The article below mentions that the PCG tenix ship BRP Batangas is armed with 50 caliber machineguns. does anyone know what exactly is the armament setup on this PCG tenix ships? is it only 50 claiber or are some mounted with 20mm or 40mm guns? where exactly are the guns or machineguns mounted? are they on the bridge, bow or stern?? thanks

article below:

One of the highlights of the Bohol Dive Fiesta is the dive rescue exhibition of the Philippine Coast Guard and its auxiliary branch composed of volunteer civilians who have special diving skills.

The Philippine Coast Guard is now a civilian in nature under the Department of Transportation and Communication. It used to be a unit of the Philippine Navy before the transfer to DOTC.

It recently acquired four highly modern Search and Rescue frigates capable of cruising 27 nautical knots strategically located in various parts of the archipelago. It has fire fighting capability like a fire boat. It is also a floating ambulance equipped with decompression chamber as well as Aid Station for mass casualty. It is also a patrol boat for police mission and is equipped with 50 caliber machine guns and small arms for its crew.

The vessel is manned with 6 Officers including a Medical Officer that is also a hyperbaric specialist, 2 rescue divers, a corpsman, and 30 other strikers and enlisted personnel.

This is complemented by the military hospital in Cebu, Centcom Hospital that is manned by hyperbaric Chamber Operator/Technician Mamerto Ortega II that is on-duty 24/7.

BRP Batangas (SAR 004) under the command of Cdr. Enrico Endozo from Cavite showed the Dive Fiesta delegates the capability of this modern sea craft and the knowledge and training of its personnel. Officers of the Philippine Navy SEAL as well as Coast Guard Auxiliary were also on board the vessel during the exercise.

The acquisition of this $ 19 Million Australian Dollar vessels shows the resolve of the Philippine Government to promote safety in the Philippines Nautical Highway and the presence of decompression chamber in this vessels is a manifestation that the government is taking the diving industry very seriously

Can you please provide the url for that article, because I can't seem to find anything mentioned about armament. I am sure the crew has small arms onboard which is the case with any Coast Guard or Navy vessel.
http://www.ufs.ph/tinig/sepoct03/09100315.html

Here's more and why.
http://www.tenix.com/News2.asp?ID=115

This url describes in detail, the ship's capabilities and is in PDF /Adobe Acrobat format (too much info to post).
http://www.tenix.com/PDFLibrary/34.pdf

This one is the proposal.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Va53S...ard+tenix&hl=en

its in the middle of the article .it says "It is also a patrol boat for police mission and is equipped with 50 caliber machine guns and small arms for its crew. "

use google and type 50 caliber BRP batangas

Ah, err...
I trust the good Sultan wasn't curt in referring us to Google?





Anyway... here's the link
http://www.manilamagazine.com/feat.html
although this'll take us to the newsmagazine's CURRENT feature,
and the actual article we're interested in will soon be archived.

Piracy and armed smuggling boats are always an issue, so why not?
It's possible the actual caliber of MG was misreported, though.

Thanks Horge! :bow: Sultan, please read this link because starting from page 9 of 13 will it perfectly describe the 56 meter type capabilities.
http://www.tenix.com/PDFLibrary/34.pdf

As Horge already mentioned, the reporter misreported this and obviously mixed the info up with our smaller patrol boats which do have 50 cals onboard. Now, was this the exact section you were refering to:

SAFETY FIRST

One of the highlights of the Bohol Dive Fiesta is the dive rescue exhibition of the Philippine Coast Guard and its auxiliary branch composed of volunteer civilians who have special diving skills.

The Philippine Coast Guard is now a civilian in nature under the Department of Transportation and Communication. It used to be a unit of the Philippine Navy before the transfer to DOTC.

It recently acquired four highly modern Search and Rescue frigates capable of cruising 27 nautical knots strategically located in various parts of the archipelago. It has fire fighting capability like a fire boat. It is also a floating ambulance equipped with decompression chamber as well as Aid Station for mass casualty. It is also a patrol boat for police mission and is equipped with 50 caliber machine guns and small arms for its crew.

The vessel is manned with 6 Officers including a Medical Officer that is also a hyperbaric specialist, 2 rescue divers, a corpsman, and 30 other strikers and enlisted personnel.

This is complemented by the military hospital in Cebu, Centcom Hospital that is manned by hyperbaric Chamber Operator/Technician Mamerto Ortega II that is on-duty 24/7.

