Smârdan-class river monitor


The Smârdan-class river monitor is a class of riverine armored patrol boats in service with the Romanian Naval Forces. Five ships of this class are currently in service with the Romanian Navy. They are assigned to Section II, 67th Artillery Carrying Ships Division "Commander Virgil Alexandru Dragalina" of the Romanian Danube Flotilla based in Brăila.

Specifications

The ships were built at the Mangalia shipyard following testing done on the Grivița-class. The ships have a displacement of with a hull length of, beam of and draught of. The ships are crewed by 44 seamen and have a range of with a 5-day autonomy. Armament consists of one 100mm A430 gun, two 122mm APRN multiple rocket launchers with 40 rockets each, one twin 30mm gun, two MR-4N 14.5mm machine guns and two TAB-77 turrets. For anti-aircraft defense, the ships carry locally produced Strela 2M MANPADS.
After the modernization carried out at the Brăila shipyard between 2018 and 2019, the old engines were replaced with three Doosan 4V222TIL diesel engines and two Volvo Penta diesel generators were also mounted, increasing the maximum speed of the Smârdan from to. Other upgrades included modern laser rangefinders, thermal imaging systems, sonars and Koden navigation radars.

Ships

Rahova. Commissioned 14 April 1988Opanez. Commissioned 24 July 1990Smârdan. Commissioned 24 July 1990Posada. Commissioned 14 May 1992Rovine. Commissioned 30 July 1993

Service

In 2018, Rovine participated in the Riverine-2018 joint Ukrainian-Romanian exercises on the Danube. While returning to base after exercise Danube Protector in 2019, Smârdan aided the barge pusher SIDEX 2 in extinguishing an onboard fire which had broken out while towing six barges near Gropeni.