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Pakistan Navy | News & Discussions.

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PNS Ghazi inducted June 1964
 
If not posted earlier video of Pakistan Navy test fire new missiles dated 26 Feb 2014

@00:43 missile is Hiting the surface target ...


https : // www. youtube. com/ watch?v = r0opDLyFs7Y
 
Pakistan to head anti-terror naval force
By The Newspaper's Staff Reporter
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— File photo
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Navy has taken over the command of the multinational naval counter-terrorism coalition force from the UK Royal Navy.
The change of command of Combined Task Force-150 took place on Thursday at the United States Naval Forces Central Command Headquarters in Bahrain and Commodore Sajid Mahmood took over command of CTF-150 from Commodore Jeremy Blunden of the Royal Navy.
The ceremony was attended by senior officers from foreign navies that are part of the coalition.
Pakistan has previously commanded the CTF-150 six times. It is responsible for promoting maritime security by countering terrorist acts and related illegal activities which terrorists use to fund or conceal their movements.
The participating countries are: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Republic of Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the US. The command is rotated among the nations for four to six months’ terms.
The force’s area of operation spans over two million square miles, covering the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman.
Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2014
 
New COMKAR

By The Newspaper's Staff Reporter

KARACHI: Rear Admiral Syed Arifullah Hussaini has taken over as Commander Karachi (COMKAR) from Vice Admiral Khwaja Ghazanfar Hussain at a change of command ceremony held at PNS Bahadur on Thursday.

Rear Adm Hussaini was commissioned in the navy in June 1981. He is a surface warfare specialist and has also taken various courses abroad, including the United States and China. He has held various commands in the field and key appointments at the naval headquarters.

At the ceremony the newly appointed officer was presented a guard of honour.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2014
 
"Turkey earlier spent efforts to secure deals with Bahrain and Pakistan to outfit their G-class frigates (Perry) with the GENESIS system but no deal has been formalized. Another potential deal with Egypt failed due to political disputes between Ankara and Cairo."
 
"Turkey earlier spent efforts to secure deals with Bahrain and Pakistan to outfit their G-class frigates (Perry) with the GENESIS system but no deal has been formalized. Another potential deal with Egypt failed due to political disputes between Ankara and Cairo."

The only updation PN plans at present for the single OHP is installation of Harpoon's.
 
Under the Sea: The Four Daphné Girls
The men in Pakistani submarines found strange solace in art.
By Saquib Saeed / Creative: Amna Iqbal
Published: August 17, 2014

