Turkey Launches Third MILGEM-class Corvette for Pakistan Navy

Turkey’s state-owned defense firm ASFAT launched the third MILGEM-class corvette PNS Badr built for the Pakistan Navy on Friday.

The corvette was launched in a ceremony at a shipyard in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi.

In July 2018, the Pakistan Navy signed a contract for the acquisition of four Ada class ships with Turkish state-owned defense firm ASFAT. Two corvettes were envisaged to be built in Turkey and the other two in Pakistan, in a deal that included technology transfer.

The deliveries of the ships, which will be able to perform all kinds of military duties from air defense to submarine defense, will be made at six-month intervals starting from August 2023.

The MILGEM project was initiated in 2000 to locally design and build a fleet of multipurpose corvettes and frigates that will replace older ships.

The project has so far completed the deliveries of four Ada-class corvettes to the Turkish Navy: the first of which was the TCG Heybeliada in 2011, the second was the TCG Büyükada in 2013, the third the TCG Burgazada in 2018 and the fourth ship, the TCG Kınalıada in 2019. The fifth vessel, the first MILGEM I-class frigate of its kind, the Istanbul Frigate (F-515), was launched in January last year.