,” Erdoğan said.

The contract was awarded in 2018 to the Turkish state defense company STM (Savunma Teknolojileri Mühendislik ve Ticaret), which is tasked with delivering four MILGEM-class corvettes to the Pakistan Navy. The contract signing ceremony took place the same day in Rawalpindi.

Pakistan rattles India with new Chinese-built stealth submarine | South China Morning Post

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3358523/pakistan-ra...

Pakistan has not maintained a meaningful naval presence east of India since its forces were routed there more than half a century ago.
Since the 1971 war, in which India’s navy blockaded what was then East Pakistan, severed supply lines and accelerated the surrender of Pakistani forces that led to the creation of Bangladesh, Islamabad’s naval ambitions have been effectively confined to the northern Arabian Sea.
For it to now signal an intention to operate in the Bay of Bengal – home to India’s Eastern and Nicobar naval commands – is “strategically significant less for its immediate military effect than for its audacious geopolitical symbolism”, according to independent maritime security analyst Swaran Singh.

The Hangor class comes equipped with air-independent propulsion (AIP) technology, enabling the submarines to remain submerged for extended periods – making them stealthier and harder to track than the ageing Agosta vessels they replace.

Unlike conventional diesel-electric submarines, which must regularly surface or snorkel to recharge batteries, AIP-equipped vessels can operate silently at depth for weeks at a time, dramatically increasing their survivability and strike potential in contested waters.
Pakistan currently operates a core fleet of five diesel-electric attack submarines and three midget submarines primarily used for special operations. India’s fleet stands at around 19 active submarines, consisting of roughly 16 conventional diesel-electric vessels and three nuclear ballistic missile submarines.
A parity play?
Abdul Moiz Khan, a research officer at the Centre for International Strategic Studies in Islamabad, said the Hangor class offered Pakistan “parity” with the growing and much larger Indian fleet through precision rather than numbers.
“Instead of a quantitative arms race with India, it [Pakistan] aims to maintain a qualitative parity to maintain balance of power and mutually assured destruction,” he said.
If India were ever to blockade or strike Pakistani naval assets in the Arabian Sea, Khan said the Hangor class would give Pakistan a credible retaliatory reach extending to India’s eastern seaboard.
But the capability question cannot be separated from its strategic context. Singh points to timing: PNS Hangor’s arrival coincides with the deepening of a China-Pakistan naval partnership that now encompasses joint drills and co-production agreements, as well as China’s expanding Indian Ocean presence.
The two navies have conducted regular exercises in the Arabian Sea in recent years and the Hangor programme itself reflects a broader pattern of Chinese arms transfers to Pakistan that includes JF-17 fighter jets, frigates and missile systems.

China permanently stations up to eight warships in the Indian Ocean, operates a military base in Djibouti and has access to ports at Gwadar in Pakistan and Hambantota in Sri Lanka. Its submarines and intelligence vessels have become a routine fixture in waters India once considered its preserve.
The prospect of Pakistani submarines operating in those same waters, potentially networked with Chinese platforms, raised what Singh described as the spectre of “coordinated strategic pressure on both India’s eastern and western seaboards.”
Sultan Mahmood Hali, a retired Pakistan Air Force group captain, read the Hangor’s arrival in similar terms: less a single tactical development than a strategic signal.