BNS Prottasha

BNS Prottasha is a Type 056 stealth surface warfare guided missile corvette of the Bangladesh Navy. She was built at Wuchang Shipyard of China. She is the fourth corvette of the class for the Bangladesh Navy.

Career
Bangladesh Navy signed a contract with China State Shipbuilding Corporation for second batch of two C-13B version of Type 056 corvettes on 21 July 2015 to China. The ships were laid down at Wuchang Shipyard in China on 9 August 2016. BNS Prottasha was launched on 8 April 2018. China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) handed over the ship to the Bangladesh Navy on 28 April 2019. She started her delivery sail from the port of Shanghai, China to Bangladesh on 12 April 2019. On the way home, she made stoppages at the Yantian port of China and the port Klang of Malaysia. She reached home on 27 April 2019. BNS Prottasha was commissioned to the Bangladesh Navy on 5 November 2020.

BNS Prottasha left for Qatar on 5 March 2022 to take part in 7th Doha International Maritime Exhibition and Conference (DIMDEX-2022), to be held from 21 to 23 March 2022. After completing the exercise, she will sail for India to take part in IONS Maritime Exercise-2022 (IMEX-2022), to be held from 28 to 30 March 2022. The ship is expected to return home on 7 April 2022.

Design
The ship is 90.1 m long, has a beam of 11.14 m and a draught of 3.37 m. With a displacement of 1,300 tonnes, she has a complement of 78 personnel including 60 sailors and 18 officers. She is propelled by two SEMT Pielstick 12PA6 diesel engines with a distance adjustable tail rotor which can provide enough power for her top speed of more than 25 kn. She has two power stations, forward and rear, and electricity supply works with one of the power station sunk. Compared to the traditional round bilge boat, the ship is designed with V type, having angle bending line at the bottom so that she can sail with high speed in rough sea states. However, the ship does not carry any type of sonar so she has limited anti-submarine warfare capability. As a result, she will act mainly as a surface warfare corvette. BNS Prottasha has a helicopter deck aft which can support a medium-size helicopter, but she has no hangar.

Electronics
The ship uses Chinese SR2410C S-band 3D AESA radar for surface and air search purposes. This radar can also be used for helicopter landing control and as a fire control radar. The radar has a detection range of 150 km and has the capability to track 150 targets per rotation. According to Chinese sources, this radar is analogous to the SMART-S MK2 radar of Thales.

Armaments
The ship carries one H/PJ-26 76 mm main gun placed forward. Two 2-cell C-802A Anti-ship missiles are installed in the ship for anti surface operations. Two H/PJ-17 30 mm remote controlled gun turrets at amidship. For air defence, she carries an eight-cell FL-3000N launcher, which is the Chinese equivalent of RAM. The ship also carries two 6-cell Type-87 240mm ASW rocket launchers.