Endurance-class frigate
 An Endurance-class frigate of the Daoan Navy
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| Class overview | |
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| Builders: | Bao Marine |
| Operators: |
 Daoan Navy |
| Preceded by: | Independence-class frigate |
| Cost: | $385 million per ship |
| Built: | 2017 - Present |
| In commission: | 2020 - Present |
| Planned: | 3 |
| Building: | 1 |
| Completed: | 2 |
| Active: | 2 Daoan Navy |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Multi-Mission Frigate |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 140 m (459 ft 4 in) |
| Beam: | 20 m (65 ft 7 in) |
| Draught: | 5 m (16 ft 5 in) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | In excess of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) |
| Range: | 6,800 nmi (13,000 km; 8,000 mi) |
| Endurance: | 30 days at sea |
| Boats & landing craft carried: |
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| Complement: |
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| Sensors and processing systems: |
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| Electronic warfare & decoys: |
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| Armament: |
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| Aircraft carried: |
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| Aviation facilities: | Helicopter deck & hangar. |
The Endurance-class (Daoan: Sức chịu đựng) multi-mission frigates is a class of frigates in service within the Daoan Congressional Republic Navy designed, developed & constructed by Bao Marine and its subsidiaries. The Endurance-class is a development of the earlier Independence-class frigates, a lighter guided-missile frigate weapons platform. Aside from the standard anti-aircraft, anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare roles, of which the Independence-class were built for, Endurance-class frigates are able to fulfill a wider variety of mission profiles ranging from amphibious warfare and numerous other military operations other than war such as search and rescue, distribution of humanitarian aid, anti-piracy, counterterrorism and many more. The Endurance-class's versatility is largely owed to its enlarged capacity with it being 20 meters longer and 5 meters wider than the Independence-class. The extra space onboard the Endurance is capable of accomodating a large troop complement, up to 150 marines or a company's worth alongside a large cargo bay where variety vehicles such as motorized, armored fighting vehicles and landing crafts can be stored and deployed when required. Ships of the class have a small ramp with suport systems that act as a small well deck where its fleet of smaller landing or assault crafts can egress and ingress with ease. Vessels of the class are able to accomodate up to two medium helicopters and three unmanned aerial vehicles in its helicopter deck & hangar facilities. The type of vehicles or smaller craft that the Endurance carries can be easily changed to suit an Endurance's specific mission profile. The Endurance-class's role as a troop transport without sacrificing its firepower was purpose built for the Daoan navy where it requires more and more multi-mission vessels as to compared to larger and heavily specialized or dedicated vessels such as destroyers and helicopter carriers. The Daoan navy has ordered three Endurance's to replace one of its ageing Dammay-class landing platform docks with the first ship, the TCD <INSERTNAME> commissioned in 2020.
Development
Design
General Characteristics
Armament
Sensors & Processing Systems
The key component of the TBD’s sensor & processing system is the Protector Combat System (PCS), an integrated naval weapons system developed & produced by Mach Aerospace. The sensory & processing component of the PCS is composed of multiple sensors & processing systems working together to identify, track and neutralize threats towards the ship & fleet under its protection. The RAS35 AESA Block 1 S-band volume search multipurpose radar is a significantly improved version of the older RAS30 used on the Independence-class frigate. The RAS35 is comprised of four faced, non-rotating, active phased array panels that utilize AESA technology, designed to simultaneously provide air & surface surveillance, helicopter control and weapon control functions. In this sense it integrates the functions of surveillance and fire control radars into one system. The RAS35's four faces provide unrestricted coverage of the ship's area of operation and its sytem architecture allows simultaneous functionality at high update rates regardless of environmental conditions. It has a large search volume with high elevation coverage, detection of small targets such as sea-skimming missiles, fast attack crafts and unmanned aerial vehicles, rapid automation track initiation and theoretically a low false alarm rate. Like its predecessor, the RAS35 is capable of providing mid-course correction to airborne missiles. It has an instrumented detection range of up to 500 km for air, 100 km for surface targets, and is capable of tracking up to 650 surface and 900 air targets. The RAS35 installed on the Endurance-class would later be classified as the Block 1 sub-class when the TBD-destroyer class was developed and an improved version of the RAS35, the Block 2, was utilized for it. Endurance-classes are equipped with the LS-9 secondary surveillance radar (SSR) as a backup radar system. For anti-submarine warfare Independence-class frigates are equipped with hull-mounted SNR-360 active/passive sonar array developed by Bao Marine.