V34 was the fifth Brazilian warship to be named after Admiral Francisco Manoel Barroso da Silva
Introduce
V34 Barroso is a corvette of the Brazilian Navy, and the lead ship of her class. So far this is still the first and only member in the Barroso-class, due to lack of funds this type was not built in series. In fact Barroso was developed as an extended and improved version of the Inhaúma class corvette.
V34 was the fifth Brazilian warship to be named after Admiral Francisco Manoel Barroso da Silva, the baron of Amazonas, that played a great role during the Battle of Riachuelo at the Paraguayan War.
The BNS Barroso, constructed by Rio de Janeiro Navy Shipyard, was designed to protect close and far coastal areas, acting together with other air or surface units, under multiple threats environment. Barroso was launched on December 20, 2002 and commissioned on August 19, 2008.
Design
The corvette is a ship of 103.5 m in length with a beam measuring 11.4m and the draft is 5.3m.
The Brazilian warship, in turn, displaces the standard at 1,785 tons and 2,350 tons when under full loads and autonomy to remain for 30 days on mission.
Barroso can complement a crew of 154 members, made up of 25 officers and 125 enlisted men.
The design is generally the same as “Inhaúma” class, but many improvements were incorporated such as increased length, improved capacity, helicopter capability, enhanced stealth and discretion, and a better seakeeping attributes. Weapons and sensors configuration were changed in comparison to the “Inhaúma” class.
Similar to other world corvettes, Barroso has a fairly conventional design with flush decked hull, the bow is raised to cut through choppy waters with a deck gun fitted just aft. The superstructure is aft of the deck gun and holds the bridge in a commanding position – identified by the horizontal set row of window panes.
Communications and sensor arrays dot the superstructure roof as does a funnel to extract byproducts of the included propulsion system. The stern of the vessel can land a medium-class helicopter such as the Westland Super Lynx Mk21A, which is equipped with a hangar for storage.
Propulsion
Barroso is powered by Combined Diesel or Gas propulsion system. The propulsion system integrates two MTU 1163 TB93 diesel engines providing a force of 7400 horsepower each and one General Electric LM2500 gas turbine developing 27,490 horsepower.
The propulsion system provides a top speed of more than 27 knots and a maximum range of 4,000 nautical miles at an average speed of 15 knots.
Armament
When it began, Barroso was envisioned to be a very modern ship, but although it is a new vessel, it does not have the latest technology in shipbuilding and weapon systems and sensors.
The main armament consists of a British 114 mm Vickers cannon in the gun turret on the bow. This weapon has a high rate-of-fire of about 25 rounds per minute with a range out to 22 km when using a new high-explosive 45lb single-piece shell projectile.
One 40 mm anti-aircraft Bofors Trinity Mk-3 gun for closer-range threats as needed. The main anti-ship weapon is four MBDA Exocet MM40 missiles with a range of 70 km.
Electronic systems
For surface ship detection, the Barroso makes use of the Terma SCANTER surface-search radar as well as the RAN-20S 2-D search radar – also used in tracking approaching aircraft and incoming wave-top missiles threats.
The Furuno FR-8252 navigation radar is used to navigate rocky shorelines. If threats are detected below or above the ship, the Orion RTX-30 fire-control radar and the Saab EOS-400 optronic fire-control system comes into play, directing the proper armament to destroy the threat.
For anti-submarine warfare duty, she fields an EDO 99 C hull-mounted sonar array. Anti-submarine armament are two triple 324mm anti-submarine torpedo tubes for the American light torpedo Mk-46.
Operations
On September 4, 2015 the corvette Barroso rescued 220 Syrian migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, as reported by the Ministry of Defense in a statement released on its website.
The Brazilian ship was sailing towards Beirut in Lebanon to replace the frigate União as the flagship of the Maritime Task Force of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon when it received an alert from the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre about a sinking vessel taking immigrants to Europe.
The Brazilian Navy currently plans to upgrade the Barroso corvette. The modernisation will significantly increase the ship’s capabilities and extend its service life, although the navy has not indicated how much additional time the service expects to get from the ship’s overhaul.
The modernisation is part of the offsets package being offered by Brazil to the consortium that wins the contract to build four Tamandaré-class corvettes for the navy. Four contractor teams are competing to build the multipurpose corvettes, with the winner to be announced soon.
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