KRI ''Pati Unus'' (384) is a ''Kapitan Patimura''-class corvette that used to be operated by the

Indonesian Navy The Indonesian Navy ( id, Tentara Nasional Indonesia Angkatan Laut, , Indonesian National Military-Naval Force, TNI-AL) is the naval branch of the Indonesian National Armed Forces. It was founded on 10 September 1945 and has a role to patrol I ...

. Before her service in Indonesia, ship was part of the

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

Volksmarine The ''Volksmarine'' (VM, ; en, People's Navy) was the naval force of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1956 to 1990. The ''Volksmarine'' was one of the service branches of the National People's Army and primarily performed a coastal d ...

, as ''Ludwigslust'' (232).

Specifications

The ''Parchim''-class corvette was developed for the

East German Navy The ''Volksmarine'' (VM, ; en, People's Navy) was the naval force of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1956 to 1990. The ''Volksmarine'' was one of the service branches of the National People's Army and primarily performed a coastal d ...

in the late 1970s, and built by the

Wolgast Wolgast (; csb, Wòłogòszcz) is a town in the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is situated on the bank of the river (or strait) Peenestrom, vis-a-vis the island of Usedom on the Baltic coast that can be ...

Peene-Werft Peene-Werft is a German shipyard with headquarter and shipbuilding facilities in Wolgast. It has been part of the Bremen Lürssen Group since May 2013. Background The shipyard was founded on 20 June 1948 by the Soviet military administration ...

. The ships were designed for coastal anti-submarine warfare. In case of an all-out

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...

war in Europe their prime targets would have been the small

U-206 German submarine ''U-206'' was a Type VIIC U-boat of the ''Kriegsmarine'' during World War II. The submarine was laid down on 17 June 1940 by the Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft yard at Kiel as yard number 635, launched on 4 April 1941 and commi ...

coastal submarine A coastal submarine or littoral submarine is a small, maneuverable submarine with shallow draft well suited to navigation of coastal channels and harbors. Although size is not precisely defined, coastal submarines are larger than midget submarine ...

s of the West German navy. The first ship, ''Wismar'' (now the Indonesian KRI ''Sutanto''), was launched on 9 April 1981 in

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, c ...

, and subsequently another 15 ships were built until 1986. To make production more economical, the Soviet Union agreed to purchase another 12 ships from Wolgaster Peenewerft built between 1986 and 1990, thereby effectively subsidising the East German shipbuilding industry. The ships of the Soviet Navy were named Parchim II by NATO. Though useful as a coastal ASW platform, the Soviet production of the similar but far more powerful made this purchase even more illogical for the Soviet Navy. After German re-unification the former East German ships were sold to the TNI-AL (

) in 1993. The Indonesian Navy extensively refurbished their Parchims, to the point where the refurbishing exceeded the cost of purchase. They are still in service, both in the Indonesian Navy and in the Russian

Baltic Fleet , image = Great emblem of the Baltic fleet.svg , image_size = 150 , caption = Baltic Fleet Great ensign , dates = 18 May 1703 – present , country = , allegiance = (1703–1721) (1721–1917) (1917–1922) (1922–1991)(1991–present) ...

. Indonesian Parchims have completed a major refit to fulfill Indonesian Navy needs. The one twin 57 mm gun AK-725 and one twin 30 mm gun AK-230 were retained except for KRI ''Sultan Thaha Syaifuddin'' where the 30mm AK-230 replaced by Chinese made

Type 730 CIWS The Type 730 is a Chinese seven-barrelled 30 mm Gatling gun/Rotary cannon CIWS. It has a PLA Navy designation H/PJ12. It is mounted in an enclosed automatic turret and directed by radar, and electro-optical tracking systems. The maximum rat ...

. The

RBU-6000 The RBU-6000 Smerch-2 (Реактивно-Бомбовая Установка, ''Reaktivno-Bombovaja Ustanovka''; reaction engine-bomb installation & Смерч; waterspout) is a 213 mm caliber Soviet Union, Soviet anti-submarine weapon, a ...

also retained as a major armament. Two

SA-N-5 The 9K32 Strela-2 (russian: Cтрела, "arrow"; NATO reporting name SA-7 Grail) is a light-weight, shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missile (or MANPADS) system. It is designed to target aircraft at low altitudes with passive infrared homing ...

SAM removed and replaced by two Vektor G12 20mm gun. Four 400mm Russian-made torpedo launcher was out of service because there is no Russian made torpedo in Indonesian Navy inventory so this Russian made torpedo launcher replaced by two western made triple torpedo launcher but only for two ships.

Service history

''Ludwigslust'' was built by

was launched on 1 October 1981. She was commissioned on 4 July 1983. Following the end of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

and the

reunification of Germany German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

, ''Ludwigslust'' was sold to the Indonesian Navy in 1995, alongside 15 other ''Kapitan Patimura''-class corvettes and 23 other vessels in a US$12.7 million deal. She was renamed ''Pati Unus'' and was commissioned on 21 July 1995, following modifications. On the 13 May 2016, the ship was partially sunk after her port side struck a shipwreck in shallow waters off

Belawan Belawan ( zh, t=勿老灣, s=, poj=mài lau ôan) is a harbor in Medan, North Sumatra. Located on the northeast coast of Sumatra, Belawan is Indonesia's busiest seaport outside of Java. It constitutes the most northerly of the city of Medan's 21 ...

North Sumatra North Sumatra ( id, Sumatra Utara) is a province of Indonesia located on the northern part of the island of Sumatra. Its capital and largest city is Medan. North Sumatra is Indonesia's fourth most populous province after West Java, East Java and ...

Malacca Strait The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, conne ...

. She was decommissioned on 19 April 2017.

Gallery

File:Pati Yunus.JPG, KRI ''Pati Unus'' on 20 October 2013

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pati Unus 1981 ships Ships built in East Germany Parchim-class corvettes of the Indonesian Navy Ships built in Wolgast Maritime incidents in 2016