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The men in Pakistani submarines found strange solace in art. DESIGN: AMNA IQBAL
Each of the Pakistan Navy’s four Daphné class submarines, Hangor, Mangro, Shushuk and Ghazi, arrived from France in the late ’60s and early ’70s carrying portraits in oil on canvas. While Shushuk had a Polynesian girl, Hangor carried a gypsy girl by a Hungarian artist named Charles Roka. Mangro, on the other hand, was far apart as she carried a replica from a German grand master’s work while Ghazi carried the work of some anonymous artist.
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These portraits were gifted by the subamrines’ French constructor, the Direction des Construction Naval (DCN) and adorned the vessels’ tiny wardrooms. Except Mangro, all others belonged to an art form called the retro-Kitsch — a term used derisively to condemn exaggerated forms of art or that executed in poor taste. For more than 35 years, these portraits remained an integral part of these submarines and provided strange solace to the men who traversed deep waters in their metal confines. After their decommissioning in the mid-2000s, these portraits were removed to the submarine squadron’s wardroom ashore, where they still remain on display.
The men at sea
The submariners sailing in these Daphnés were the enfant terrible, operating far away under the oceans. Since the Daphnés carried only enough water for drinking, the submariners remained unshaven, unkempt, and unbathed for long periods of time. But the body odour did not seem to bother them much as the human sense of smell quickly adapts to persistent smells and only detects newer stimuli. They lived surrounded by pipes, cables, noisy equipment, greasy weapons, loud pumps, compressors and an air conditioner that struggled to cope with warmer waters keeping everyone sweating in 90% humidity. Below the decks were hundreds of tonnes of battery cells that smelt of bittersweet hydrogen. There were two hungry V8 diesels that recharged the batteries once or twice a day. While doing so they sucked out the air from within the submarine and made everyone’s ears pop. But the submariners felt happy as it was the only time they could puff on their duty-free cigarettes.
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They breathed an artificially generated atmosphere that was high on hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and low on oxygen. The air was thick from diesel and hydraulic fluid fumes and sour-tasting vented compressed air. It got worse when their vaporised sweat mixed with it. They sailed several hundred feet below with no means to escape in case of an emergency. A few days into their interminable sea trips, these submariners needed something to remind them that they were human. That is when the DCN’s gift became so important.
The girls from faraway lands
The Pakistan Navy fortuitously purchased Ghazi, the almost new, ex-Cachalot of the Portuguese Navy, in 1975. She came with her own retro-Kitsch — probably given away to the Portuguese Navy in the ’60s by the DCN. Its artist remains anonymous, but the poster prints of this work have never lost their popularity across Europe. Even now, a poster sits in an English café called The Cat’s Café; another one is in Tunisia, while one turned up just a few months ago at an art auction in Munich.
Lambert, the Englishman responsible for Shushuk’s portrait, worked for 40 years for Leyland Motors, a great name in the British automobile industry then. He famously had its female workers dress up and painted annually for the Leyland calendar. Lambert’s paintings were the sensual, and not too explicit, centrefolds of that era, adorning the typical working-class teenager’s room.
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For Shushuk, Lambert took on a different subject. He painted a fictitious Tahitian girl that he named Tehura. This is where Paul Gauguin, the grand French master, had left off with his Polynesian girl series, in the late 1890s, before his death on the Island in 1903. Lambert, unashamedly borrowed from Gauguin’s La Femme a la Fleur (The Woman with a Flower) and La Jeuene Femme a L’ventail (The Young Girl with a Fan). He peppered it up with a suggestive gaze, and added some sharp contours to the bodice that perilously clung on to her despite most submariners’ lasting wish for a wardrobe malfunction. It smeared Gauguin’s work, incensed the critics and did nothing to improve Lambert’s reputation as an artist. But Lambert perhaps did far more good to the generations of submariners who sailed onboard Shushuk. His Tehura still remains a very well-known work that sells in poster prints all over the world.
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If Lambert was a showman, Charles Roka, the Hungarian artist of the same era was even worse, according to the critics of that time. He churned out Kitsch after Kitsch of the same gypsy girl — referred endearingly as Kvinna by his Norwegian admirers. One of his gypsy pieces, the steamiest amongst the four submarines, was onboard Hangor on the night of December 8/9, 1971, when she torpedoed two Indian Navy destroyers, INS Kukri and INS Kirpan. Kukri broke into two and sank within two minutes with the loss of 172 officers and men while Kirpan was severely damaged. In all, Roka painted this gypsy girl three dozen times before his death in 1999. In 2005, he was honoured posthumously by the prestigious Haugar Vestfold Kunst museum in Tonsberg, Norway, where his work, under the title Kitsch, was displayed for the first time by a gallery of such repute. It seems that Roka’s work has finally been recognised.
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Bizarrely, Mangro’s wardroom was saved from the onslaught of Kitsch. It had a well-made replica of an authentic piece by a German master, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, who was best known for his exclusive portraits of mid-19th century royalty in various European courts. In 1864, he painted a portrait of an aristocratic woman from Czarist Russia named Dmitrievna Mergassov who according to some was also the inspiration behind Leo Tolstoy’s tragic heroine, Anna Karenina. Judging from the sadness in her eyes evident in the painting — the original of which remains on display at Musée d’Orsay in Paris — she certainly looks the part.
It seems that the DCN played it safe while refitting Mangro and experimented brazenly with the other three submarines. Its gift to Mangro in the form of Mergassov’s portrait gave our submariners something to hold in awe — they gazed at her quiet elegance and modest dignity. She had a melancholy gaze but perhaps too much of blue blood in her for an average submariner’s taste. Mergassov was clearly plain and Mangro perhaps was not the right submarine to take long trips on. But Winterhalter’s great skill with the brush could be gauged from the way he brilliantly captured her long dark braid with its intricate twists. The several layers of her flowing white taffeta gown and its blue ribbons also bore a dazzling testimony of his prowess.
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A journey through unchartered waters
Why did the DCN choose Madame Mergasso and why did it experiment with retro-kitsch for all others? Why not a Renoir replica with its burst of colours, or a Claude Monet, or a Delacroix, or a Degas, or a Tolouse-Lautrec? By carrying these grand masters’ works, even if they were replicas, DCN would have given us a piece of France itself. Instead they gave us 1960’s trash.
But it was just as well for the Kitschy art. The submariners loved it. It was a time when they took pride in owning art and loved them simply for the lack of knowing anything better. But they could not be faulted for their desire to discover, to experiment, and to develop a taste for the new, the exotic and especially the forbidden.
Learning to become a submariner at a time when less than 10 nations in the world owned and operated submarines was a challenge, and our submariners took it in their stride; much the same way they took these Daphné girls in and made them a part of their proud submarining tradition.
Thick skinned that they are, never the ones to believe in what the righteous might have to say, they simply adored these Kitschy paintings just as they loved their submarining profession. There were a few exceptions of brief religious command tenures in the 90s when these girls found their makeshift homes in lockers ashore — only to be recalled with the change of command. For the most part, these girls faithfully served the submariners.
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Looking back at those decades with these girls, the ’60s remind us of a progressive time in our nation’s history. That was a time when we were asserting ourselves in the world as a fast-developing, modern, progressive and a tolerant new nation. That’s when we stood taller than South Korea and Malaysia of that epoch. We did not have fixed ideas on morality and public piety either. We loved when something looked good and we did not seem to care about much else. That is indeed what art is supposed to do — inspire us and make us happy. Forty-five years later, we are still talking about these Daphné girls and that says much about their lasting effect on our submariners.
Saquib Saeed is a proud submariner who, like his predecessors, wistfully stared at all the kitschy ladies at sea.
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 17th, 2014.

