A patrol boat is a relatively small naval vessel generally designed for coastal defence, border protection, immigration law-enforcement, search and rescue duties. There have been many designs for patrol boats. They may be operated by a nation's navy, coast guard, police force or customs and may be intended for marine or estuarine or river environments. They are commonly found engaged in various border protection roles, including anti-smuggling, anti-piracy, fisheries patrols, and immigration law enforcement. They are also often called upon to participate in rescue operations.
The River class is a class of offshore patrol vessels built primarily for the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. A total of nine were built for the Royal Navy (RN), four Batch 1 and five Batch 2. One Batch 1 (HMS Clyde), which was the Falklands guard ship, was decommissioned and transferred at the end of its lease to the Royal Bahrain Naval Force.
Naval Group—formerly known as Direction des Constructions Navales (DCNS) or Direction des Constructions Navales International (DCNI)—is a global and major French defense contractor and an industrial group that specialised in naval-based defence. The group employs nearly 16,000 people in 18 countries. The company is owned in part by the Agence des participations de l'État, a private company through which the French state holds a 62.49% stake, Thales holds 35% and the personnel holds a 1.64% stake. The remaining 0.87% are owned by the heir to the French naval dockyards and the Direction des Constructions et Armes Navales (DCAN), which became the DCN in 1991, DCNS in 2007 and Naval Group since 2017.
The Sigma class is a Dutch-built family of modular naval vessels, of either corvette or frigate size, designed by Damen Group.
The P400-class patrol vessels are small patrol boats of the French Navy. They were designed to accomplish police operations in the French exclusive economic zone (EEZ). They were built by the Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie, which specialise in small military craft. Two similar ships are in service in Gabon. The P400 class were originally designed in two versions: one armed with Exocet MM38 missiles, and another public service version with a smaller 16-man complement; eventually neither of these versions were commissioned as the French Navy chose an intermediate version.
The OTO Melara 76 mm gun is a naval gun built and designed by the Italian defence company Oto Melara. It is based on the Oto Melara 76/62C and evolved toward 76/62 SR and 76/62 Strales.
The Kedah-class offshore patrol vessels of the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) are six ships based on the MEKO 100 design by Blohm + Voss. Originally, a total of 27 ships were planned, but due to programme delays and overruns, only six were eventually ordered. Their construction began in the early 2000s, and by 2009, all six were in active service. The six vessels are named after Malaysian states.
Project Protector was a Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) procurement project that was undertaken during the 2000s. At the start of the decade, the New Zealand government tasked the New Zealand Defence Force to develop an equal combat, peacekeeping, and disaster relief capability, in which the RNZN was to focus on conducting sealift operations and patrols of the Economic Exclusion Zone. A series of reviews found that the RNZN was lacking in these capabilities, and Project Protector was established to acquire three new ship types: a single multi-role sealift ship, two offshore patrol vessels, and four inshore patrol vessels. After a two-year information-gathering and tender process, an Australian company, Tenix Defence, was selected as the primary contractor.
The Holland-class ocean-going patrol vessels are a class of four ocean-going patrol vessels constructed for the Royal Netherlands Navy. They are designed to fulfill patrol and intervention tasks against lightly armed opponents, such as pirates and smugglers, but have much higher level electronic and radar surveillance capabilities which are used for military stabilization and security roles, short of outright war. Without sonar or long range weapons, they utilize the surveillance capabilities of the Thales integrated mast, which integrates communication systems and two 4-faced phased arrays for air and surface search.
Kora-class corvettes are guided missile corvettes, in active service with the Indian Navy and the National Coast Guard of Mauritius. Four vessels were built at Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) and outfitted at Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL).
The Gowind design is a family of steel monohull frigates, corvettes and offshore patrol vessels developed since 2006 by France's Naval Group, formerly known as DCNS, to conduct missions in the littoral zone such as anti-submarine warfare (ASW). The Gowind family includes vessels with lengths from 85 to 111 metres and displacement from 1,000 tons to 3,100 tons.
The United Arab Emirates Navy is small force of about 3,000 personnel. It maintains 12 well-equipped coastal patrol boats and eight missile boats. Although primarily concerned with coastal defense, the Navy is constructing a six-unit class of blue water corvettes in conjunction with French shipbuilder CMN. The UAE maintains a small battalion-sized marine force called the UAE Marines equipped with BMP-3 armoured personnel carriers.
ARA Bouchard is a patrol vessel designed by the French company DCNS for maritime protection missions. She was originally part of the Gowind family of corvettes and patrol vessels but the less military members of the family like Bouchard have been moved into the Kership consortium. The design was self-funded by DCNS without an initial customer, and was initially leased to the French Navy as L'Adroit before being sold to the Argentine Navy in November 2018. The vessel was commissioned as ARA Bouchard in December 2019.
The Arafura class is a class of offshore patrol vessels being built for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Initially proposed in the 2009 Defence White Paper and marked as procurement project SEA 1180, it was originally planned that 20 Offshore Combatant Vessels (OCV) would replace 26 vessels across four separate ship classes: the Armidale-class patrol boats, the Huon-class minehunters, the Leeuwin-class survey vessels, and the Paluma-class survey motor launches. Although having a common design, the ships would use a modular mission payload system to fulfill specific roles; primarily border patrol, mine warfare, and hydrographic survey. The 2013 Defence White Paper committed to the OCV project as a long-term goal, but opted in the short term for an accelerated procurement of an existing design to replace the Armidales, and life-extension refits for the other types. This resulted in the Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) project and the amount of vessels reduced to 12. However, this was further increased to 14 when 2 further Mine Counter Measures variants were proposed under SEA 1905.
GRSE Mauritius offshore patrol vessel (MOPV) is a corvette being built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata, for the National Coast Guard of Mauritius.
The Maharaja Lela-class frigates is a class of six stealth frigates being built for the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN). The ships are based on an enlarged version of the Gowind-class corvette, designed by DCNS of France. The contract has been finalised and it has been decided that all six ships will be built by local shipbuilder Boustead Heavy Industries Corporation (BHIC) for the RMN at a ceiling price of RM9 billion, starting from 2015. The ships will be 111 metres s long with a displacement of 3,100 tonnes.
The D'Entrecasteaux class is a class of oceanic patrol ships of the French Navy. The ship's designation is Bâtiment multi-mission (B2M) in French, meaning "multi-mission ship", and sometimes dubbed the "Swiss Army knife of the Navy", the type of ships is designed to perform sovereignty, law enforcement and logistics missions from, replacing the aging BATRAL-class landing ships in this role.
The Qatari Emiri Navy (QEN), also called the Qatari Emiri Naval Forces (QENF), is the naval branch of the armed forces of the State of Qatar and is the strongest naval force of the region in terms of size of naval fleet.
The Yarmook-class corvette is a class of corvettes in service with the Pakistan Navy. The class is primarily based on Damen Group's Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) 1900. The primary role of the class is to patrol the sea area.
ARA Piedrabuena (P-52) is the second ship of Argentinian Gowind-class offshore patrol vessel of the Argentinian Navy.
