Written by D-Mitch
This is the fourth post, after a long time, of a new category of infographics of various
coast guard vessels from around the world. These infographics aim to
highlight the most important equipment of the vessels; I do not analyze
the systems in depth as I do for the warships instead I provide some
basic information mainly from Wikipedia (if else I provide the source) about the ships, their history and their capabilities.
1. Sa'ar 62 class offshore patrol vessels of the Azerbaijani Coast Guard
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| President Ilham Aliyev inspecting the new shipyards and the boats |
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| Typhoon MLS-NLOS missile launcher |
Azerbaijan is one of the very few countries in the world that has in her inventory missile-armed coast guard vessels. Jane's, reported in summer of 2014, that Azerbaijan had bought six Sa'ar 62 offshore patrol vessels (based on the Sa'ar 4.5 class) and six lighter Shaldag Mk V patrol boats. The purchase came to light flowing the release of images from the commissioning of a new naval shipyard in Azerbaijan, which showed the first vessels during handling and construction in new shipyards in Türkan (video here), which is also according to Jane's believed to have been built by Israel Shipyards. The construction hall has capacity for at least three vessels to be constructed simultaneously. It should be mentioned that Azerbaijan became second country in the world, after Russia with her remaining Krivak III (Nerey) class cutters armed with SA-N-4 surface-to-air missiles, that introduced in the coast guard fleet, vessels armed with missile weapon systems. However, in the Azerbaijani service, the distinction between a coast guard vessel and a naval vessel is blur, as none of the naval vessels is equipped with missiles in contrast to.. the coast guard vessels! A nice video about the Azerbaijan Coast Guard can be watched here. Recently, Turkmenistan and United Arab Emirates commissioned coast guard vessels with missile weapon systems. These vessels, will be analyzed in a future post.