Landlocked navies

but many years ago the Navy is almost non-existent.

not true. They inherited a large number of the Soviet Caspian Flotilla.

I think the Kazakhstan Navy is recieving aid from the US and South Korea in the form of patrol boats, but many years ago the Navy is almost non-existent.

What about Kazakstan. They are conected to the Caspian Sea which is not a minor lake.

6 months later…

Sorry for vanishing from the face of the earth… actually being kinda busy with all sorts of different stuff, however, my research continues steadly and has yielded a fine result:

“The most complete website about the Bolivian Navy”, (of which I’m certainly proud of)

English version is in the works, but the whole thing is navigation-friendly and you can use a translation service anyhow.

The address is:
http://fab-extraoficial.webcindario.com/FNB/FNBindex.htm

About the Hospital vessels, no, no x-rays available, what you have is 45 beds, 5-10 docs depending on the mission, basic dental, vaccination and treatment for tropical diseases.

Jonathan: I’m really interested in those hospital ships mate, thanks for the pics, now can you tell me what facilities thew have aboard them? Can I expect a surgery and recovery ward? X-ray machines don’t look like they’d be on board. What level of support can they offer?

Also who ever posted those pics on the net might want to fix a problem I noticed in the Hospital ship pic. When you open it up, you clearly see the name on the boat but they have listed it the other boat in the top left hand corner!

Her banner states AH 02 yet she is known as BH 02, wht’s the AH stand for?

The austrian also have some very nice boats.

Remember the captain in “The Sound of Music?” 😀 😀 😀

Wow, next time I got to check my spelling before posting… anyhow, here are some pictures from my site.

Regarding the hospital ships (Barco Hospital) there are two in service: the BH -01 “Almte. Javier Pinto Telleria” is Bolivian made and operates in the eastern region of the country. The second and older vessel, the BH-02 “Julian Apaza” was donated by the US coast guard and is based in lake Titicaca.

To answer your second point, we surely can’t afford a war (I doubt ANY country can really “afford” a war – it’s not something you seek) nor plan aggression towards any neighbour. In the case of Chile, diplomacy is the only possible answer, globalization and economic necessity will eventually create a solution – a useful and sovereign port not necessarely connected to Bolivia. We only aske for that restitution,surely, when that they comes we’ll have qualfied personnel available.

Now the photos:

Hospital Ship BH-01, some marines with equipment, “Piranha” fast attack craft, PR-51 riverine patrol craft (this one was bought from the US coast guard in the late 70’s), facilities in Puerto Aguirre (border with Brazil).

Enjoy!
Jonathan

Some interesting stuff there mate, thanks for sharing. Can’t wait to see the pics, especially the hospital ship.

So tell me, considering that Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in the world today, how do they plan on taking back their land from the Chilians? They can’t afford a war can they? And Chile doesn’t look like it’s going to give back any land it took in wars over a century ago.

This thread seems dead, but if there’s still interest: check out the official site of the Bolivian navy: www.armada.mil.bo or the unofficial site at
http://fab-extraoficial.webcindario.com (contains info on all branches of the armed forces not just the navy).

Other than that lets point out:

1.- the reason for the existence of a Bolivian navy is quite different to what you would expect as reasoning behind say, the Paraguayan navy. For starters, Bolivia DID have a sea-coast, patrolling and defending it were a few warships. This changed in 1879 qhen the Chileans invaded Peru and Bolivia, we lost, and lost… and lost the seacoast. The Navy still exists, part as a cultural thing and keeping the hope of returning to the sea alive and sencond for ractical reasons.

2.- Which are…. more than 60 percent of the Bolivian territoy is amazonic, check out a hydrographic map and you’ll see thre vast river systems within the country, lots of places that live off riverine activities (gold prospecting for instance) and not many roads to connect them to the main urban centers. Enter the navy and the air force, they provide contact to these areas and serve a purpouse that way.

3.- Drug interdiction.. the Marines are indeed a task force (called Blue Devils) specializing in riverine warfare and related special ops.

