A very interesting photo appeared on the Internet on August 13, and the photo was suspected to be a photo released by the Philippine Coast Guard. Judging from the information shown in the photo, it should be a ship in a certain area of the South China Sea A Philippine coast guard ship is in a close confrontation with a Chinese coast guard ship . What is quite exaggerated is that although the Philippine Coast Guard ship in this photo is very close to the camera, it can still be seen that its tonnage and size are much smaller than the Chinese Coast Guard ship in the distance. In fact, the Philippine Coast Guard ship in this photo is an FPB-72 24-meter-class patrol boat that the Philippine Coast Guard purchased from France earlier. Although it is farther away, its size can still be felt. The largest tonnage is the 18 patrol ship , which has been independently built by our country in recent years.
FPB-72 patrol boats were launched in 2014. The Philippine Coast Guard reached an agreement with the French OCEA shipyard with the help of the Department of Transportation. The French government provided loans to purchase 4 FPB-72 patrol boats to help the Philippine Coast Guard. More effectively combat piracy attacks in southern Mindanao and defend the country’s territorial claims in the so-called “West Philippine Sea.” After these four FPB-72 patrol boats were officially delivered to the Philippine Coast Guard in 2019, although they can well guarantee and implement the Philippine Coast Guard's offshore patrols and combat piracy, they have a full load displacement of only 72 tons and The main weapons equipped on the boat are mainly small and medium-caliber water cannons, so in offshore patrol missions, it mainly relies on its own high speed and highly automated system to pursue, intercept pirates and patrol support.
The Type 818 coast guard patrol ship is derived from the Navy's 4,000-ton Type 054A guided missile frigate hull platform. The has a full load displacement of nearly 3,800 tons, a length of 134 meters, a width of 15 meters, and a maximum speed of more than 28 knots. It still retains the 76mm automated naval gun on the bow and the ability to carry the Z-9 shipborne helicopter . At the same time, two 6-tube 30mm close-in defense guns and four High-pressure long-range water cannon, multiple powerful sound dispersers, and four detachable 12.7 mm heavy machine guns.
In addition, the Type 818 patrol ship is also equipped with a "bow thrust" device at the bow position. The function of this device is to allow the entire ship to maneuver flexibly and spin in place, which is beneficial to this class of ships when operating with foreign ships. Seize advantageous position and heading during confrontation (especially when used to combat pirates). It can be said that no matter in terms of tonnage, shipboard weapons, range, and self-sustainability, the Type 818 coast guard patrol ship is an extremely powerful ocean-going coast guard ship with a wide radiation range. Moreover, it can also well meet the effective connection between the 10,000-ton coast guard ship and the 1,000-ton coast guard ship of the coast guard force.
Of course, the Type 818 coast guard ship can only be regarded as the tip of the iceberg in our country’s coast guard force, because after ten years of rapid development, the current China coast guard force has not only surpassed Japan, South Korea and other countries in terms of the number of coast guard ships in active service. , becoming the first in Asia; at the same time, it has also made unprecedented achievements in the large-scale and weaponized development of its coast guard ships.
1. Before 2010, our country’s navy was not very strong at that time. Therefore, the China Coast Guard, which was also affected by the strength of the shipbuilding industry and military industry, not only had the problem of departmental duplication and confusion, but also faced the problem of whether it was a coast guard ship at that time. The Japan Coast Guard, which is already very powerful in both quantity and performance, is always at a disadvantage. However, after the 010 Fujian-Jinxi Fishing 5179 incident, our country clearly realized that it must strengthen the construction of maritime law enforcement forces in order to more effectively protect the sovereignty and security of our territorial waters in peacetime, as well as protect our fishermen’s fishing operations. Safety.
Therefore, in 2013, our country officially established the Coast Guard. In order to develop and expand, the first step was to start building a large number of coast guard ships like dumplings like the navy. At the same time, with the retirement of many warships of the navy, these ships were moved ahead of schedule. Retired warships were also assigned to the Coast Guard after some of their heavy weapons were dismantled. In particular, the 22 056 light missile frigates that were just equipped by the Navy in early 2022 and had not been in service for a few years were all transferred to the Coast Guard after only the anti-ship missiles were dismantled. Including the coast guard force, including the coast guard ships newly built and renovated in the past 10 years, the number of coast guard ships above 500 tons has reached an unprecedented 225. For comparison, before the Chinese Coast Guard entered large-scale service, the number of active coast guard ships of the Japan Coast Guard, the strongest, was only more than 160.
2. After the total number of coast guard ships has increased significantly, the second step is to increase the number of large coast guard ships to enhance the overall strength of the coast guard. Currently, the largest coast guard ships in the world are my country's independently built Coast Guard 2901 and Coast Guard 3901 with a full load displacement of 12,000 tons. At the same time, the 13,000-ton Haixun 09 maritime law enforcement vessel has also been officially put into service.
Including the newly-built 818 4,000-ton coast guard ship and the 3,000-ton improved 053H3 series coast guard ship of the China Coast Guard, among the 225 coast guard ships currently owned by the China Coast Guard, there are only 1,000-ton coast guard ships with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons. There are more than 160 ships, and there are more than 70 ships in the 3,000-ton class. Of course, the construction of these three- to four-thousand-ton or even tens of thousands-ton coast guard ships has not stopped, and they are still in service with small batches of equipment.
On the other hand, the Japan Coast Guard, which was once the number one in Asia, has 69 patrol ships of more than 1,000 tons, and the Korean Coast Guard has even fewer patrol ships of 1,000 tons and above , with only 35 ships. . In other words, the coast guard of Japan and South Korea combined are no match for the Chinese coast guard.
3. As the number and number of large ships are rising simultaneously, the weapons and equipment of newly commissioned coast guard ships have also been simultaneously improved, such as the two 12,000-ton coast guard ships and six 4,000-ton coast guard ships already in service. The Type 818 Coast Guard ships, plus 22 Type 056 Coast Guard ships converted from the military to the police, are all equipped with major weapons including 76mm rapid-fire cannons, small and medium-caliber naval guns and machine guns, high-pressure long-range water cannons, and long-range warning radars. equipped.
Therefore, although the main task of the China Coast Guard is to maintain maritime security, in fact, with the increase and popularization of quantity, performance and weapons, the China Coast Guard has long been hailed by the outside world as the world's strongest coast guard force and China's second navy. . So if we look back at Philippines , it’s really a close confrontation between a less than 50-ton patrol boat and a 4,000-ton coast guard ship among the more than 200 Chinese coast guard ships. It's like "a mantis's arm is like a chariot, a cricket is shaking a tree".