BRP Batangas (SAR 004) under the command of Cdr. Enrico Endozo from Cavite showed the Dive Fiesta delegates the capability of this modern sea craft and the knowledge and training of its personnel. Officers of the Philippine Navy SEAL as well as Coast Guard Auxiliary were also on board the vessel during the exercise.

The acquisition of this $ 19 Million Australian Dollar vessels shows the resolve of the Philippine Government to promote safety in the Philippines Nautical Highway and the presence of decompression chamber in this vessels is a manifestation that the government is taking the diving industry very seriously.

In the span of time that the Philippines have been the diving destination, the need for decompression chamber has been very minimal. Those that has been involved in diving accidents were mostly advance technical dives that goes beyond the parameters of tourist doing under-water sightseeing.

No our PCG doesn't have any frigates and if you will look at this picture provided from those links I posted earlier:
http://www.ufs.ph/tinig/sepoct03/09100315.html



It may be a small picture, but this I hope should help clear things out for all of us. :aberet:

These class of TENIX laid ships have weapons hardpoints to mount even a bigger gun. When they were delivered, they were not mounted with guns as we got financial help in acquiring them provided these will not be used for para military purposes. Nevertheless weapons hardpoints were specified by the PCG. I have spoken to the person who conducted the first sea trials in Fremantle and the ship's capability is purely SAR. The variable pitch propeller and the bouyancy characteristics makes them act like semi submarine in rough seas and are its main features. The SAR electronic suite and the on board medical facilities including a decompression chamber ( i dunno if it was delivered) is one of the best we have on board a sea going patrol craft.

The 4 PCG frigates I think actually refers to the four 56 meter vessels. as usual, journalist went overboard with the 'frigate' word. these are the vessels with decompression chambers and so forth. the smaller 35 meter tenix boats have lesser capabilities.

Actually, i did see on TV a .50 caliber machinegun with shield on one of the new PCG ships. the problem was that the TV did not show what part of the ship it was installed nor did it show how many .50 caliber machinguns. i was hoping if someone could shed light on the question of whether the tenix ships have strong enough decks for bigger caliber guns.

what i am curious about is whether the bow(front) of these 56 meter ships have a 'circular' gun mount or hardpoint for future guns.

the stern(back) is out of the question since it is covered by the helicopter deck, although it looks like there is space on the back part of the bridge for a 25mm gun and maybe 20mm guns on the left and right side of the stern(back).

There is this photo on the internet that shows what i think is a .50 caliber or 20mm gun on the bridge of a 56 meter PCG tenix ship. the gun is covered in burlap or cloth. i would like your opinion if this is a gun or some other equipment?????. specifically, the gun is on the top floor of the bridge under the bridge roof, above the 'K' . the pic is at the Getty images website. just type 'philippine coast guard in the search of Getty image site.

Sultan, how about this for a change, pls. provide us the website / url. Help us out here for a change instead. Okay? We are all more than willling fellow posters, but please try and help us here for a change instead. Now how about providing the url? Can you do that for a change please.

http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/se...24;0|0&p=7



ayan. its the 2nd photo.........

I really don't think so, as it's a quirky place for a gun, and besides...
It could simply be a bit of tarp draped over the rail or over a cable stay .

I got a partial answer in the article below. the 35 meter SAR vessels of the PCG are armed with four .50 caliber machineguns.
It is possible then that the 56 meter SAR ships are also armed with four .50 caliber machineguns or maybe even more guns since it is a bigger vessel. see below:


Zambo Coast Guard receives
brand new Australian patrol boat
Bong Garcia Jr. / MindaNews / 06 January 2005
ZAMBOANGA CITY -- The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) in this city has boosted its unit’s fighting and patrol capabilities with the deployment of a state-of-the-art patrol and search-and-rescue boat.

Last Wednesday, the PCG received a brand new Australian-made patrol boat worth $8 million from Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza.

The new patrol boat would be used to patrol the coastline of this city and other places within Southwestern Mindanao, according to Commander Ageo Jaime Siargao, PCG deputy commander for Southwestern Mindanao.

The new patrol boat, christened BRP Davao del Norte, was deployed to the PCG here after Zamboanga City Rep. Erico Basilio Fabian made representations to Mendoza.

