PAK/TR will codevelop a new ship based on proven Milgem design in the scope of the Pakistan Milgem project. Pakistan will gain the knowledge of designing and developing advanced warships. The rights of the end product will be owned by Pakistan and Turkiye together. The new ship will be a heavy frigate and starting from the 5th ship Pakistan will construct this ship rather than Milgem. I expect Pakistan to construct 3 more ships of the new design. In total Pakistan to produce 4 Milgem+4 Jinnah class? heavy frigate. Pakistan will select the subsystems according to PN needs but rotating type Turkish AESA radar CENK-S that replaces Smart-S Mk2, Turkish national VLS MDAS, and long-range air defense missile Siper will be available for that platform if PN wishes to put them on their vessels. Depending on the pace of the project I expect the first steel cutting to happen in 2024 or 2025.
Overall, the PN said it wants around 20 'major surface vessels.'
Based on current ships and plans -- i.e., 4 F-22P, 4 Type 054A/P, and 4 MILGEM -- it has around 12 on the roadmap.
It's possible they could fill out the remaining 6 ships with the Jinnah-class FFG, but bear in mind, from 2030 the oldest F-22P will be around 20 years old and from 2040, those ships will be 30 years of age. Though the PN will upgrade the sensors and electronics, I don't know if they'll invest significantly in them and, instead, focus on building replacements by 2040.
In this case, the actual long-term frigate requirement could be 10-12 ships.
This would also make sense of why the PN is investing in designing a local frigate and owning its IP. Even though they'll still use COTS for all of the critical inputs, the cost and effort of design, development, integration and testing is still significant. It's always easier to buy off the shelf.
Whatever the design of the Jinnah-class FFG, I suspect the PN could be thinking of building 10-12 ships of this class by 2040. If this is the case, then I think we will see multiple variants of this ship. So, while all of them may be large tonnage vessels (e.g., 5,000+ tons), I think 8 could be 'baseline' with AShW, ASW and a medium-range AAW (e.g., CAMM-ER), while 4 could be long-range AAW-capable.
t.co
