Project OPV90 patrol ship, on the basis of which Bulgarian corvettes will be built
The Bulgarian Navy will soon be replenished with two new multi-purpose patrol ships of the MMVP type. The laying of the first ship took place in Varna, at the MTG Dolphin shipyard.
The project of multi-purpose patrol ships was developed on the basis of the OPV90 project. The project is being implemented by the German company NVL Group, formerly called Lürssen Defense. As part of the contract concluded last year, the Germans undertake to build two ships by the middle of 2025 of the year (head) and to the middle 2026 (the first serial and also the last).
highlights, that the construction of these ships will cost Bulgaria 420 million. euro, which is quite an impressive amount for the country. The contract has already been called the largest for the Bulgarian fleet.
Details about the project are not disclosed, however if it is based on OPV90 base, then you can roughly imagine the armament of the new corvettes. Presumably the ships will receive one gun mount caliber 57 or 76 mm, two automatic artillery systems of 20 mm caliber, vertical launcher for anti-aircraft missiles and anti-ship missiles. Perhaps it will be MM40 “Exocet”, RBS-15 or NSM. The length of the ships will be 90 m, displacement 2300 tonnes, this is stated officially. There is also information about the possible installation of a new BIUS from the Swedish company SAAB on ships.
note, that for the first time they started talking about the construction of patrol ships for the Bulgarian Navy back in 2017 year, although the decision was made a year earlier. Bulgarian enterprise MTG Dolphin (“Dolphin”) became known after the construction of warships for Equatorial Guinea according to the Ukrainian project, developed in Nikolaevsky “Shipbuilding Research and Design Center”.