BRP Davao del Norte is equipped with modern navigation equipment and excellent maneuverability. It is also mounted with four caliber .50 machineguns.

It would be manned by 16 crew and four officers headed by Capt. Cecilio Chen.

Sultan, I wish it had 50 cals, but based on the info we have, this is all we got?

We wished it had everything else, but that's it. Based on everything provided, these are the present class' we got so far? What can we tell each other? These are what we have and so it is. Unless someone can enlighten us so where do we go from here?

IAW CDF said our Coast Guard vessels can only be equipped with such. This is as far as we can go unless we want to break the agreement that helped us acquire such vessels. Your call Friend?

'ol Fungus. :armyLol:

A good man.

i am still not convinced about this 'big gun limit' on our new PCG ships. unless, the paperwork or fine print says ' no big guns'. kung verbal lang ang sinabi ng mga australyano na walang malaking kanyon ay walang kwenta yan dahil that will not hold up in court, and besides kung ayaw ng australyano na lagyan natin ng canyon ay hindi natin bayaran yung loan.
these tenix ships were bought by PCG thru an australian loan.
we can just tell the aussies, whether you like it or not , we will install big guns , if you screw around with us , then we won't pay the loan.
2nd thing , we import a lot more from the aussies than we export to them. we just tell them , we wont import milk and beef from you guys if you screw around on this big guns issue.
katulad nung kfir issue na ayaw daw ng mga arabo. kailan ba nag news release ang mga arabo na ayaw nila na bumili ang pilipinas ng KFIR? sa tingin ko ay inuunahan na natin ating sarili e. show me a news release na sinabi ng arabo na 'no kfirs filipinios or else'

Mabuti pa yung CG may bagung boats. :dunno:

At $8 million, we were able to give the CG 4 newer boats.

So why not give the Navy its own fleet of new boats?

A corvette could be priced at around 20 million dollars, but not a big amount that is too impossible to give still, considering the successful delivery of the Tenix-class ships.

The ships even have helipads, which is perfect for attack choppers for the Navy's requirement.

It is also possible to have the same type of ships for our Navy and just arm these with heavier guns and even anti-ship missiles and ASW systems.

This could be our better option in giving our Navy with better Patrol ships.

What do you think, guys?

That is true but as the payments are not made yet, the ships are still considered leased until paid. So the aussie creditors own it and they have full rights on its preservation and use. Who knows we may even incur penalties in violations to its intended use. But when these ships are fully paid, no one can stop us from using it for naval purposes. You should see how the hull is made of these tenix class ships. The hull material used are fused forged aluminum and armor steel and can withstand hits from 20mm cannon shots.

If you break deals or refuse to pay loans who do you think will be intrested in doing buissness with you or lend you more money in the future ??

the aussies are concerned about this Jemaah terrorists in their backyard(mindanao and indonesia). if they are so concerned then if the fine print of the loans say no big guns on the PCG ships then they should modify the fine print so we can put big guns on the PCG ships.
the question that none of you guys have answered is this: does the fine print or contract of the loan really says or 100% says--no big guns, if so , what is the limit on the caliber of the big gun. is it .50 caliber? 20mm? 25mm ? 30mm? 76mm?
FYI, the aussies wont let philippine bananas in to protect their banana growers in northern australia whereas, philippines imports lots of milk and cowbeef from australia. if the fine print is ambigious about the size of the big gun, then this is a loophole that can be exploited.
FYI, when we make a loan from australia, we are doing the aussies a favor because the australian bank makes money from the interest of the loan.

Granting that the PCG acquired these SAR ships from Australia through a loan, would it be possible for the PN to negotiate a similar deal for the acquisition of other Aussie-made vessels like the Armidale Class Patrol Boats?

My understanding is, the Australian credit facility was itself premised on foreign grant aid / soft loans towards civil (noit military) assistance. This is really where local banking comes up short --the ability to creatively enlist from larger credit facilities to guarantee own local loans.

Still do-able though... avoid harnessing credit with all kinds of restrictive pendens on 'em, and eat the larger interest of general commercial loans. Problema sa karamihan ng shipbuilders here, gusto nila the RP governemnt takes out a loan to effectively pay the shipbuilders in cash ---whereas overseas shipbuilders do the borrowing on their own name to minimize minimize financial impact on the client.

Even Keppel is shortsighted that way --though I guess RP government has to prove its good on its deals a few more times for even local companies to trust it again.


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