4.- Lake Titicaca, sure, that’s the first thing most folks think when refering to the navy, why not. The largest lake in S.Am., shared by two nations, highest navigation-able lake in the world. It serves a purpose there too, plus we have the diving school there, doing some good work in altitude diving research, and aiding your ocasional archeological expedition.

5.- The fleet: some 60 to 80 decent-sized ships and boats (from a 6 meter Piranha fast attack boat to a 32 meter hospital ship). some special purspouse stuff include a number of transports serving the Paraguay-Parana system. At one time (up till the 80s) the navy had also three trans-oceanic transport vessels stationed in the Rosario port in Argentina. There’s also a few aircraft in service.

All right for now, if there’s some good responses I’ll post some pictures.

later

Jonathan

Here are some Serbian river fleet ships and equipment

Can Can Can; Mate you may now enter the annals of legendarihood, welcome aboard mate, good work!

Mate if anyone does find any they’d be legends, anyone caught taking pics of military stuff in that country are shot on sight, they don’t even pretend to ask questions.

A Laotian Riverine unit in one of their bases.

This is all I could find, very poor format but at least I find something on Laos. 🙂

Thanks for the info, Wanshan.

Lao People’s Navy

In 1975 the Lao People’s Navy (LPN) was established with the remnants of the Royal Lao Navy. Composed of approximately twenty United States-made river patrol boats and sixteen amphibious landing craft, the navy in mid-1994 had a personnel strength of around 500. As with the air force, Vietnamese advisers helped organize the LPN and trained Laotian cadre in river operations and boat maintenance. The force is responsible for maintaining the security of inland waterways, which includes controlling the movement of resistance forces from their sanctuaries in Thailand, across the Mekong River. In the early 1980s, the navy received six used Soviet Shmel patrol boats and at least twelve more river patrol boats, bringing its total inventory to around thirtyone patrol boats. By mid-1994, the navy had a total of fewer than fifty river patrol boats and continued to provide a marginal level of security for inland waterways.

MACEDONIAN ARMY LAKE PATROL

OHRID LAKE MACEDONIA,2004

That’s because the Ukraine hasn’t got a shore on the Caspian Sea 🙂 It’s some 300km from the Caspian to the Ukrainian border (closest would be the Mariupol-Taganrog border crossing).

Whoops wrong bit of water! Sorry. I was thinking of the Black Sea with regards to the Ukraine. 😮

Large commercial types perhaps, but not military as far as I recall. I think all ex-USSR states that border the Caspian, bar the Ukraine, operate small patrol forces.

That’s because the Ukraine hasn’t got a shore on the Caspian Sea 🙂 It’s some 300km from the Caspian to the Ukrainian border (closest would be the Mariupol-Taganrog border crossing).

That Swaziland vessel turned up in Chile, apparently one of the leaders of the country had swindled hoards of money and took off, since there is no extradition laws over there he got away. The vessel was scuttled and that ended that chapter.

As for the Rhodesian and South Africans sinking the entire Zambian naval force, that has to go down as a legendary move, I know that it’s a chapter learnt by the Clearence Divers here in Australia as well as by the Navy Seals of the US.

Interesting thread 🙂

Swaziland had a weird one. They had an ocean going yacht which they kept in South Africa. This later became subject to an enquiry after it disappeared??

The South African Marines operated the “Vredenburger” along the mighty Zambezi River, during the Angolan war. She was armed with a 12.7mm machine gun on the bow and normally two 7.62mm machine guns at the stern.

The Rhodesian Police took on the task of patrolling Kariba with various patrol boats. Some armed with heavy machine guns and one could even carry a Land Rover. The Zambian Navy patrolled the opposite side with heavily armed 30m aluminium hulled strike-craft. That is until 1978, when the Rhodesian and South African special forces sank their entire navy!?

Quite a number of land locked countries that border the Caspian Sea have large ships operating there. i.e Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, etc

Large commercial types perhaps, but not military as far as I recall. I think all ex-USSR states that border the Caspian, bar the Ukraine, operate small patrol forces.