CMN Offers Stealth Corvette to Malaysia and Vietnam

24 Mei 2015

CMN C Sword 90 95m missile corvette (image & photos : CMN, militaryphotos, Navy Recognition).

CMN introduces new missile corvette positioned for littoral warfare operations

French shipyard Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie (CMN) has introduced a new 95 m missile corvette design to the Asia-Pacific market.

A model of the corvette, known as the C Sword 90, was unveiled at the IMDEX 2015 exhibition in Singapore. The company is marketing it to navies that operate in littoral waters, especially in the Southeast Asian region.

According to CMN, the corvette has a maximum speed of 28 kt and can attain a standard range of 7,000 n miles at 12 kt. It can carry a crew of 65 with additional berths for 20. The vessel is powered by two propulsion diesel engines and two controlled pitch propellers.

The vessel features a hull design with reduced radar cross-section and has a flight deck that can accommodate a helicopter weighing up to 10 tonnes. The ship can also carry up to two rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) with dedicated davits and can be equipped to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).

The C Sword 90 can be equipped with either a 57 mm or 76 mm gun as a primary weapon and up to two 20 mm or 30 mm cannons as secondary armaments. The vessel has space for a 16-cell vertical launch system for surface-to-air missiles and can also accommodate up to eight surface-to-surface missiles.

The corvette can also be armed with one hull mounted sonar, a towed array module, and up to two triple-tube torpedo launchers for submarine prosecution.

"The main selling point of the C Sword 90 is that an operator can fit such a vast array of equipment on a compact platform that measures just 95 m," Cherif Rdissi, CMN's naval and civil commercial director, told IHS Jane's on 21 May. "The corvette has also been designed with a round bilge hull shape to reduce fuel consumption and operational costs," he said.

According to Rdissi, CMN is targeting countries including Malaysia and Vietnam, both of which have articulated a requirement for corvettes in the near- to medium-term. "Other than that we are looking to market to it to the Middle East to countries such as Oman," he said.

(Jane's)