Thanks for your insights my friend.
There was no tender issued for those procurememt. However, many sources said Komsomolsk offered the original Project 20382 (Steregushchy variant without the VLS) to compete against the Gepard but it lost the bid.
The common explanation was that Viet Nam no longer induct new and “unproven” system because of its bad history with the BPS-500 project. But this doesn’t explain why we decided to go for the Sosna-R armed Palma which is new and “unproven” at that time.
Your explanation about acquiring simple platform first for training purposes makes a lot of sense, and I always believed that the first 2 Gepard makes good training ship. But I just don’t understand why the next 4 Gepards are ordered when they look overpriced and weak in the firepower department. As Indos said, we do not have the budget and luxury to buy that many “training” ships. We lack proper naval hulls above 2000 tons and can’t just spend our limited budget on these underpowered Gepards. Well this is just my personal opinion from my limited knowledge.
BTW, are you a Turkish national living in Viet Nam?
Sorry Indonesian friends for hi-jacking your thread, just realized that now. On topic: Your Sigma frigates are armed with 24 Mica VL??? Just realized this now from that model.
@Carlosa, our ones only armed with 12 right?