The ''Al Madinah'' class are a series of four frigates built for the

Royal Saudi Navy The Royal Saudi Navy ( ar, البَحْريَّة الْمَلكيَّة السُّعُودِيَّة, Al-Quwwat al-Bahriyah al-Arabiyah as-Su'udiyah) or Royal Saudi Naval Forces ( ar, القُوَّات البَحْريَّة الْمَلك� ...

. The ships are named after Saudi cities. The first, ''Al Madinah'' was commissioned in 1985, and the fourth, ''Taif'' was commissioned in 1986. The four ''Al Madinah''-class frigates are based in the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

Description

The frigates were ordered in October 1980 as part of the "Sawari" programme. The ''Al Madinah'' class was built in France at the Arsenal de Marine, Lorient (French Government Dockyard and CNIM, La Seyne in the mid-1980s. Their full load

displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and Physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

is 2,610 tons and they are armed with eight

Otomat The Otomat is an anti-ship and coastal defence missile developed by the Italian company Oto Melara jointly with Matra and now made by MBDA. The name comes, for the first versions, from the name of the two builders ("Oto Melara" and "Matra") and ...

surface-to-surface missile A surface-to-surface missile (SSM) or ground-to-ground missile (GGM) is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea and strike targets on land or at sea. They may be fired from hand-held or vehicle mounted devices, from fixed ins ...

s, one 8-cell Crotale

surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...

launcher, with 26 missiles total. The vessels are also armed with one 100 mm/55 dual purpose gun, two 40 mm anti-aircraft guns, four

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed abo ...

s. The frigates have an aft

helicopter deck A helicopter deck (or helo deck) is a helicopter pad on the deck of a ship, usually located on the stern and always clear of obstacles that would prove hazardous to a helicopter landing. In the United States Navy, it is commonly and properly ...

and

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

for use by one Dauphin helicopter.

Ships in class

Service history

In August 2013, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the French ODAS agency signed a contract to upgrade and modernize the ''Al Madinah''-class frigates. On 30 January 2017, ''Al Madinah'' was attacked by Yemeni Houthi militia along the western coast of Yemen in the Red Sea. Two Saudi sailors were killed and three injured in the attack.

Description

Ships in class

Service history

Citations

Further reading