“Kakadu 2014″ will be participated in by 12 countries. The participating countries with navy ships/aircrafts are Japan, New Zealand, Philippines, Pakistan and Australia while Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Thailand, Vanuatu, South Korea, and India will be sending personnel as observers
 
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"Turkey earlier spent efforts to secure deals with Bahrain and Pakistan to outfit their G-class frigates (Perry) with the GENESIS system but no deal has been formalized. Another potential deal with Egypt failed due to political disputes between Ankara and Cairo."
That excerpt is from Turkey Hopes To Export GENESIS System for G-class Frigates | Defense News | defensenews.com

Fifty-five ships were built in the United States: 51 for the USN and four for the RAN. In addition, eight were built in Taiwan (Cheng Kung class), six in Spain (Santa Maria class), and two in Australia (Adelaide class) for these countries respectiver navies. Former U.S. Navy warships of this class have been sold or donated to the navies of Bahrain (1), Egypt (4), Poland (2), Pakistan (1, with possibility of up to 5 more), and Turkey (8 active + 1 parts hull). Transfer of up to 8 further ships authorized: Mexico (2), Thailand (2), Taiwan (4).
Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Due to the cost of overhauling the vessels and the removal of all the weapons systems and most of the electronics and radar gear by the USN prior to transfer, this is still undecided by Mexico. The offer will expire in 3 years (1 January 2016). Likewise, the Thai deal is pending approval/acceptance of US offer by the Thai government. As for Taiwan, 2 to be delivered by 2015.

