The Nicaraguan Navy, officially the Naval Force of the Nicaraguan Army, ( es, Fuerza Naval del Ejercito de Nicaragua) is the naval service branch of the
Nicaraguan Armed Forces. The navy's mission is to ensure the defense and security of the islands, territorial waters and exclusive economic zone of Nicaragua in the Pacific Ocean and
Caribbean Sea.
Founded on August 13, 1980 as the Sandinista Navy, it consisted of a few old
patrol boats in the early 1980s. The Sandinistas acquired eight
Soviet Yevgenya class minesweeper
The Yevgenya class, Soviet designation Project 1258 ''Korund'', are a series of minesweepers built for the Soviet Navy and export customers between 1967 and 1980.
Design
The Yevgenya class were small minesweepers built for inshore work. The hu ...
s, of which seven remained in 1993. Three Soviet Zhuk-class patrol boats were believed to be seaworthy, out of seven that remained at the end of 1990. Also believed to be operational are three
North Korean fast patrol boats as well as two
Vedette-type boats built in France and armed with Soviet 14.5mm machine guns.
The primary mission was to discourage seaborne
Contra attacks and to deter
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
-run operations such as the destruction of diesel storage facilities at
Corinto in 1983 and the mining of
Nicaraguan harbors in 1984. The
Sandinista navy ('—MGS), which had reached a peak strength of 3,000 personnel in 1990, suffered a sweeping reduction to 800 by 1993.
The commander of the navy was a
Sandinista Popular Army ('—EPS) officer with the rank of major. The principal bases of the MGS are at the ports of Corinto on the Pacific and
Puerto Cabezas on the Caribbean. Other installations are at
El Bluff
Bluff is a port city on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua within the bay of Bluefields. Bluff handles limited cargo and has basic piers. It is also a base for the sea-going fishing vessels on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast.
The island that it sits on ...
near
Bluefields and
San Juan del Sur on the Pacific.
Nicaragua ordered two additional patrol vessels based on the
Damen Stan 4207 design in 2017.
[ The vessels were commissioned as ''Soberanía'' I (409) and ''Soberanía'' II (411) in August 2019. Unlike many other nations vessels, which are designed solely for coast guard or environmental monitoring, these two have added a military sensor suite and a deck gun. Militarizing the vessels boosted their cost from $20 million USD to $65 million USD. The vessels are used, had previously been employed by Jamaica - HMJS ''Cornwall'' and HMJS ''Surrey''.][
]
Fleet
* Damen Stan 4207 patrol vessel
The Dutch shipbuilding firm The Damen Group, designs and manufactures a range of patrol vessels, of various sizes, including the Damen Stan 4207 Patrol Vessels. The Damen Stan patrol vessel designs' names include a four digit code, where the firs ...
- 2 (2 in service extra 2019)
* Zhuk
Zhuk (Cyrillic: Жук), Žuk, or Żuk (Polish), means ''beetle'' in Slavic languages. It may refer to:
*Zhuk (surname)
*Zhuk class patrol boat, Soviet and Russian patrol boat manufactured from 1970 to 1996
*Zhuk radar, family of Russian airborne ...
class PCs - 3, 1 in service GC301 "Río Segovia"
* Dabur class PCs - 10 status unknown 3 in service GC201 "Río Grande Matagalpa"; GC202 "Cacique Tenderí"
GC205 "Río Escondido"
* Sin Hung-class torpedo boat
* Vedette - class PCs - 2
* PCs - status unknown
* 4 Rodman
References
Military of Nicaragua
Navies by country
{{Nicaragua-stub