On 15 August 2021, Istanbul Naval Shipyard (INSY) launched the Pakistan Navy’s (PN) first of four MILGEM corvettes. According to the PN’s Director General of Public Relations, the PN has named the lead ship of the class PNS Babur. PNS Babur is currently slated for delivery in 2023.
Pakistan ordered the four MILGEM corvettes under a reported $1.5 billion U.S. contract in 2018. Turkey’s INSY and Pakistan’s Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works (KSEW) are each building two ships. The PN is slated to receive all four MILGEM Babur-class corvettes by 2025.
The Babur-class is a customized variant of the MILGEM Ada corvette in service with the Turkish Navy.
The PN wanted a multi-mission platform equipped for anti-ship warfare (AShW), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and anti-air warfare (AAW) from its forthcoming ships. Given that the capability of the PN MILGEM will surpass that of the F-22P frigate, the PN will likely view these ships as “major surface vessels.” This is an important point because the PN intends to build a fleet of at least 20 “major surface vessels.”
The Babur-class’s AShW capability will rely on two triple-cell launchers for a yet-to-be-disclosed anti-ship cruising missile (ASCM). This could be the Harbah, a long-range ASCM that can also double as a land-attack cruise missile (LACM). If derived from the Babur-series, the Harbah could have a range of 450 km to 750 km. However, Pakistan is also pursuing a supersonic ASCM.
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