On 23 September 2008, in a letter from First Deputy Minster of Defense V.V. Ivashenko addressed to U.S. Ambassador William Taylor (MoD Letter #220/3918) the GoU formally requested the U.S. to consider providing an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate FFG) to the Ukrainian Navy.
Cable: 09KYIV685_a
(obviously this never materialized)

On FFG-7/Perry class upgrades, it was previously noted:
Upgrading the Classic FFG for Modern Combat

Mar. 27, 2014 - 03:45AM |
By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS |

...
Havelsan has a tentative agreement to upgrade Bahrain’s single FFG, said Serdar Müldür, the company’s vice president for command, control and combat systems, and is awaiting funding.
Havelsan, Müldür said, also has surveyed the Pakistani Alamgir, the country’s lone FFG, and the company has a contingency agreement with Pakistan to upgrade the ships should more frigates be transferred.
The company also has held talks with FFG operators Poland and Thailand, Müldür said March 27 at the Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition (DIMDEX) in Qatar.
...
Upgrading the Classic FFG for Modern Combat | Defense News | defensenews.com
Note: Thailand is a prospective OHP user (have been offererd OHPs), not a current operator

and

Turkey, Pakistan Seek Better Ties
But Money Short For Defense Deals

Nov. 24, 2012 - 01:16PM |
By USMAN ANSARI

Analyst Usman Shabbir of the Pakistan Military Consortium think tank said Turkey is a valued supplier that “offers [Pakistan] a route to Western technology” such as previously purchased NATO standard communication equipment.
Turkey’s efforts were showcased at Pakistan’s biannual defense fair, the Nov. 7-11 International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS).
Turkish defense software and systems integration firm Havelsan secured orders for its shipboard Genesis C4I combat management system
Turkey, Pakistan Seek Better Ties | Defense News | defensenews.com
 
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Navy inducts second batch of Alouette Helicopters into its air arm
Friday, 22 August 2014 19:23 Posted by Shoaib-ur-Rehman Siddiqui

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KARACHI: Pakistan Navy, in order to further enhance effectiveness of Naval Aviation, has inducted a second batch of Alouette Helicopters into its Fleet Air Arm in a ceremony held at Naval Aviation Base here on Friday.
Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Mohammad Asif Sandila was the chief guest on the occasion, an ISPR press release said here.

Keeping in view that rotary wing assets have and continue to be a vital part of Search & Rescue as well as training operations throughout the world, the Alouette Helicopters have additional designed ability for Command liaison and other utility features.

Addressing on the occasion, the Chief of the Naval Staff said that Pakistan Naval Aviation has come a long way and matured into a well established highly professional component of the Fleet.

He reiterated that today geo-political as well as the maritime environment in our region is complex and fluid, which requires Pakistan Navy to shoulder more challenging tasks for Maritime Security in the region, besides maintaining combat readiness against the traditional threats.

"Pakistan Navy has always remained alive to the importance of aviation and despite limited resources, modernisation, upgradation and replacement of aviation platforms have always been accorded high priority", he said.

He further said that induction of these versatile platforms has added value to the Fleet's overall capabilities and it will further strengthen the Naval Air Arm.

The ceremony was attended by veteran Naval Aviators, Senior Naval Officers, CPOs/ Sailors, civilians and military dignitaries.

APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2014
 
Production of the Alouettes is ended in France, so obviously not new platforms. Have they been acquired from Army?
 
Production of the Alouettes is ended in France, so obviously not new platforms. Have they been acquired from Army?

used examples and upgraded either in Holland or UK. still good platforms for SAR. spares are no issue.
 
Production of the Alouettes is ended in France, so obviously not new platforms. Have they been acquired from Army?
The last Alouette III from Aérospatiale was delivered in 1985. Over 500 units were manufactured under licence in Romania (IAR 316), India (HAL Chetak) and Switzerland (by F+W Emmen). Fokker and Lichtwerk of the Netherlands assembled units.

Production numbers are as follows:
  • France: 1,453
  • India: 300+
  • Romania: 200+
  • Switzerland: 60
Plenty of operators remaining
Aérospatiale Alouette III - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

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