F2000S Mod. Stealth Frigate
Builder : DCN France
Operator : Royal Saudi Navy
Ordered Winter 1987 | Laid down Spring 1990 | Commissioned Fall 1993
Designed based on the lessons of the Iran-Iraq tanker wars, the F2000S Mod was the result of an urgent operational requirement from the Royal Saudi Navy to equip its Eastern fleet with light frigates, following the USS Stark attack in May 1987. At the time, DCN was working on preliminary design of a revolutionary stealth frigate for the French Navy, with much improved survivability to serve as a chokepoint escort in high threat areas such as the Persian Gulf - this would become the La Fayette class.
The Saudi Navy immediately expressed great interest in buying its own stealth frigate. However, due to the urgency of its requirement and the fact that the French Navy's design was still being finalized, DCN decided to offer a derivative of its export-oriented F2000S (already in RSN service as the Al Madinah class), with significantly reshaped stealth superstructures and sloped hull sides. Sharing the same hydrodynamic lines, propulsion and internal arrangements as the F2000S, the new stealth frigate's design could be significantly accelerated, while leveraging many of the radar signature reduction techniques adopted for the larger French design. In keeping with its export focus, some of the more advanced innovations being considered for the French frigate were not implemented (e.g. composite deckhouse, infrared & acoustic signature reduction, improved internal layout to reduce vulnerability to missile hits).
The result was a light frigate that looked radically different on the outside to the Al Madinah class - or for that matter, to any frigate anywhere in the world. Yet to the trained eye, many of the Al Madinah's distinguishing characteristics remained, including compact dimensions, excellent range, all-diesel propulsion, and a well balanced weapons and sensor fit (including, unusually for a platform of this size, variable depth sonar). As the French might say, old wine in a new bottle...
General characteristics
Displacement: 3,000 tonnes
Length: 108m wl, 117m oa
Beam: 12.8m wl, 14.2m oa
Draft: 3.8 m (4.65m to sonar dome)
Complement: 150
Propulsion
4 × 16V PA6 V280 STC SEMT-Pielstick diesel engines, 20.7MW / 27,800hp (CODAD)
Speed: 29 knots
Range: 8,000 nautical miles at 15 knots
Sensors and processing systems
1 x DRBV-15C Sea Tiger air/surface search radar
2 x Castor-IIJ fire control radar (1 installed on Crotale launcher)
1 x optical director
1 x TSM 2630 Diodon Hull mounted medium frequency sonar
1 x TSM 2630 Sorel variable depth sonar
1 x Thomson CSF Janet ESM/ECM Suite
2 x Dagaie decoy launchers
TAVITAC 2000 combat system
Armament
1 x 100mm Creusot Loire gun
1 x Thomson CSF Crotale NG SR SAM system (24x VT1 missiles)
8 x Aerospatiale Exocet MM40 SSMs
4 x 533 mm F17P heavyweight torpedoes
1 x 2 40mm Breda Twin Fast Forty gun (located asymmetrically at the starboard corner of the hangar to improve firing arcs astern)
2 x 20 mm guns
Aircraft Carried
1 x SA-365F Dauphin helicopter (ASW/ASuW version)
EDIT: Not for submission but just to help illustrate the comparison, here is the F2000S Mod vs the original Al Madinah:
![[ img ]](https://i.postimg.cc/qqQHKrTQ/F2000-Stealth-Frigate-vs-Al-Madinah-v4.png)