 |  | The ceremony to hand over the ship to the navy Photo: Quan Doi Nhan Dan | Hong Ha Shipbuilding Company under the Ministry of Defense on Monday officially handed over the TT400TP, HQ 272 - Vietnam's first locally produced modern battleship - to the naval force. It is equipped with modern weaponries like AK 630 machine gun, surface-to-air missile system, radar and enemy recognition systems, ammunition… The ship will help strengthen the Vietnamese navy’s combative capacity, said Rear Admiral Pham Ngoc Minh, who is Vice Commander of the force. The ship will patrol Vietnam’s territorial waters and protect its islands and continental shelf, he added. Hong Ha company started building the ship in April 2009, using the state-of-the-art technology. Nguyen Van Cuong, director of factory Z173 (which built the ship) has told the media “This ship just costs us around US$1 million while a similar battleship on the global market costs up to US$10 million. So we save up to 90 percent". Hundreds of the best engineers in the factory had been trained abroad for three years to learn technologies needed to build the ship, Cuong added. The TT400TP was produced to undertake four missions: wipe out all enemy battleships, protect army bases of landing crafts, protect civilian vessels, and for patrolling purposes. The ship, which is 54.16m long and 9.16m wide, has a maximum speed of 32 nautical miles per hour. It is able to continuously operate offshore for 30 days and nights at sustained winds of force 9 and waves of force 8. The ship has an operating range of 2,500 miles. This will contribute to strengthening the naval force and mark a new step in Vietnam’s technology of warship building to contribute to the protection of national sovereignty, said Colonel Cao Hoa Binh, chairman of the Naval Technology Department. 
The interior inside the ship 
The artillery ship TT400TP test-firing (file photo)
The artillery ship TT400TP was unveiled on September 27 last year and delivered to the navy on January 16 
Local engineers and workers are working together to build the artillery ship TT400TP (file photo)
By TuoiTreNews |